This will be our second lesson and it’ll be a short one about Tones and Semitones – the smallest distance between notes.
There are a few fundamental terminologies we need to familiarize ourselves with before we start going crazy with scales and chords and what not.
In the last lesson you learned about the note circle, the names of the letters of music, how they move from one to another.
The next step will be understanding Intervals.
Intervals, you can say, are the building blocks of music. They’re the distance between two notes.
Mhmm, Semitones and Tones?
Well, like how right and left tell us where to go and which turn to make. Semitones and tones tell us how far we have to travel from a note.
Let’s say that you’re on the Note C. And now you want to make the jump from C to C#. So, the direction you’ll get is “Go a semitone above the Note C” and you’ll reach C# (C-sharp) . Similarly if I tell you “Go a Semitone below the note C” you’ll land on the Note B. Simple enough right? xD
What could be a Tone then? A tone is nothing but two semitones. Therefore, if I ask you “Which note you will land on if you go a tone above the Note C?”, the answer will be the Note D.
Below you’ll see the note circle with the distance between the two notes.
Let’s take a small quiz. The Answer key is here, don’t cheat though 😉
Q1. Go a Semitone above the note D.
Q2. Go a Tone below the Note G.
Q3. A semitone above the note E is?
Q4. Tone = Semitone+Semitone. True or False?
Q5. Is the note A a tone below the note B♭(B-Flat)?
This will be all for now. I hope the quizzes are helping to test the knowledge, there will be an exam at the end of Module 1. Next Lesson is here.
Cheers,
SonorousMoose xD
