Shortly afterward, shapes were invented to represent the syllables. The four syllable variation of Guido's original system was prominent in 17th century England, and entered the US in the 18th century. The ascending scale using the fa, so, la, fa, so, la, mi, fa syllables represent a variation of the hexachord system introduced by the 11th century monk Guido of Arezzo, who originally introduced a six-note scale using the syllables ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la.
The system illustrated above is a four-shape system six of the notes of the scale are grouped in pairs assigned to one syllable/shape combination. The 7-note system as used in a traditional tunebook (the Christian Harmony).
This means that just four shapenotes can adequately reflect the "feeling" of the whole scale.įour-shape vs. The seventh and eighth notes, being separated by a semitone, are indicated mi-fa. The fourth to sixth notes are also a tone apart and are also fa, sol, la. The first three notes of any major scale – fa, sol, la – are each a tone apart. The first note of a minor key is always La, followed by Mi, Fa, etc. The first note of a major key always has the triangular Fa note, followed (ascending) by Sol, La, etc. The syllables and notes of a shape note system are relative rather than absolute they depend on the key of the piece. Next, they sing the same notes to the words of the music. When a song is first sung by a shape note group, they normally sing the syllables (reading them from the shapes) to solidify their command over the notes. This association can be used to help in reading the music. Now let's see how the two versions of our bass line would look when written in staff notation both with and without rests.A skilled singer experienced in a shape note tradition has developed a fluent triple mental association, which links a note of the scale, a shape, and a syllable. Notice how this closely parallels the way their equivalent note symbols are constructed, with each having an extra flag. The eighth-rest, sixteenth-rest, thirty-second-rest and sixty-fourth-rest use the same basic figure, but each has an extra hook. Two or more rest symbols together simply extends the size of the rest to their total length. The half-rest looks similar to the whole-rest, but you will see that it sits above the third staff line, rather than hanging from the fourth line (staff lines are numbered starting from the bottom).īoth it and the quarter-rest can be mixed in with note or other rest symbols wherever they are needed. So for music in 3/4 time (such as the Skater's Waltz earlier) the whole-rest would have a length of only three quarter-notes.
While it has a theoretical length of four quarter-notes, it is common to use it for a full bar of rest in any meter. The whole-rest also has the special feature of some flexibility in its length. The whole-rest is something of an exception, because it generally occupies the whole bar, and so it is placed in the centre. Normally rest symbols are placed in the same way as note symbols, evenly spaced across the bar from left to right. In fact, there is an equivalent length rest for every note symbol that we covered earlier.
You can hear that the second version sounds much more punchy, because the discontinuities at the end of each note also contribute to the rhythm, making it richer and tighter.Īs with note symbols, there is a series of symbols used for rests, each one half the length of its neighbour. One uses full length notes, while the other uses shorter notes with rests in between. This goes a long way towards creating satisfying music, with good dynamic balance between musical activity and rest.Įven within a phrase, rests can be used with great effect to add strength to the rhythm of the melody.Ĭompare the two bass lines below. Likewise with music it is important to provide spaces, allowing the listener to absorb each musical phrase before the next one starts. If this sounds strange to you, imagine listening to someone giving a speech who never paused for a breath! It would soon sound painfully monotonous, and your ear would crave for a break to give relief to the unending stream of words. In music, the spaces between notes are often as important as the notes themselves.