Theory and practice of music composition...

Tips and advices on Pizzicato...

Music Course for Beginners...

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Read all previous articles on page http://www.arpegemusic.com/editoriaux.htm

In the last article, I told you there were still 3 other ways to divide time in a music composition. We had studied the beat as the main time division, then the measure as a small group of beats that creates a new time division of a piece of music.

The next time division

While listening to music, you will easily notice that measures are also assembled into larger units. These can be the standard chorus/verse division, or the length of a given melody or chord progression, as well as specific sections like introductions, endings, or 'bridges', used go from one section to another section. We enter here in the field of what is commonly referred to as the form of music.

The building blocks are made of several measures and they are then assembled into a full piece of music. This is very easily observed in light music, rock, jazz,... Each section of the piece is often made out of a constant number of measures, like 4, 8, 12, 16,... For instance, blues and some related styles are often arranged on a pattern of 12 measures. The chords progression repeats itself after 12 measures. If you do not know blues music, once you hear it many times, you finally get the feeling about where you are in this 12 measures cycle. By the chords progression itself and the way the melody and the other instruments play, you can feel the cycle and know when it starts, when it continues and you can easily predict the end and know when the next cycle starts.

Experiment this for yourself as you listen to the following examples (from YouTube). Count the 12 measures and experiment the feelings resulting from the chords progression used. Focus on the cycle of 12 measures. Also hear the change of atmosphere created through them, particularly at the end of the cycle, when the feeling strongly urges to start a new cycle. This is somewhat subjective, but the effect is produced by real musical means (notes, chords, rhythms, instruments, effects).

• Glenn Miller - In The Mood - www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJE-onnw2gM&feature=related
• French Quarter Jazz-Blues Musicians - www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMZhGEXSZyo
• Count Basie Style 12 Bar Blues - www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTNOV2qcItw This one is a bit more difficult to notice, as it is a piano solo and the counting of measures and beats may be more difficult as there is no percussion helping to mark the beat. The bass (left hand) may help you but it does not mark all the beats and sometimes marks offbeats or other rhythmic effects. You can just count the beats as given by some passages of the left hand, then extrapolate the missing beats with your foot. The measures are in 4/4, so count 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,... Try to locate the 12 measures cycles and predict the next one.

Here is an example for classical music. It is a series of excerpts from fast tempo classical pieces. In most of these excerpts you can locate the repetition of melodies longer than one measure. Each one of them is a unit, a construction block. The composer can assemble them variously.

• Classical Music 101: Fast, Frenetic, Chase Scene Music - www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S4NDnNTptY

You will notice that in this last example, the blocks are more various. Some have a shorter duration than others. The composer can structure his music the way he wants. The presence of a structure that repeats itself, even with variations, helps the auditor to understand the music.

These various time divisions help you to orient yourself inside a piece of music, so that you can understand it better and so appreciate it better. This does not mean that you will necessarily analyze it explicitly and count each beat, measure, section,... The way I describe these divisions here is formal, but it describes a real phenomena that is there to be observed, explicitly or just as a subjective reality. You can appreciate music without knowing all this, as these phenomenon are working in the background, whether you notice them formally or not. But when it comes to composing music, it gives you a way to structure a musical piece so that these phenomenon will operate for you and create nice musical effects.

The next time division is just an extension of this idea. A piece of music can be made of one or more different but related pieces. For instance a symphonic work in 4 parts. Or the various structured forms of music, like the sonata form (see for instance the structure of a sonata at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonata_form ). Here we observe the development of music on longer duration than the beat, measure or single melody.

The form of music may help the composer to develop his ideas. Often you just find a single melody with chords. How to make it into a full music composition? You already have one block. You can create a new block with similar chords but with other musical details, you can create variations. You can create a new block with a new idea and in some way connect it to the first block. Then you have a series of blocks that you can arrange and combine. Finally you have a full piece of music, based on music materials sufficiently related to the first idea you had and it makes a coherent music composition.

Last but not least...

We started from the beat and we extended the time period involved, to establish longer music construction blocks. Let's go back to the beat again and let's divide it in shorter durations.

We can here apply the simple division of the beat by 2, 3, 4,... and we get the various rhythmic values used in music. This is the principle of harmonics, as described in a previous article. Here are 3 examples as they appear on a score, for harmonic 2 (eighth notes), harmonic 3 (triplets) and harmonic 4 (16th notes).

Listen to this example...

Listen to this example...

Listen to this example...

As the rhythmic values are integer divisions of the beat, they keep an intimate relationship to the beat. For instance, if we use triplets (3 notes per beat), each time we hear 3 notes, the duration of one beat elapsed. It is a simple ratio, easy to notice. When you have several rhythmic parts that play different rhythmic harmonics, the resulting sound is more rich and interesting. As an example, here is a combination of instruments playing a combination of harmonic 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Listen to this example...

Next month, we will see how to combine these various harmonics together and learn some tips on how to use them in music composition. See you then!

Dominique Vandenneucker
Designer of Pizzicato

See also the frequently asked questions on page http://www.arpegemusic.com/clients4.php

If Pizzicato does not start on Mac OS Sierra, do the following.

- Keep the Pizzicato folder on the desktop (not in the Applications folder)
- Right click on the Pizzicato application (inside its folder) (or left click + Control) and choose to show the package content
- Go inside Contents / MacOS and double-click "Pizzicato".  It should start after a few seconds.

Pizzicato lets you connect a MIDI keyboard to your computer to enter notes easily. By default after installation, there is not necessarily a selected MIDI input. To record notes directly from a MIDI connected keyboard:

• Go in the "Options" menu and select "MIDI Setup...".

• Double-click the MIDI input port to the left. In the dialog box that appears, select the line that contains the "MIDI" term inside the "Associated driver" menu. The exact expression varies with the sound card or MIDI interface you use (for example "SB MIDI Input", "MIDI Input", "USB MIDI IN",...).

• Check that the MIDI plug named "IN" is well connected to the "OUT" plug of your synthesizer and vice versa. Also check that the notation convention used by the manufacturer of your MIDI interface is the right one. If not, you may need to connect the "IN" plug to the "IN" connector of your synthesizer and the "OUT" to the "OUT". It depends on the manufacturer, so check in your sound card or interface user manual.

To test the MIDI connection:

• Press the "Esc" keyboard key, then the 'r' key (lowercase 'R').

• A blinking cursor must appear on the score.

• Hold down a key of your MIDI keyboard and press '3' on your computer numeric keypad. If a note appears on the screen, then the setup is correct. If a rest appears, there is a MIDI input setup problem. If you have several MIDI input choices, try another one. If not, your sound card is probably not setup correctly for MIDI input in Windows (warning, your sound card can work well for MIDI output and audio but not for MIDI input, because the driver is different).

If the MIDI input does not work properly on MAC, try to disconnect the MIDI cable of the keyboard (but NOT the USB connector, which must stay connected) from the interface while you start Pizzicato. Connect it again when Pizzicato is started. If the keyboard sends any MIDI signal while Pizzicato starts, the MIDI of the Mac may not be properly initialized.

If the test is OK, you are ready to record in real time and see the notes appear on the screen.To know how, simply read the two lessons about real time recording in the Help menu or on our website on page www.arpegemusic.com/manual36/EN430.htm

To enter notes step by step with the MIDI keyboard, see the following lesson: www.arpegemusic.com/manual36/EN250.htm

The Pizzicato keyboard window visualizes the notes played in the score. You can reach it via the "Piano keyboard" item of the "Windows" menu. If you listen to a 2 staves score for example, you will see that only the notes of the first staff are displayed on the screen. The keyboard "captures" the notes coming from one MIDI channel only, by default the one of the first staff or the staff where the MIDI cursor was placed the last time. To see the notes of another staff, activate the MIDI cursor (shortcut 'r') and place it on the other staff (by clicking on this staff).

To observe the notes of 2 staves at the same time, you need to assign the same MIDI channel to the staves you want to observe. To do that, open the instruments window and disable the "AC" box for the concerned instruments. Select then the same value in the "MC" (MIDI Channel) column for the concerned staves. You will then see the notes of these staves displayed at the same time on the keyboard.

If the notes are too low (lower than the G clef lower C), the notes will not be displayed. You can change the keyboard octave by going in the "Options" menu, "Keyboard" item. In the dialog box which appears, you can determine the first octave. By default, its value is 3. Select 2 or 1 to see more octaves.

This window can be used for example to visualize the notes played on the keyboard to learn piano. Hear the piece play slowly and try to reproduce the same keys on a MIDI keyboard for example.

Notice that since Pizzicato 3.3, a guitar fretboard window is also available for the same kind of application.

In linear mode, Pizzicato will begin to play the score at the first visible measure. Thus you can easily determine the starting measure with the horizontal scroll bar. In page mode, the first visible measure is the first measure of the current page. If you want for example to listen several times to a precise passage, select the cursor tool and place it in the first measure to play. The playing will begin there. You can also select the measure with the selection tool and the play will begin at the selection. To repeat a passage several times, check the "Loop on x measures" and insert the numbers of measures you want to hear several times in the score tool bar. The passage will be played and played again until you click STOP. In the dialog box appearing when clicking on the "..." button in the score tool bar, you will find another possibility to specify the first and last measure to play.

Order one of the Pizzicato versions today on our secured site by clicking here.

Free upgrades

Buying one version of Pizzicato gives you the right to about 3 years of free upgrades.

If your license number is superior to 19000, you can download the lastest upgrade 3.6.2.3 for Mac and Windows by clicking here.

Advanced upgrades

At any time, you can upgrade to a more advanced version of Pizzicato, for a special upgrade price. See the upgrade order page by clicking here.

Pizzicato in the US and Canada

You can always contact Blair Ashby, at Broadlands Media, Inc. for any information you need on Pizzicato and the way to use it. Located in Denver, Colorado, Blair is the official representative of Pizzicato for the United States and English speaking Canada. You can visit the site and buy Pizzicato directly at www.writing-music.com email: info@writing-music.com

Read the full Pizzicato music course on page http://www.arpegemusic.com/manual36/EN090.htm

When several notes are played together, these notes form what is called a chord. The notes can be played by different instruments or by the same instrument, like the piano, the guitar or the organ. The chords enrich music and let you express various impressions and atmospheres. They amplify the melodies and accompany the rhythmic patterns by giving them new sound colors.

When the notes of a chord are played with the same rhythmic value, these notes are attached on the same stem. Here are for example two chords of 3 notes each with a quarter note duration:

The total duration of the chord is a quarter note, because the 3 notes are played at the same time. With Pizzicato, open the Ex015.piz file located in the Examples folder. It contains examples of chords with various rhythmic values:

Listen to the result. In this example, all notes belonging to a chord start and finish together. With regard to the whole note (second measure), as they do not have a stem by definition, they are only superimposed to form the chord (this principle is also valid for the double whole note, which is an eight beats note and does not have a stem).

When a chord has a note placed between two lines and a note placed on one of these two lines, the convention is to place one of the two notes on the other side of the stem; this improves the score readability. Without that, the two notes would be partly one above the other. Here are some examples with one or more notes placed on the other side of the stem...

...To read the full lesson, see the lesson on music notation aspects (2) on our site...

With Pizzicato Composition Light:

• Discover intuitive music composition

• Music composition for everyone

• Music course to help you compose your music

• Only about $49 !

With EarMaster Pro 6, improve your music abilities:

• Interval singing
• Interval identification
• Chords identification
• Rhythmic dictation
• Reading and playing rhythms
• Rhythmic imitation and rhythmic precision
• Melodic dictation

1. Pizzicato Light is an introductory version to learn music, make exercises, write small scores (1 or 2 pages) and use basic MIDI and audio recording features. You can start practicing the music keyboard and make your first steps into music composition. [20 euros as a package, 15 euros as a download]

Note: The reference prices are in euros. To see the price in other
currencies ($US, $CA,...) go to the following page and select the
currency in the basket page: http://www.arpegemusic.com/products.php

2. Pizzicato Beginner is a general purpose score editor, that contains most of the tools you need to write, print and listen to music scores for the choir, solo instrument or small orchestras up to 16 instruments playing together. [99 euros as a package, 67 euros as a download]

3. Pizzicato Notation is a full score editor that offers you all the notation features found in any other Pizzicato versions. It contains all the tools you need to write, print and listen to music scores, from the soloist to the full orchestra. [199 euros as a package, 129 euros as a download]

4. Pizzicato Guitar contains all the tools you need to write sheet music for the guitar or other fretted instruments like the banjo, the bass, etc. You can use a tablature or TAB, or a standard staff. A guitar fret board window helps you entering the notes and you can create chord diagrams. [39 euros as a package, 29 euros as a download]

5. Pizzicato Choir helps you write and print nice sheet music for the choir. Learn to sing your voice while Pizzicato plays the other voices. Increase your knowledge of music theory with the full music course included. [39 euros as a package, 29 euros as a download]

6. Pizzicato Soloist contains all the tools you need to write music for a solo instrument. You can print nice solo sheet music, whether for the brass, woodwind, string instruments or any solo instrument written on one staff. [39 euros as a package, 29 euros as a download]

7. Pizzicato Drums and Percussion is specifically designed for music notation of drums and percussion instruments. You can use up to 8 staves, each one with 1 up to 16 lines to which you can assign a percussion or drum instrument. [39 euros as a package, 29 euros as a download]

8. Pizzicato Keyboard contains all the tools you need to write music for keyboard instruments like the piano, the organ or the synthesizer, with up to 4 staves. [39 euros as a package, 29 euros as a download]

9. Pizzicato Composition Light introduces the concept of intuitive music composition for a small budget. This is where you can start exploring music composition like never before, up to 8 instruments. [49 euros as a package, 39 euros as a download]

10. Pizzicato Composition Pro offers you the most advanced tools for intuitive music composition, with no limits to the number of instruments. [149 euros as a package, 99 euros as a download]

Finally, Pizzicato Professional contains every function available in the 10 versions already described. You can use all the features for music notation as well as all the tools for intuitive music composition and combine them in the same software. [299 euros as a package, 195 euros as a download]

Get Pizzicato today and enjoy its features
for your music activities

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Godelieve Cuylits, clarinetist (Belgium) - "I transpose, reduce scores and help our conductor to write his own arrangements on paper"
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