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 Imagine
that you are the composer of a song. And,
you would like to base this song on the
B scale. That means that B is going to be
the root. Since the song is based on the
B scale, the song is said to be in the Key
of B.
From
the previous lesson, you learned that when
you constructed a major scale using the root
note B, there were 5 sharps (black keys).
Check this again on your own keyboard (remember
whole-whole-half-whole-whole-whole-half).
Now you could either label each sharped note
on the staff that needs to be played during
the song or you could use something new. You
could use a "Key Signature." Look
at the figure above. The first measure on
the left shows the B scale in eighth notes.
Each note that needs to be sharped for the
B major scale is labeled with a sharp sign.
This method could get very messy and hard
to look at for the reader. Can you imagine
what it would look like with lots of sixteenth
notes?
Now
look at the measure on the right. Instead
of labeling every sharped note within the
measure, the sharped notes are all shown at
the beginning of the staff before the Time
Signature. This keeps the staff cleaner and
easier to read. The performer of your music
can tell at a glance that there are 5 sharps
used in this song over and over again. And,
that this music is written in 4/4.
When
I get ready to play a piece of music, I first
look at the Key Signature and then
the Time Signature. This is the standard approach
for many musicians. You may have over heard
musicians speaking to each other and saying,
"Hey man. What key is this in? And what's
the tempo?" These are the two most important
questions other than, "Hey dude what's
the ending do?" Every musician is concerned,
up front, about how
to start a song
and how
to end a song.
It's like new directions to a person's house.
"Where do I start and what will I see
when I get close to the end of my journey?"
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