Lesson Four

Pitch

Pitch refers to the highness or lowness of a sound. We hear sounds around us all the time. Sounds made by the elements of nature, by animals, by machines, and by other human beings.

1. Make a list of high sounds that you hear in your daily life.2. Make a list of low sounds that you hear everyday.3. Do you ever hear sounds that start low and then get higher? Name some.4. Do you ever hear sounds that start high and then become low? Name some.

Identifying High and Low Pitches1. Listen to this song on the teaching video.2. Notice the way that my hands indicate high and low as I sing these pitches in the song.

“I can sing high. I can sing low.I can sing in between.

Sometime high; sometimes low –Guess what I am now”.

3. Can you figure out where the high and low sounds are at the end? Show your answer by putting your hands in the correct position.

Reading High and Low Pitches

1. Hold your hand in front of you so you are looking at your palm and your thumb is point upwards.

2. This is called your hand staff.

3. How many fingers do you have? (5) This is just like the staff that has five lines.

How many spaces are in between your fingers? (4) This is just like the spaces on the staff.

12

3

4

5

1

2

3

4

Lines

Spaces

Pitch NamesLocate your middle finger - just like your belly button is in the middle of your body, your middle finger is in the middle of the staff. It is called “b”.

In music we have seven note names that go a, b, c, d e, f, g

And then they repeat. It is easy to figure out the names of the notes if you remember

where “b” (belly button b) is located on your hand staff.

Watch the video that goes with this

lesson to see if you can figure out all the note

names.

bc

de

f

ag

fe

PitchPitch refers to the highness or lowness of a sound. In music the highness or lowness of a sound is determined by its placement on the staff.

High sound

Low sound

Click on the speaker icon ( ) to listen to the sound of each note

Sounds may be placed on one of the lines or spaces

Melody

When you put a row of notes together they create a melody or tune

Can you guess the name of the melody?

Notice how the notes in this melody move from line to space and space to line. This is known as step-wise motion

Click the icon:

That’s right! It is “Mary Had A Little Lamb”.

Treble ClefFind a piano keyboard and play some of the notes to the far right. They are very high. If you were to write some of these notes on the staff (five lines), you would put a treble clef at the start of the staff.

The treble clef placed at the beginning of the staff shows that the notes on the staff are high.

Notes in the Treble Clef

Each note in the treble clef has its own name that you will recognize as the first seven letters of the alphabet

Click on the icon and listen to how they move

from high to low

The staff has five lines and four spaces.

The notes on the lines can be remembered by thinking of the words: Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge.

The notes in the spaces spell a very familiar word: F A C E.

Lines and Spaces

Ledger LinesThere are also notes which can be written

above

or below

The extra lines drawn for these notes are called

ledger lines

Note Name Review #1Name the notes in the following melody

• Refer back to Slide 12 if you need some help. Using Noteworthy Composer insert the notes below and their letter names.

Now listen to the melody. Do you recognize it?

Now listen to how a famous composer, Mozart, used this melody in one of his compositions

Notice how he uses skips as well as steps in the melody

skip

step

Note Name Review #2Name the notes in this melody written by Joseph Haydn.

Using Noteworthy Composer insert the notes below and their letter names

Now listen to how he used this melody in his “Surprise Symphony”

Using Noteworthy Composer

• Double click on the program icon.• Close the “Did you know?” window• Go to File – select “new”• Select “blank score” from the Song Templates

Window. Click “OK”.• Type in a name for your Note Name Review 1 or 2• Type in your name as “author-composer”. Click “OK”.• YOU ARE NOW READY TO BEGIN

• Press the letter “C”. Select “treble clef” from the drop box. Click “OK”.

• Select a whole note (semibreve) from the tool bar at the top of the screen. Using the arrow keys scroll up or down until you find the position of the first note in Note Naming Exercise 1. Press enter to insert the note.

• Continue this process until you have entered each note in exercise one.

• To enter the note names go to the tool bar on the top and click the large “L”.

• A box will open. From the drop box entitled “Line Count” select “1st Lyric Line”.

• Then click on the tab “Lyric 1”. Type in the letter names of the notes separating each one with a space.

• When you are finished click “Save”.• You should be able to view the letter names under the correct

notes.

Online SupportFor more enrichment on the topic of Pitch go to: 1. Ricci Adam's Music Theory 2. From menu on left select “Staff, Clefs, Ledger

Lines”

Homework

Enter Note Name Review 1 & 2 into Noteworthy Composer and upload the file in the correct place in Blackboard. You will be able to self correct your responses using the answer sheets found on Blackboard. Remember to save your file as Lesson 4 and your name. (Example: Lesson 4 Ruth Morrison)