Articulation: little marks above notes

This is a theory post for the YRCC about articulation.
Articulation is, like, pronouncing things clearly, right?

In speech, articulation refers the act of giving voice to your thoughts, or to clear enunciation.

In music, it's about giving a note a special effect and those special effects are marked with articulation marks which are often called accents.

My favourite one is the fermata. I call it the mark of power. It looks a bit like an eye. When you see a fermata, think "watch Renate". It kind of rhymes.
The Fermata indicates that the note can be held indefinitely, and I get to decide how long. It's the last one in the example below.

Now let's look at the rest, starting with the first one.
1. The dot is a Staccato mark. The note is shortened to detach it from the next note.
2. The line is a Tenuto mark. The note has its full value.
3. The sideways arrow is an Accent mark. The note is louder and attacked, or accented. Bah!
4. The arrow that points up is the Mercato. The note much louder and very strongly attacked so that it ends up staccato too. Bam!

There are a few more, including the Breath mark ' that we talked about last time, which really shouldn't affect the note much at all, and the Caesura which is called a cut-off to describe what it does or railroad tracks to describe how it looks. The Caesura doesn't go above a note, but after it. Like the fermata, it indicates something that the conductor has power over. When you see the railroad tracks //, stop and watch. I get to decide when we start again.

Examples:

Look at Carol of the Bells.
Above bar 9, where Mary Ellen starts to sing, it says pp (pianissimo), so it's supposed to be very quiet and detached throughout.

Above the first note there's the tenuto mark and above the next 3, you see staccato marks. We have to pay attention to the fact that the whole thing is detached but make the first note longer than the other 3 notes.

The pattern continues, and then at bar 13 it says pp sempre cres. which means keep getting louder.

Then at bar 14 it says simile. That means they're not going to mark everything, just keep going the same way (long, short, short, short and louder and louder). So, the whole song has that long-short-short-short feel, but we just have to remember it.

Look at all the fermatas at the end! I practically control every note! Wow! That's power. But, with power comes responsibility. I have to figure out not only how I want that to sound, but I also have to figure out how to let everyone know when to sing and play all those notes that come after the fermatas (yup, even Sapphire's piano part is marked with fermatas).

For examples of accents and mercatos, look at Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves. Tons.

For examples of breath marks, look at Let There Be Peace on Earth. Tons.

For an example of a caesura, look at the bottom of page 30 of Mamma Mia. We don't actually observe that cut-off, because we have experienced the audience clapping there, so we make sure they understand we're not done by going straight to bar 228. The combination of fermata and cut-off there makes it clear to me that I can do whatever I want, whatever I think is best.

And-a-one, and-a-two: Counting and swing

Ok, if you're old enough, you might remember Lawrence Welk counting in his orchestra with his trademark "An'-a one, an'- a two" (which was actually often "one an' two an'").

Lots of the music he performed was dance music, and quite a bit of it was swing. When music "swings" the beats are not as even as usual.

Let's look at regular "straight" time first.

Most of our music is in 4/4 time. So, there can be four quarter notes in a bar, and we count 1  2  3  4.
If we have all eighth notes, then it's 1+2+3+4+.
Sixteenths: 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a.
It all divides up evenly so that each bar takes the same amount of time and beat 1 is always in the same place. So, I can conduct all of those buy simply giving you the four quarter note beats.

3/4 time sounds different. Let There Be Peace on Earth is in 3/4.
It sounds like a waltz. 1 2 3 1 2 3.
We also have 1+2+3+,
and 1e+a2e+a3e+a.
It's more dance-like but still straight. Our new song, In Our Town in December also has that waltzy feel.

Sometimes you get a bit of that 123 feel in a song, like in Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves.
We sing "Sing the so-o-ng o-f my own na-a-tive land" with triplets.
Triplets are written joined together with a number 3 above them (sometimes there's a bar above or a curved line above). 3 notes take the time for 2.
The counting for that phrase is: 4 a 1+a 2+a 3  4+a1.

Here, we're saying 1+a2+a, but it doesn't sound like Lawrence Welk. What's up with that?

Sometimes people will say that swing is like triplets, but it's not. We can try to write it in straight notation, but  it doesn't quite capture it.

Look at Hymn to Freedom. It's in 4/4 but at the top, it says 'Gospel Style' and then you see this:

It's not exactly like that- that would be bouncier than a swing or gospel swing. The idea is to make you aware that the music moves differently. Swing has a cool, jazzy feel.  When you see that Oscar Peterson wrote Hymn to Freedom, you can start to imagine how he'd play it. The counting is the same as for eighths so you say 1+2+3+4+, but it swings :) That's not easy to describe. You need to feel it. And to feel the sixteenths, you add the a. 1+a2+a --Like Lawrence Welk

Blue Skies swings. When we sing it, we don't even think about it. It's jazzy and we swing it. Don't worry about it too much.

For more on counting, go to my previous blog post on counting. And this cool video post.

Music Terms for April

I stole these from this site-click here.

Glossary of music terms

Accent: An unusual manner of pronunciation, e.g. "Y'all sang that real good!"
Accidentals: Wrong notes
Allegro: Leg fertilizer.
Bar Line: A gathering of people, usually among which may be found a musician or two.
Beat: What music students to do each other with their musical instruments. The down beat is performed on the top of the head, while the up beat is struck under the chin.
Bravo: Literally, "How bold!" or "What nerve!" This is a spontaneous expression of appreciation on the part of the concertgoer after a particularly trying performance.
Cadence: When everybody hopes you're going to stop, but you don't.
Chord: Usually spelled with an "s" on the end, means a particular type of pants, e.g. "He wears chords."
Chromatic Scale: An instrument for weighing that indicates half-pounds.
Coloratura Soprano: A singer who has great trouble finding the proper note, but who has a wild time hunting for it.
Conductor: A musician who is adept at following many people at the same time.
Countertenor: A singing waiter.
Crescendo: A reminder to the performer that he has been playing too loudly.
Da capo al fine: I like your hat!
Espressivo: Close eyes and play with a wide vibrato.
Fermata: A brand of girdle made especially for opera singers.
Fine: That was great!
Gregorian chant: A way of singing in unison, invented by monks to hide snoring.
Harmonic Minor: A good music student.
Harmony: A corn-like food eaten by people with accents (see above for definition of accent).
Heroic Tenor: A singer who gets by on sheer nerve and tight clothing.
Interval: How long it takes you to find the right note. There are three kinds: Major Interval: a long time; Minor Interval: a few bars; Inverted Interval: when you have to back one bar and try again.
Messiah: An oratorio by Handel performed every Christmas by choirs that believe they are good enough, in cooperation with musicians who need the money.
Modulation: "Nothing is bad in modulation."
Opus: A penguin in Kansas.
Pause: A short period in an individual voice in which there should be relative quiet. Useful when turning to the next page in the score, breathing, emptying the horn of salvia, coughing, etc. Is rarely heard in baroque music. Today, the minimum requirements for pauses in individual pieces are those of the Musicians' Union (usually one per bar, or 15 minutes per hour).
Supertonic: Schweppes.
Tempo: This is where a headache begins.
Vibrato: Used by singers to hide the fact that they are on the wrong pitch.
Virtuoso: A musician with very high morals

Which ones are your favourites?

Reading music: weekly lessons started. How many beats?

Here's a chart of note values to help you remember what we learned in Heather's music reading lesson before choir this week.

 Remember that the value of a note depends on the time signature: 

4/4 means there are 4 quarter notes in a bar. This is called Common Time, used for marches in particular, and common for most music. So, a whole note gets 4 beats. 
We  count 123412341234...


2/2 means there are 2 half notes in a bar. You're thinking that in 4/4 we can have 2 half notes in a bar. Right. But,  2/2 is faster. A half note gets 1 beat.  We count 121212121212...


3/4 means 3 quarter notes. This is used to give a dancing feel. So, a whole note gets 3 beats.
 We count 123123123...


2/4 means there are 2 quarter notes in a bar. And, it ends up sounding like cut time
We count 1212121212...


6/8 means 6 eighth notes (Lots of music is 6/8). A whole note gets 6 beats. 
We count 123456123456123456... 
Or, we can count 121212... 
Or, sometimes, 123123123123...
We can divide the bars in half depending on the tempo. 


Each note has a corresponding rest. Here's a chart of rest values.




Heather also taught us about dotted notes and then we had several examples in our music. Remember that a dot makes the note longer by 50%. (A second dot, which not very common, adds half of that, so another 25%.) Here's a chart to help you with dotted notes.




Often, the use of dotted notes gives a swingy feel to the music, bum ba-dum. 


There's a lot of stuff about music theory on the Internet. Much of it is for learning to play piano. I found this article on About.com clear and thorough. I like Brandy Kraemer's charts. 
http://piano.about.com/od/musicaltermssymbols/ss/introSheetMusic_5.htm

I'm looking forward to hearing more of Heather's music lessons. Can't wait to see what she teaches us next week. I'll follow up with a review here after each lesson. 


Yours in harmony,
Renate