1

TERM 3
GRADE 7
Music Literacy

GM 2018
 2

Contents
The Treble Clef ................................................................................................................ 3

Pitch ................................................................................................................................. 3

Dynamics ......................................................................................................................... 4

Tempo .............................................................................................................................. 4

Time signatures (Metre) ................................................................................................... 4

Letter names of the treble clef .......................................................................................... 4

The Stave ......................................................................................................................... 5

Unison .............................................................................................................................. 5

Instruments .......................................................................................................................... 6

Woodwind ........................................................................................................................ 6

Strings .............................................................................................................................. 6

Brass ................................................................................................................................ 6

Percussion ....................................................................................................................... 7

Folk song ............................................................................................................................. 7

The Dotted-Minim: (British name) ........................................................................................ 8

Lyrics ................................................................................................................................... 8

BASS CLEF ......................................................................................................................... 8

EDVARD GRIEG ............................................................................................................... 10

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN ............................................................................................. 11

PETER ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY ........................................................................................ 11

Texture in music ................................................................................................................ 12

Part-song (SATB) .............................................................................................................. 12

Repetition........................................................................................................................... 13

GM 2018
 3

The Treble Clef

• The purpose of the treble clef is to show the person playing or singing music, that
the pitch will be high.
• The treble clef is mostly played with the right hand on a piano as the higher pitches
on the keyboard are situated on the right hand side.

Note values

Semi-breve

Minim

Crotchet

Quaver

Semi-quaver

Pitch
Pitch is how high or how low a sound is. Women usually have high pitched voices whereas
men usually have low pitched voices.

GM 2018
 4

Dynamics
Dynamics is how loud or how soft (the volume) a sound is played or sung.

Tempo
Tempo is how fast or slow a song is played or sung.

Time signatures (Metre)

The three time signatures that we are going to concentrate on are:
Duple metre (2/4)
Triple metre (3/4)
Quadruple metre (4/4)

Since the top number in this time signature is 2, the time

signature is called duple metre. Duple Metre has two beats per
bar/measure.

Since the top number in this time signature is 3, it is called triple

metre. Triple metre has three beats per bar. This is also known
as waltz time.

Since the top number of this time signature is 4, the time

signature is called quadruple metre. Quadruple metre has four
beats per bar. This is the most common metre in music.

Letter names of the treble clef

GM 2018
 5

Remember: The spaces can be remembered as “FACE” and the lines can be
remembered by the rhyme, “Every Good Boy Drinks Fanta”. The whole musical
alphabet consists only of the first seven letters of the alphabet – A, B, C, D, E,
F and G. On the keyboard of a piano the letter names of the notes are:

The Stave
The stave is the 5 lines and 4 spaces music notation is written on.

Unison
The definition of unison is: to perform musical parts at the same pitch or in the range of
an octave. This means to play or sing a piece of music on the same note.

GM 2018
 6

Instruments
Woodwind

Strings

Brass

GM 2018
 7

Percussion

Pitched Percussion Unpitched Percussion

Instruments Instruments

Folk song
A Folk song is a song originating amongst people of a country or area and is mostly passed
on by oral tradition from one generation to the next. There are often more than one version

GM 2018
 8

of the song. The lyrics and melody thereof is generally simple and easy to remember. An
example is Five Little Monkeys from, Tom Fisch.

The Dotted-Minim: (British name)

(American: Dotted-Half Note. French: taa-aa-aa)
A dotted-minim indicates that a continuous sound must be made for a period of three beats.
Dotted-Minims are made up of a ‘hollow’ head, a dot and a stem.

Lyrics
Lyrics are words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses or it can
be a poem relating to a category of poetry that expresses subjective thoughts and feelings,
in a song like form. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist.

BASS CLEF

The Bass Clef is known as the clef for a male voice and for instruments with low pitch. The
sheet music of the following instruments like the Tuba, Cello, Double bass, Bassoon and
Piano, will read their music in the bass clef. The sign for the bass clef resembles a cursive
GM 2018
 9

F, and is such because it is situated around the note F on the stave. The notes on the lines
are: G, B, D, F, A, and can be remembered as Good, Boys, Don’t, Frighten, Animals. The
notes in the spaces are: A, C, E, G, and can be remembered as All, Cows, Eat, Grass.

Listen to music written for and in the Bass clef:

• A Cello piece – The Swan from the ‘Carnival of the Animals’ by Camille Saint-Saëns
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNbXuFBjncw
• A Double bass piece – The Elephant from the ‘Carnival of the Animals’ by Camille
Saint- Saëns
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ase1PyMJ9iw
• A tenor aria such as Una fortiva lagrima by Donizetti
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUI8rpMzsC8
• A contemporary song such as The End of the Road by Boyz II Men
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDKO6XYXioc
• A Bass guitar piece such as Victor Wooten’s version of Amazing Grace
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg_j7n4BcVA

Test your knowledge of the notes by writing in the letter names of the notes in the bass clef.

GM 2018
 10

Now access ‘Perfect Piano’ and play them on the bass section of the keyboard.

EDVARD GRIEG

EDVARD GRIEG was born in Bergen, Norway on 15th June

1843. For most of its life, Norway struggled to be its own nation
separate from unions with other countries. It was Edvard’s music
that helped give Norway its own identity. For his contribution, he
came to be regarded as a hero to the people of Norway. Many
of his works include Norwegian folksongs where he paints a musical picture of the landscape
of the beautiful countryside. He set Henrik Ibsen’s stage play Peer Gynt to music, which
includes two of his best known works: Morning Mood and In the Hall of the Mountain
King.
Listen to the music of: Morning Mood by Grieg
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRlXnoC0ySs)

GM 2018
 11

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN was born in Bonn, Germany in

1770. His talent was recognized early on, and by 1778 he was
learning to play the organ and the viola in addition to his piano
studies. In 1787, young Beethoven decided to travel to Vienna,
hoping to meet and study composition with Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart. By his twenties he began to suffer from hearing loss. He
did, however, continue to compose, conduct and perform, even
though he was completely deaf. One story recalls that after
conducting the premiere of his Ninth Symphony, which includes the melody Ode to Joy,
he had to be turned around to see the overwhelming applause of the audience. He is
remembered as an important composer in the transitional period between the Classical Era
and the Romantic Era in music.
Listen to the music of: Ode to Joy by Beethoven
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87qT5BOl2XU)

PETER ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY

PETER ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY was born in 1840 in the present–

day Udmurtia, Russia. His father was a Ukrainian mining engineer. The
only music instruction he received were piano lessons from a piano
manufacturer, who occasionally made visits to the School of
Judisprudence. On attending the Opera and Theater, it was the works
of Rossini, Bellini, Verdi and Mozart that he enjoyed the most. In 1861, he heard about
classes being offered by the Russian Musical Society. In the following year, he followed his
teacher to the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he met and studied with Anton
Rubinstein. Rubinstein was impressed with Tchaikovsky’s talent.

GM 2018
 12

Texture in music

In music, texture is how the melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic materials are combined in a
composition, thus determining the overall quality of the sound in a piece. One can have a
thick texture which means the harmony is four part and more. When it is a thin texture, then
there might be only one melody and it will be less than 4 voices sounding at the same time.

Thin texture
Single
line melody

Thick
texture
More
than four
harmony
notes

Part-song (SATB)
The term "four-part harmony" refers to music written for four voices or for some other
musical medium - four musical instruments or a single keyboard instrument, for example -
where the various musical parts can give a different note for each chord of the music. It can
also be seen as four voices singing together, but each voice sings their own melody.

GM 2018
 13

The four voices in a choir is called: Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass. The soprano voice is
the highest female voices in a choir. The alto is the lowest female voice in a choir. The tenor
is the highest male voice in a choir, where the bass will be the lowest male voice in a choir.
So if one must order it, one can say the soprano is the highest voice, the alto is second
highest, the tenor is the second lowest and the bass is the lowest voice.

Repetition
Repetition in music is when a section, phrase or part of a song is sung or played again,
exactly the same as the first time. A literal repetition of a musical passage is often indicated
by the use of a repeat sign, or the instructions da capo or dal segno.

Repetition may be used as part and parcel of symmetry. This is a technique that may help
to unify a melody, theme or rhythm. If one finds a melodic or rhythmic figure that you like,
and one repeats it throughout the course of the melody or song, one must be careful not to
repeat it too much, as it may bore the listener.

GM 2018