Rhythm & Meter
Note Values, Rests, Ties and Dots Explained
Each note value is half the one above it. Whole to sixteenth notes and their rests, plus how dots, ties and beams change what you count.
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Glossary
Articles
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Fundamentals
Tempo Markings Explained: Largo to Presto in Beats per Minute
Italian tempo words run from slow to fast. Approximate beats-per-minute bands for each, the modifiers and transitions that change them, and why a metronome number needs a time signature.
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Rhythm & Meter
Time Signatures Explained: Simple, Compound and Beyond
A time signature gives beats per bar and the note value that counts as one beat. Simple meters split each beat in two, compound meters split it in three.
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Orchestration
String Bowing and Articulation: A Practical Arranger Guide
Legato, detache, spiccato, staccato, martelé: what each bowing sounds like, how to mark it, and writing playable string parts.
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Rhythm & Meter
Compound Meter: 6/8 vs 3/4 and How to Hear the Difference
Six eighth notes per bar can group as 3+3 in 6/8 or 2+2+2 in 3/4. Accent, contour, hemiola and conducting show which grouping you are hearing.
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Guitar & Fretboard
Guitar Fretboard Note Names: Learn the Neck String by String
Every fret is one semitone, so the fretboard is a grid of note names. This covers standard tuning, the landmark frets and a two-week routine for learning the whole neck.
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Fundamentals
How to Read Sheet Music: Staves, Clefs and Note Names
The staff, the treble and bass clefs, line and space names, ledger lines, and where the key and time signatures sit, with a table to learn from.
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Guitar & Fretboard
Reading Guitar Tabs and Chord Diagrams for Beginners
Tab shows strings and frets rather than pitch names, and a chord diagram is a small grid of the same information. This explains both, with an arpeggio you can check against the fretboard.
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Counterpoint
Canon Types and Techniques: Rounds to Crab Canons
Strict and free canon, interval and time distance, inversion and crab canons: how canons work and how to write a singable one.
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Music History
From Ars Nova to the Renaissance: How Notation Changed Music
Rhythm took two centuries longer than pitch to notate. Mensural notation solved it with ratios, and the Renaissance then replaced black ink with white.
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Music History
Baroque Ornamentation: Trills, Mordents and Turns
Execute trills, mordents, turns and appoggiaturas correctly: on-beat starts, national styles, and reading ornament tables.
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Orchestration
Brass Choir Voicing: Spacing, Balance and Dynamics
Score for trumpets, horns, trombones and tuba: open vs close voicing, dynamic balance, chorale style and fanfare writing.
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Rhythm & Meter
Odd Meters in 5/4 and 7/8: Counting, Feeling, Writing
Hear 5/4 and 7/8 as beat groups, not math: counting systems, conducting, repertoire from Brubeck to Balkan dance.
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Fundamentals
Clefs and Transposition: What Players Actually Read
A clef fixes one pitch and the staff follows. Transposing instruments move it again, so the same written note reaches the audience at different pitches.
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Rhythm & Meter
Swing Timing: What the Notation Does Not Say
Jazz notation asks for swing and leaves the ratio to the players, because the timing is tempo-dependent and a fixed written value would be wrong at most speeds.
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