Understanding Music
By now you should have a good basic understanding of how rhythm works, how beats can be subdivided and how dynamics work. However, just as other instrumentalists often neglect their rhythm skills, many drummers also neglect developing an understanding of the other aspects of music such as melody, (e.g., vocals or lead guitar) and harmony (e.g., keyboard or rhythm guitar).
If you have a basic understanding of these subjects you can contribute much more to band arrangements and songwriting. In fact, it is strongly recommended that you learn at least a bit of general music by taking up bass, guitar or keyboards. Ask the other musicians you play with about what they are doing and get them to show you a few things. Of course, the drums will still be your main instrument, but drummers who understand music are always popular and usually get lots of work. Lets look at the musical tools used to create melody and harmony.
Music Notes
There are only seven letters used for notes in music. They are:
These notes are known as the musical alphabet.
Melody and Scales
Most melodies are derived from scales. A scale is a pattern of notes at different pitches, which can be repeated in higher or lower registers and played on any melodic instruments. Most bass lines and lead solos are made up of notes from scales. A scale may start on any pitch and the name of the starting note of the scale determines the name of the scale. The most common building block for melody is the major scale. The simplest of these is the C major scale, which starts and ends on the note C and contains all of the natural notes used in music. A major scale is a group of eight notes that produces the familiar sound:
The following example demonstrates the C major scale played by the bass and the guitar. Don’t worry if you can’t read the notes, just notice that there is a different pitched dot for each note.
You may have noticed that the notes were in different places on the staff for the bass and the guitar. The bass uses the bass clef and the bass staff, while the guitar uses the treble clef and treble staff. Melodic instruments may use either the bass staff or the treble staff. Keyboard music usually uses both.
The Treble Clef
This symbol is called a treble clef. There is a treble clef at the beginning of every line of guitar music.
The Treble Staff
A staff with a treble clef written on it is called a treble staff.
The Bass Clef
This symbol is called a bass clef. There is a bass clef at the beginning of every line of bass music.
The Bass Staff
A staff with a bass clef written on it is called a bass staff.
In the following example, all of the notes played by the guitar and the bass come from the C major scale. Just as drummers make use of various note values to create beats and fills, instrumentalists can combine the notes from a scale in endless ways to create melodies such as bass lines and lead solos.
See how music can be created from this simple group of notes. The major scale is only one of many types of scales. To find out more about scales and how they work, see Progressive Theory, as well as asking the musicians you play with and experimenting on an instrument capable of playing melodies. There is obviously a lot more to music theory than the information in this lesson. To make you a more confident and well rounded musician, it is really worth your while to learn all you can about the way music is put together and the language used to explain it.
