NSJMA · Letter · Music theory
Letter music theory
Review the musical alphabet, grand staff, scales, intervals, scale degrees, meter, and common time signatures.
The grand staff
The musical alphabet repeats A through G. Treble and bass clefs join to form the grand staff, with ledger lines extending its range.
Major scales and intervals
- Major-scale pattern: whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half
- Scale degrees: tonic, supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant, submediant, leading tone, tonic
- Intervals are measured by counting both the starting and ending notes.
Simple and compound meter
- Simple meters divide each beat into two equal parts: 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 and 2/2.
- Compound meters divide each beat into three equal parts: 6/8, 9/8 and 12/8.
- Irregular meters such as 5/4 and 7/4 combine groups of two and three beats.