Tag Archives: creativity

Music Theory Fun, part 4: Decoding the Key Signature

February 16, 2013 Robin 1 Comment

As I mentioned last week, time signatures are only one part of the important information given at the beginning of any piece of sheet music. Key signatures are the other part–they tell us what key the music is in, which gives us more information about the pitches used in the song.

First: A Few Notes (Heh) About Sharps and Flats

To learn more about key signatures, you need to know what sharps and flats are. Instead of being slang words for medical needles and shoes (or apartments, lol), respectively, in music these two words take on quite a different meaning.

	This little “b”-like symbol is a flat. Whenever you see this, it means that you lower the pitch of whatever line it’s on by a half-step. In this case, the flat symbol is on the B line. Instead of playing a regular B, you would play a B-flat instead, one half-step down from regular B (the musical term for “regular B” is B-natural).
	This little hashtag-like symbol is a sharp. This means you raise the pitch of whatever line the sharp is on by a half-step. In this case, the sharp symbol is on the F line. So, instead of playing an F-natural (“regular F,” lol), you would play an F-sharp, one half-step above F-natural.

You’ll see these symbols scattered around your music, adorning the left sides of notes as well as dotting the beginning of your sheet music. But their meanings do not change–flats mean lower the pitch, sharps mean raise the pitch.

The Making of a Key Signature: A Collection of Sharps or Flats

At the beginning of your sheet music, you’ll have anywhere from one to seven sharps or flats, all grouped together like this:

This is an example of a key signature–it tells you which notes are sharped/flatted in the piece, which tells you what key the music is in. (Musical keys are collections of 8 notes which all “fit together” to make harmonious combinations called “chords.” Each key is different, hence the need for key signatures to signal which one to use.)

Making Sense of a Key Signature

Since we know that sharps raise the pitch of whatever line they’re on, while flats lower the pitch, then we can tell which notes are altered for the particular key we’re in.

	This lone little B-flat, as we learned earlier, is a key signature by itself–the key of F major. F major is kind of the “baseline” key signature for those written in flats–when you see one flat, you know it’s using the F major scale.
	This lone little F-sharp indicates the key of G major–G major is the “baseline” key signature for those written in sharps. One sharp means it’s a G major scale!

For key signatures using two flats/sharps or more, there are a couple of little tricks to reading them.

Trick for Reading Flats

	For flats, the trick is to look at the next-to-last flat in the group of flats, reading from left to right, that make up the key signature–that will tell you which key you’re in. In this case, the next-to-last flat is a B-flat, which means this key signature is for the scale of B-flat major.
	Using the trick we just learned, which key does this key signature represent? Remember, the next-to-last flat matches the key.
	And how about this one? 🙂 (Don’t worry–there’s an answer key at the end of this article :P)

Trick for Reading Sharps

	For sharps, the trick is to look at the last sharp in the group, reading from left to right, and raise the note by one half-step to get the key. For instance, the last sharp in this key signature here is a C-sharp (it’s in the C space), so raise that by one half-step and you get a D. This means that this key signature is using the scale of D major.
	Using this trick, which key is this? The last sharp, raised up a half-step, will tell you!
	And how about this one? 🙂

Even Faster Trick: Just Count the Flats or Sharps!

Though it’s best to know your flats and sharps well so that you can recognize them by sight, there’s a little shortcut experienced musicians use to reference various key signatures in short form. Just count the number of flats and sharps, and memorize which key goes with which number of flats or sharps.

For instance, one flat means F major, one sharp means G major; two flats means B-flat major, two sharps means D major, and so on. It really helps when you get up into the five- and six-sharp territories! 🙂

Yay! You Know How to Read Key Signatures!

With a little practice, you’ll be able to recognize key signatures as quickly as the pros do. (It DOES get easier, believe me!)

For Further Reading/Credits

Key Signatures @ Wikipedia
Clefs and Key Signatures @ LearnMusicFree.com

As Promised: The Answer Key!

F major	B-flat major	E-flat major
A-flat major	D-flat major (aka C-sharp major)	G-flat major (aka F-sharp major)
C-flat major (aka B major, lol)	G major	D major
A major	E major	B major
F-sharp major	C-sharp major (aka D-flat major)

Saturday with the Spark

Music Theory Fun, part 2: How Long Do You Hold This Note?

February 2, 2013 Robin Leave a comment

Pitches, as we learned last week, are one big part of music notation. After all, you can’t write down a melody if you don’t know which notes are written where! But the other big part of music notation is rhythm–how long is each note in the melody held? That’s what we’re going to look at today.

A Note Held for One Beat: The Quarter Note

When you see this symbol (a filled-in circle with just a solid line going either up or down from it), it means that this particular pitch is held for one beat of music. This is called a quarter note.

To mimic what this sounds like, count out loud, “1, 2, 3, 4,” but only clap when you say “1.” The sound of your clap is a quarter-note long.

A Note Held for Two Beats: The Half Note

When you see that the note symbol’s circle is not filled in, like the note to the left here, it means that this pitch should be held for two beats of music. This symbol is called a half note.

It’s hard to mimic a half note with claps, so instead, try this: Count in your head “1, 2, 3, 4,” and hum through beats 1 and 2. Your hum will then be a half-note long.

A Note Held for Three Beats: The Dotted Half Note

This symbol looks almost identical to a half note–but see the little dot out to the right of it? That dot tells us musicians that we need to add half of the preceding note’s time value (how many beats it is) to the existing note. In this case, the half note is 2 beats, so the dot tells us to add 1 more beat, making it 3 beats long.

Trying the humming exercise again, count those four beats in your head again, and hum through beats 1, 2, and 3. You’ve just hummed a dotted half note rhythm!

A Note Held for Four Beats: The Whole Note

Unlike the other three notes we’ve studied so far, which were made up of circles and lines, this one looks very, very different. This donut-shaped note, called a whole note, means that you hold this pitch for four beats.

This time, when you count in your head “1, 2, 3, 4,” hum through all four beats to hear what a whole note sounds like.

Notes Smaller Than One Beat: Yes, They Exist!

Melodies are not just made up of notes that are one beat long and larger–there are plenty of note time values that are fractions of one beat. Here are two of the most prevalent “fraction” notes:

This note, called an eighth note, is half of one beat, half of a quarter note’s length. The little flag on the top of the note helps differentiate it from the quarter note–I think of the flag as a reminder to pay attention because this note is shorter. 🙂

To hear how short this note is, count out loud, “1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and” (that’s not a typo), and only clap on the “and” that follows 1. Your clap will be an eighth note long.

This little note (and I do mean little) has two flags on it, telling you that it’s different from the eighth note. This note is half of an eighth note, meaning that it is 1/4 of a beat. It’s a really quick little note, barely struck or sung before you have to stop!

Try hearing this note’s rhythm by counting out loud, “1 ee and a 2 ee and a 3 ee and a 4 ee and a.” (Looks and sounds strange, I know, but this is how us musicians count these very quick rhythms–it preserves sanity when you’re working with rhythms as short as these. LOL) As you count this rhythm, clap only on the “ee” that follows 1. This will show you how a sixteenth note sounds within the framework of “1, 2, 3, 4.”

Hooray! You’ve Learned All the Basic Notes!

If you know these six note types, you can start to understand most of the musical rhythms that are put in front of you. (There are other note types, of course, but they are not used as often.)

Next Week: Time Signatures, the Rhythmic Frames Around Songs

Next time, we’re going to look at different time signatures–they affect how music is measured, which beats are strong, which beats are weak, etc. Pitches and rhythms fit within time signatures like paintings fit in frames, providing a basis for a melody you can dance or clap to. 🙂

Saturday with the Spark

Music Theory Fun, part 1: The Grand Staff

January 26, 2013 Robin 1 Comment

It’s wonderful being able to compose your own music or to play and sing familiar songs written by other people. Having composed music since at least the age of seven myself, I thoroughly enjoy crafting and shaping a new piece, nurturing it slowly into life on the piano keys. I also enjoy playing and singing other people’s music by ear, most often by listening to it many times from a CD or digital recording.

But what about writing all your self-created music down, or recreating others’ music from reading it off a page? That’s where music notation comes in, and where you have to make use of something called the grand staff.

The Grand Staff

Image Credit: Piano-Lessons-Made-Simple.com. I used this image as the basis for my example images in this post. (Thank you Photoshop for having a “music note” graphic!)

This is one of the more familiar forms of music notation, using this system of lines and the spaces between the lines.

The curvy thing that looks like an “&” is called the treble clef, and it marks where all the notes that are above Middle C should be notated.

The curvy thing with what looks like a “:” out to the side is called the bass clef, and it marks where all the notes that are below Middle C should be notated.

Together, the treble clef group of lines and the bass clef group of lines form the grand staff, joined together by that big curly brace on the left side of the above image. Using the grand staff, you can write notations for any kind of vocal, instrumental, or piano piece.

Which Notes Go Where?

In this notation system, every line and space represents a note on the keyboard. The following graphic shows which notes go in the spaces, which notes go in the lines, and then which notes fall between the treble and bass clefs’ lines.

From this diagram, you can see that the bottom space on the treble clef is where you would write an F above middle C, and the bottom line is where you would write an E above middle C, and so on. In the bass clef, the top line is where you would write an A below middle C, and the top space is where you would write a G below middle C, and so on.

To remember which notes go in the lines and spaces, here are the acronyms and memory sentences my music teachers taught me:

F A C E = The spaces in the treble clef, bottom to top
Every Good Boy Does Fine (EGBDF) = The lines in the treble clef, bottom to top
All Cows Eat Grass (ACEG) = The spaces in the bass clef, bottom to top
Great Big Dogs Fight Always (GBDFA) = The lines in the bass clef, bottom to top

In between the treble clef’s lines and the bass clef’s lines, you have more room for notation. There’s D above middle C, which hangs below the bottom line in the treble clef, and B below middle C, which sits above the top line in the bass clef…and lastly, Middle C. (I noted Middle C twice in this graphic because it can be written as part of the bass clef or treble clef–it’s kind of like the number 0, sitting in between the positive integers and negative integers in math.)

Identifying Notes in Sheet Music: A Little Self-Quiz

Using the identification chart in the last section, you can start picking out which notes are which, like in the example below:

What are the four notes in this sample? Click the picture to check your answers! (answers will appear in a new window)

Next Week: How Long Do You Hold These Notes?

Next time, we’ll be looking at note time values, also known as “hold this note for one beat, hold this one for four beats,” etc. This is where the rhythm part of music notation comes into play! 🙂

Saturday with the Spark

When Your Brain Says “No” to Creativity, Try This Instead

January 19, 2013 Robin Leave a comment

If you’re a creative person, you know that usually the mental “juices” flow well. The ideas slide into your brain as fast as a baseball player sliding into home plate, and it seems as if nothing can stop them.

But, inevitably, there are the times you sit in front of your blank canvas, your blank craft table, or your blank Word document and just have no idea what to do. You want to create SOMETHING, but…it’s almost as if your creativity is constipated, for lack of a better analogy. 😛

What do you do? Before now, I’ve often just sat there and tried to make an idea come forth, wasting minutes (or sometimes hours) trying to be creative and feeling utterly useless. But I discovered a trick, quite by accident, that can help you get unstuck pretty quickly: doing housework.

Whaaaaat? Doing HOUSEWORK Makes You Creative?

Well, no, doing housework won’t make you a master of the arts in ten seconds flat. But it does give your brain critical time away from the arduous effort of trying to be creative. In the minutes while you’re cleaning or just straightening a few things out, your brain can relax as you focus on getting these small tasks done.

An example: the other evening, I was finally tackling the kitchen, which had become a little (read: a lot) messy. Wiping down the counters, sweeping crumbs off onto the floor for later pickup with the broom, bagging up trash, unstacking and restacking the dishwasher…I knew it all by rote, and so I could kind of zone out, not particularly thinking of anything.

I was in the middle of finishing the task, sweeping up all the crumbs and randomness on the floor, when I realized I was humming a little melody. And I didn’t have any music playing, nor was it any melody from an established song that I could recall. It seemed that in the 10 minutes since I had begun my kitchen-tidying, my brain had come up with the beginnings of a new composition, without my actively thinking about it at all.

This could have been considered a fluke, except that something similar happened a few days later while I was finally clearing the front porch of last year’s fallen leaves and other detritus. While I was bagging up the trash from the front porch area, I suddenly had an idea for a new character in my novel…it was totally unrelated to what I was doing, but it popped into my head nonetheless.

The Key Here: Relaxing/Refocusing Your Mind

Often, we say we’re relaxing, but our minds are still doing 140 on the mental autobahn. I know at least for me, trying to relax by being in a still, quiet room doing nothing doesn’t really help my brain turn off (see: my 4am actual falling-asleep-time); I lay there jittery, feeling like I should be doing something instead of laying there useless. But, somehow, when I’m doing little tasks like housework, my brain slows down a little, takes its foot off the mental gas, and actually takes a breath for once.

Try this if you feel absolutely stuck in a creative rut and have no ideas. Instead of forcing yourself to keep plugging away and getting nothing accomplished, try doing a little housework, or something less mentally intense. You might find that you clear some mental clutter away as you clean and straighten your physical environment!

Saturday with the Spark

The Funny To-Do List: Motivate Yourself with Laughter

January 12, 2013 Robin Leave a comment

The following little beauty sits on my computer desktop, courtesy of the Sticky Notes desktop gadget; it contains my to-do list, which I update every time I turn the computer on (about twice a day).

Nothing in the following to-do list is faked; this is my real to-do list from this past Monday morning. I had a deadline–I was rushing to finish my creativity post, so that was top priority. How I drew attention to it, however, is the subject of this post.

Yep, this is pretty much how crazy my to-do list is on a daily basis. I note all the stuff I have to do, but I don’t just list it–I use my creativity and jazz it up a little. I type in emoticons and all caps, make inside jokes with myself, and otherwise write stuff that makes me laugh when I next look at the list.

Sometimes I’ll even include a few mild, funny insults to myself, especially if I’ve been procrastinating on a task that really needs doing (see the Saturday entry at the bottom of the list). Why? Because sometimes you need a kick in the rear to get started on a task, and better it comes from you than someone else, right? LOL

Some might see this as overly childish or time-wasting, but I disagree. Before this, I tried writing a “grownup,” plain to-do list, and guess what? Nothing got done; I felt depressed just looking at it. Nowadays, I try to include as much LOL in my to-do as possible. Mary Poppins was right–a spoonful of sugar DOES help the medicine go down. (Or, in this case, a spoonful of LOL helps the to-do list get done.)

So, if you’re finding yourself stuck on your to-do list with little inspiration to get anything done, you might want to try throwing in a few inside-joke funnies, drawing a silly emoticon face, or prodding yourself along with some anti-procrastination jokes. Who knows? You too might start off your Monday morning with a laugh!

Saturday with the Spark

Don’t Hate Your “Work in Progress”

December 29, 2012 Robin Leave a comment

I have a little confession to make: I’m often disgusted with my own efforts while I’m making art.

If I’m trying to design a web layout, I get frustrated if the design or the implementation just won’t align right; if I’m writing a bit of story, I get mad when I just can’t seem to script out the scene stuck in my mind. And that’s to say nothing of how I try to learn a new piece of music. I absolutely hate how slowed-down and imperfect the piece sounds if I can’t seem to play it correctly at normal speed. (As a child, I used to burst out crying and run from the room because that sound created such anxiety in me–playing it slow made every song sound stupid, and it made my skin crawl!)

This is part of my perfectionism, and I would wager that many fellow creative people go through similar emotions–the gripping fear/frustration of the physical creation not matching the mental idea. But this isn’t a healthy mindset, either for your creativity or your sanity. In fact, this mindset has kept me from a lot of my best work.

How This Actually Stunts Your Creativity

This fear, disgust, and frustration is one reason my novel isn’t published; it’s a reason that I wait so long between layout designs for my websites. I hate looking at (or listening to) a half-finished product and detesting what I see because it doesn’t match the perfection in my mind. But as much as I hate seeing the terrible, muddy chaos of a half-finished work, it’s part of the process–and it must be endured, if I’m ever going to finish anything!

For example, this week, I’ve finally begun to write on my novel again after six months of being completely stalled. As I began to write again, I wondered, “Why did I wait so long? What had me stalled?” The answer: I hated looking at my unfinished work and seeing how badly it compared to the awesomeness in my head. (Thus, this article came about, documenting my own silliness and fear; like a bad dream, the negative emotions get easier to bear if you share them.) But I lost six months of writing time just being stalled because I thought the work wasn’t worth finishing. I stunted my own creativity with my perfectionism.

Don’t Make the Same Mistakes I’ve Made!

If you’re suffering these same feelings, and you let them stop you, then you too will be stuck as I have been. Remember, nothing looks or sounds right until it’s finished, whether it’s a painting or sketch, a piece of music, a poem, a novel, anything. This is part of being an artist–being courageous enough to dig into your own work and finish it. And in fact, once your piece is finished, you end up with a much better product, because you’ve subjected it to your own criticism first, and you’re more aware of any flaws or mismatches in your work.

So, today, I encourage you to go back to an unfinished work of yours. Go back to it, and just see what you can do with it. If you have to push aside your first idea and try something new, go ahead; if you need to rework just a bit of your previous efforts to continue on with your next idea, that’s perfectly fine, too. Just don’t be afraid to dig in and get your hands dirty. I promise you, it will turn out better than you think.

Saturday with the Spark

OneWord.com: Sixty Seconds of Writing a Day

December 22, 2012 Robin Leave a comment

If you want a little writing challenge, or if you just feel like stretching your creativity muscle a little, then I have a suggestion: head over to OneWord.com.

What’s It All About?

OneWord.com is a unique sort of writing website. When you land on the page, it gives you some simple instructions:

“You’ll see one word at the top of the following screen. You have sixty seconds to write about it. Click ‘go’ and the page will load with the cursor in place. Don’t think. Just write.”

That’s the whole concept of oneword.com. You’re given a word and you just WRITE. Whatever comes to mind, however stupid it might sound to you, however many spelling or grammar mistakes you might make, however trite it might feel, you just WRITE for 1 minute about it.

60 Seconds is Not as Short as You Might Think

The time limit isn’t stressful, even for a person like me who hates being timed. In fact, I find that it forces me to toss aside me self-censorship filter and any other inhibitions that keep me from writing as freely as I wish to.

Depending on how much your Muse runs away with you, you can end up writing almost a paragraph in 60 seconds, or you may only have a few words to say. That’s the great thing about oneword.com; you don’t have to write a certain number of words. Just add your thoughts, write about whatever the “word of the day” makes you think of. It’s completely free-form, and freeing.

Once You’re Done, Submit Your Work!

The website times you, and at the end of 60 seconds, it offers you the option to post your writing with your name/nickname, email address, and website address. (Your email address stays private.)

You don’t have to submit your writing if you don’t want to; some days I just do the prompt without submitting, just as a little exercise. But if you do click “submit,” you’ll have an opportunity to read what others have posted about the “word of the day,” and that’s another treat in and of itself. We’ve got some great hidden writers out there, if this website is any indication!

A Real-Life Example

A few days ago, while I was preparing this post, the “word of the day” prompt was “living.” This is what I typed in as a response:

Living. Existing. Breathing. Moving forward, or at least pretending to. These days I don’t feel like I’m doing much of real living–-am I doing anything worthwhile? Heck, I’m not even making a living, but I’m still here. Maybe that means something, after all. Maybe it’s not completely useless.

Despite my mood of the day, my response had a slightly happier turn than I was expecting. And this 60-second drabble turned out a lot more poetic than has been usual for me these days. I got to tap into a writing vein I don’t get a lot of time to be in, these days, and it was fun! (Isn’t that what creative writing is supposed to be, anyway?)

Summary

Give your Muse a little boost with oneword.com’s bite-sized writing prompts. I promise you, it’ll be painless, and it might just get you out of a writing rut!

Saturday with the Spark

Composing Music with Sound Matrix

December 15, 2012 Robin 1 Comment

For composers, musicians, and music enthusiasts, then the Sound Matrix Flash game could be your new favorite Internet toy. I’ve definitely wasted more than my share of time goofing around with it! 😀

How to Use Sound Matrix

When you load up the game, you are greeted with the above blank gray grid on a black background.

Clicking any gray square on the grid turns it white; the white square will produce a tone every so often. In the above example, this white square produces a B natural approximately every 3-4 seconds, and the little white square lights up when “struck,” such that the whole grid sparkles with it. Very pretty! 😀

For those who might be interested, I came up with the complete musical scale that Sound Matrix can produce. (The uppermost squares produce the highest tones; the lowermost squares produce the lowest.) While this may not look like the most diverse scale, it can actually create quite a variation of tunes!

As for actually composing tunes, clicking squares that are an equal horizontal distance apart will give you a “beat,” which will loop every few seconds. That’s pretty much all you need to know–the rest is just experimentation, play, and happy accidents! 🙂

A Few of My Sound Matrix Compositions

These are a few little tunes I came up with while musing and playing; I had a ton more saved, but I lost them in the Great Hard Drive Crash of 2011. :/ But where those came from, there are plenty more 🙂 The following screenshots kind of serve as “sheet music” for Sound Matrix:

“Celebration in A Major”

“An E-Z Groove”

“Latin Dance in B Minor”

“Triplets in E”

“Fast Club Jam in B Minor”

Saturday with the Spark

Incredibox, aka “The Musical Sandbox I Can’t Quit Playing In”

December 8, 2012 Robin 2 Comments

Thanks to Stumbleupon, I found this awesome little Flash tool called Incredibox, which is my new “musical sandbox.” I like it so much I wanted to honor it in this week’s creativity post, because it certainly makes me feel more creative!

How to Use Incredibox

After it loads, you’re greeted with this screen, where one little guy waits to make your beatbox club dreams come true.

Click and drag one of the colorful icons to the guy’s hat, and he’ll start making a beatbox sound–there are various beatbox effects, such as bass, beats and breaks, melodies, and other vocal additions.

As soon as you add one effect, another little guy appears, so that you can keep adding effects to create your own song.

As the above picture shows, you can have up to 7 effects going at one time!

If you want to get rid of an effect, you can hover over the character making the sound and click the “X” in the box that appears.

Recording and Sending Your Tune

Once you’ve hammered out exactly what effects you like and how you want to put them together, you can click the circle button (top left) to record your song.

This is what it looks like when you’re recording–a strip appears across the top showing how long the recording is going. Maximum recording length is 30. If you need to stop the recording for whatever reason (if you misclicked or waited too long to start/stop an effect, for instance), you can click the circle button again (it becomes a square when you hover over it).

After it’s recorded, you can review it, and then save and send it via email, Facebook, and/or Twitter to your friends!

For inspiration, here’s a little tune I made and recorded using Incredibox–I call it the “Pensive Club Jam”. 😀

Give Incredibox a try and see what kinds of cool grooves you can make! I literally spent an hour the other day while writing this post playing with it…it’s addictive!

(PS: Happy birthday to me! :D)

Saturday with the Spark

Culinary Creativity: Twists on Old Favorite Recipes

December 1, 2012 Robin Leave a comment

It takes an average cook (like myself) to successfully craft regular recipes in the kitchen. (“Success” meaning that the food is edible and the kitchen isn’t burnt down. xD) But it takes an excellent cook, and a creative one, to start improvising on old standard recipes and using staple ingredients in different ways.

For this week, I thought I’d showcase 10 amazing recipes I found on Punchfork.com, all using familiar foods, but with innovative new spins. (Even more amazing? All 10 recipes suit my picky taste buds!) Get ready for some foodie inspiration!

Baked Chicken Nuggets	Cheddar Bay Biscuits	Sausage & Cheesy Hashbrown Popovers
PB&J Roll-Up Cookies	French Cheese Puffs	Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes
Duchess Potatoes	Chicken & Spinach Rollatini	White Chicken Enchiladas
Chicken Pot Pie Soup

BONUS!

Check out PickyPalate @ Punchfork.com to find even more creative recipes. (You have to be pretty innovative to please a picky eater!)