Abstractions are simplifications of ideas that “evoke recognition without spelling everything out” (R. Root-Bernstein & M. Root-Bernstein, 1999, p. 73). Educators teach abstraction through the use concrete objects, concept maps, charts, graphs, breaking down complex subjects into simpler more easily understood concepts.
When I read music, I use mathematics. When you use music software and computers, mathematics becomes even more evident: tempo, volume, chord progressions I, V, IV, pitch frequency and the names of music notes. So if I am going to teach music notation, we need to have a music numbers sense.
I chose a whole note as my abstraction in music. In my first video I imagined myself sending this information into outer space on Voyager 1 spacecraft. How could I show the meaning of the whole note to any being that had no knowledge of our planet? I feel this video is like a “Rosetta Stone” of western music notation because it has the piano roll, western music notation, and sound occurring simultaneously.
When I read music, I use mathematics. When you use music software and computers, mathematics becomes even more evident: tempo, volume, chord progressions I, V, IV, pitch frequency and the names of music notes. So if I am going to teach music notation, we need to have a music numbers sense.
I chose a whole note as my abstraction in music. In my first video I imagined myself sending this information into outer space on Voyager 1 spacecraft. How could I show the meaning of the whole note to any being that had no knowledge of our planet? I feel this video is like a “Rosetta Stone” of western music notation because it has the piano roll, western music notation, and sound occurring simultaneously.
To make this video I chose the Cakewalk music software program. Cakewalk can show music notation in many formats. I used two formats in this video. Using the piano roll format, where you see bars of different length correspond with the duration of sound for each musical note. I feel this video is the best way to simultaneously communicate the meaning of a whole note and the other western music symbols. A whole note value is the longest sound duration. Other symbols have smaller duration bars.
My second explanation of a whole note is a video I created. Music notation is a written language. The symbols used in western music notation are related to each other. Just as Arabic numbers make sense when you show children how they are related using concrete objects. In this video I used many visuals and lyrics to explain what a whole note is and how it is related to other music symbols. When teaching these two videos to children I would go back a second time, stop the video on each slide and explain what these graphics are showing.
Please click on the hyperlinked rhythmic tree image below to watch the 'Note Value Song" .
* Looking closer at the Recursive Rhythmic Tree branches in the chart above I recognized a pattern: 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16. This pattern is the binary number system used in computer languages and music notation.
1.0
0.1 + 0.1 = 1.0
0.01 + 0.01 + 0.01 + 0.01 = 1.0
0.001 + 0.001 + 0.001 + 0.001 + 0.001 + 0.001 + 0.001 + 0.001 = 1.0
0.0001 + 0.0001+ 0.0001 + 0.0001 + 0.0001+ 0.0001 + 0.0001 + 0.0001 + 0.0001 + 0.0001+ 0.0001 + 0.0001 + 0.0001+ 0.0001 + 0.0001 + 0.0001 = 1.0
Binary Number System Tree
0.1 + 0.1 = 1.0
0.01 + 0.01 + 0.01 + 0.01 = 1.0
0.001 + 0.001 + 0.001 + 0.001 + 0.001 + 0.001 + 0.001 + 0.001 = 1.0
0.0001 + 0.0001+ 0.0001 + 0.0001 + 0.0001+ 0.0001 + 0.0001 + 0.0001 + 0.0001 + 0.0001+ 0.0001 + 0.0001 + 0.0001+ 0.0001 + 0.0001 + 0.0001 = 1.0
Binary Number System Tree
In western music notation we are using the binary number system.