The music symbols are graphic representations of musical notes, used mainly in sheet music, as a way of instructing musicians and the conductor.
There are several musical symbols, and these are mainly divided between keys,notes, accidents and breaks.
keys
The keys are inscriptions present at the beginning of each score that show how it should be read by the musician. The clefs mark a note that serves as a reference for all others.
treble clef
The Treble Clave is the most common, it serves to guide most instruments, such as the guitar, violin and most wind instruments. The spiral part of the clef indicates that the note G should be read on the second line.
clef of fa
The F clef is used on lower instruments, the line between the two points shows where the F note should be read.
C key
The C key, in general, is used for voices. The union between the two reverse "C" marks where the note C should be read.
Notes and Break Symbols
The musical notes differ from each other by their position on the staff and each of the symbols indicates the length of time of each note. Similar to what happens with pauses, each drawing indicates the length of silence.
semi-brief
A semibreve is a 4-beat note, the same length as its rest (semibreve rest). Its symbol is a hollow circle, while the rest is a small dash at the bottom of the fourth line of the staff.
Minimum
The minim has 2 beats (half the time of the semibreve). The minimum symbol is a circle or ellipse with a vertical bar.
The minimum pause symbol, on the other hand, differs from the semibreve pause in that it is located at the top of the third line.
quarter note
The quarter note has 1 beat (half the time of the low note). The half-note symbol differs from the half-note in that it is completely filled.
eighth note
The eighth note has 1/2 beat (half the time of a quarter note)
sixteenth note
The sixteenth note is 1/4 time (half the time of an eighth note). Its symbol is similar to the eighth note, adding a line to the vertical bar of the note. The sixteenth note rest, on the other hand, adds a line with a dot.
spindle
The Fusa is 1/8 time (half the time of a sixteenth note). A line is added to its symbol, similar to what occurs between the eighth and the sixteenth note. The same is true for your pause symbol, one more line with a small circle is added.
semi-fuse
The Semifusa has 1/16 time (half the time of a zone).
Accidents
Accidents indicate a change in pitch of notes. The most common accidents are:
- Sharp (♯) - raises (higher) halftone to the note that receives this symbol.
- Flat (♭) - decreases (lower) halftone to the note that receives this symbol.
- Natural (♮) - cancels previous accidents.
Use of music symbols on social media
Music symbols are often played as graphic characters in shareable text, mainly through the social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, among others.
In these cases, as a rule, users use musical notes in the sense of assigning a melody to the text, such as belonging to the lyric part of a song, for example.
The most used characters are: ♩, ♬, ♭, ♮ and ♯.
Learn more about the meaning of Musical notes.
