What does "rubato" mean?

_Rubato is something we all hear but can never quite define. Two musicians, one piece of music, separate performances. One performance is soulful, moving. The other is static, straightforward, just notes on a page. What is the difference? If both musicians are highly skilled and qualified, what makes one performance so much more heartfelt than the other? It's rubato, an emotion-driven flexibility of tempo and note duration that adds so much character to a piece of music that we barely notice anything but. Rubato is pushing and pulling, it's gauging the intensity of a piece and making adjustments based on that. It is, almost literally, the heart of the musician.


But just as emotions are tricky, so is rubato. It isn't something to be messed with lightly, and it certainly isn't for beginners. Because rubato constitutes a gigantic bending of the rules, it's something that needs to be touched with kid gloves. Beginners who barely know the rules to begin with aren't yet in a position to be bending them -- even though an accidental rubato is often found in those just learning to play with a bit of gusto. Rubato is, after all, something that we hear in all types of music without really knowing that we're hearing it; it's only natural that it would be imitated by beginners who often learn to play based on what they've heard before.

Rubato shouldn't be confused with a tempo change, though it can certainly do that. Tempo changes are written into a piece of music and controlled by a conductor; though tempo changes often give the impression of rubato, rubato is never written into a piece of music. It is felt and controlled by the singular musician at his or her discretion -- and that discretion is vital to the piece of music. It's important for a musician to be tasteful with the amount of rubato he or she uses. It's fine to adjust the tempo at a particular spot, but that tempo must be brought fully back. A musician can change the length of several notes, but the placement must be perfect, otherwise it will sound like a mistake. Rubato, however heartfelt and emotionally driven, isn't always done on the fly (though it can be). It's frequently practiced into a piece of music so frequently that it becomes a part of that piece for the musician playing it. But the beauty of rubato is that no matter how practiced it is, it will always sound fresh to the listener, if executed correctly. Perfectly executed rubato is the difference between feeling a piece of music and just hearing it -- a difference vitally important to the listener as well as the musician.





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What is "honky-tonk" piano?

_Honky-tonk piano is a very rhythmic, very rollicking style of piano playing most often associated with ragtime. The term itself comes from a name given to certain bars in the early 20th century; these were rough bars that often encouraged rowdy behavior and brought in self-made piano players to entertain the roughshod crowd. When honky-tonk piano first emerged, it seemed to be a musical representation of that type of behavior; honky-tonk piano was rowdy and rough, catering to working-class audiences who just wanted to dance and have a good time.


The honky-tonk piano style itself is extremely distinctive, enough so that a particular sound associated with it is included on modern digital keyboards. It's a slightly out-of-tune, twangy sound that reflects an old piano being played in an old bar. It's similar to ragtime; but unlike ragtime, honky-tonk piano is less concerned with overt melody and more with the percussive elements of the player. It was extremely rhythmic, extremely danceable and extremely popular among ragtime fans. And what's more, honky-tonk piano eventually went on to inspire a whole host of piano styles, including some branches of jazz and boogie-woogie; in some ways, the original honky-tonk piano was a precursor to the familiar walking bass found in a variety of musical styles.

Honky-tonk piano has since morphed into a style different from that of ragtime, a style sometimes associated with backwoods country music. It could have something to do with the honky-tonk piano's specific sound; the out-of-tune honky-tonk piano tone at times mimics the quality of instruments like banjos and fiddles, creating a great complement to the fast, vivacious music found on the front porches of southern homes. And honky-tonk piano even moved forward to influence many branches of modern country music, especially alternative country that relies heavily on rhythmic elements as opposed to melodic.





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What does "Metre" mean in music?

Metre divides music into measures of beats that are stressed or unstressed, accented or unaccented. These measures are what a song is made of; think of them as rhythmic building blocks, building blocks that have been built by metre. Using divided sections like these helps to define exactly what part of the metre is to be accented and adds structure and organization to a song. But these building blocks can't outshine the metre itself; measures may be the bookshelf, but metre is the books that fill it. It is, simply, rhythm. Beats. The backbone of a song that, without it, would be messy and chaotic (exempting, of course, some experimental music that strives to be so).

The metre of a song is indicated by that song's time signature; metre is the physical form of that notation. Just as a note is the written form of a pitch, time signature is the written form of metre. It gives us the specifics of a metre, but doesn't replace it. Understanding how time signatures function in the way that they do is the very basis of metre.

A song's metre is understood by two elements: how many beats are in one measure and what type of note constitutes one beat. A 4/4 metre, for instance, has four beats per each measure with the quarter note making up one beat. A 3/4 metre has three beats per measure with the quarter note making up the beat. A 6/8 metre isn't read like this, however; it has two beats per measure with a dotted quarter note making up the beat. This type of metre, the kind shown by a time signature with a top number of six or higher that is divisible by three, are compound and found by dividing the top number and multiplying the bottom number by three.

Metre comes in tons of forms, straightforward or syncopated. A 4/4 metre is the most common, used almost without exception in rock and pop songs because of its straightforward beat that makes writing to it (and following it) very easy. 3/4 metre is the second most common, creating a swingy, syncopated beat; this is also found in rock and pop songs, most typically in slower ballads. 6/8 metre is home to the waltz, 12/8 metre is used by blues musicians, and 2/2 metre (also called cut time) is what marches are made of. But other sorts of metre, like 6/4 or 5/8 or even 13/4, are often used to innovative effect, creating an effect that makes the rhythm hard to pin down. Though this type of metre, known as irregular, are largely known for being hard to follow, some musicians have made it clear that a song does not have to be in 4/4 to be catchy. Consider Pink Floyd, for instance. One of their most popular songs, "Money," is written in 5/8 metre. Sure, it isn't 4/4, it has an offbeat nature, but it certainly isn't hard to follow. The metre provides the heartbeat, and the rest of the song follows it; if that heartbeat keeps going strong, the listener is bound to follow it as well.





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What are "leger lines"?

Leger lines (also written as ledger lines) are notation devices used to show notes that are too high or too low for the regular lines of a musical staff. A staff consists of five lines a four spaces, each of which correspond to a specific note. But notes that don't fall within those nine areas must go somewhere, so extra leger lines are drawn above or below the original staff to accommodate these notes. When learning to read music, young students often learn to recognize middle C early and quickly by its place on a leger line; it's represented by a leger line one place below E, which is the bottom line of a treble clef staff.
Leger lines are both extremely beneficiary and occasionally confusing, depending on the number of lines drawn. On the one hand, leger lines keep a piece of sheet music from jumping into different clefs for brief periods of time. Multiple clef changes can be difficult for musicians as each clef's staff represents notes differently. An F on a treble clef staff, for instance, is not an F on a bass clef staff. Leger lines help avoid this confusion by making extra space for high or low notes without having to incorporate constant and disorienting clef changes.
On the other hand, however, multiple leger lines can be too difficult to read. Notes located on three or four leger lines are usually engrained into a musician's sight-reading knowledge, but anything more than that can trip up the efficiency of a reading. It's difficult to smoothly read a piece of music while trying to count leger lines and figure out a very high or very low note. In these situations, a clef change is absolutely necessary. Still, it's the composer's choice whether or not to use leger lines here. If he or she is confident that those reading the music will be able to decipher it, leger lines may be used uniformly without a clef change, even if a clef change would be theoretically correct.



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What are "piano tabs"?

Piano tabs, strictly speaking, are a form of sheet music that notates the music by showing where the fingers are to be placed instead of the notes themselves; the form is also known as tablature and is frequently used for guitar, as well. Technically, there is no such thing as piano tab. Tablature, though vast in its capabilities, is only intended for fretted string instruments, and while piano is certainly a string instrument, it isn't fretted. The term piano tab is actually used to refer to fingering charts (charts often used in instruction to aid in the correct placement of the fingers on the keys) or, most commonly, traditional sheet music.


Piano tab in terms of traditional sheet music is the written notation for a piece of music. It tells that musician what to play, for how long and in what sort of manner. Notes are dictated via a series of ovals, often stemmed, on a musical staff consisting of five lines and four spaces. Where the notes are located vertically on the staff indicates what pitch is to be played, and the note's physical appearance in the piano tab indicates its duration. Piano tab also includes other specifications like time signature (the song's meter), key signature (the key in which the song is played) and tempo (the speed at which the song is played).

Not all piano tab indicates the same things, however. Some piano tab, especially that found in jazz ensembles and popular music groups, is very limited, notating only the bare essentials of chord progression and tempo. In this case, piano tab is really just a quick reminder of what needs to be played; it certainly isn't relied on for the detailed nuance of the song. And some piano tab, often referred to as a score, is extremely detailed, including not only the piano parts, but the parts of every other instrument as well. This type of piano tab is intended mostly for conductors, though sometimes pianists use condensed versions as a guide to the overall melody.

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What is a "foxtrot"?

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The foxtrot is a ballroom dance named after Harry Fox, the vaudeville actor who invented it in the early 1900s. It's an altered version of the popular two-step but with two quicker steps (otherwise known as trots) figured in, making the dance pattern slow-slow-quick-quick. The wildly popular foxtrot eventually branched into two separate evolutions: the quickstep, which is a combination of the foxtrot and the charleston danced to much faster music, and the slowfox, the slower version of the foxtrot that retains most of its original qualities. Both are still danced today, though the quickstep seems to be the most common.


Though all music used to dance the foxtrot became known as foxtrot music, it was initially danced exclusively to ragtime. Foxtrot ragtime is a syncopated style of music characterized by a bass note on the first and third beats and short chords on the second and fourth; foxtrot ragtime (or ragtime in general) is also known for its use of the walking bass. It's a fairly upbeat, energetic style of music that fit surprisingly well with the happy foxtrot.

Ragtime music, in all of its many forms, eventually became so entwined with the foxtrot that all ragtime was considered by some to be merely foxtrot music. But it's important to note here that foxtrot ragtime, in all its popular glory, was a late, late version of the influential style of music. Prior to the foxtrot craze, ragtime was slightly less syncopated and of a slightly different dynamic. It was certainly a danceable style of music, but it didn't become exclusively associated with any one dance until the foxtrot was popularized in the early 1900s. Foxtrot ragtime, the late version that accompanied the dance, added a syncopated dotted-note beat to accommodate the foxtrot steps. The foxtrot, even as it lost some of its steam, eventually moved on to be danced to a variety of musical styles, but its earliest heyday will always be associated with the late era of foxtrot ragtime.



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What is "Disco"?

Disco is a funk-influenced style of music completely particular to the 1970s. It represents, quite possibly, one of the largest and most short-lived crazes of modern times; as quickly as it came rushing in, it came crashing down. Disco music itself, apart from the trend, is characterized by a solid bass driving the song (and often offering the only melody), guitar mired in wah-wah pedal, and very specific drumbeat: a steady kick drum hit on every 4/4 beat, snare on the second and fourth beats and an eight-beat hi-hat shuffle that opens at every snare. Sounds complicated, but this disco beat is shockingly familiar outside of the text.

Disco music at first was never intended for listening; it was simply the soundtrack to a dance phenomenon. The music, as well as the trend, reflected a sort of decadence that served as the anti-hippie; instead of fighting civil hatred with hugs and love, the disco era fought it with drugs and dancing, hedonism. But even as disco spawned out of fairly noble, political roots, its commercialization stripped it of any sort of social commentary. Disco remained largely underground until the movie "Saturday Night Fever" shed light on the trend. Suddenly, the music became listenable outside of the dance, and the dance was all anyone wanted to do. Record labels began releasing disco albums at warp speed, and even rock bands like Kiss hopped on the wagon by creating disco-driven singles.

This level of saturation was all the trend needed to come to a grinding halt. People began to loathe it as quickly as others had loved it, and the backlash against disco was one of the largest in music history. Disco albums were burned and clubs were abandoned; the commercialization that brought so many people so much money was suddenly seen as the downfall of modern musical society. Rock bands, specifically the influx of anti-disco punks, were the new saviors.

Ironically and strangely, disco has recently seen a revival within the very scene that once shunned it. New independent bands with an ear for the past have recently begun toying with the disco beat, creating something coined by critics as "disco punk." But, just like they did before, modern rock fans have grown tired of the disco revival, spawning a new backlash that shows no immediate signs of stopping. Disco is one area of music that makes a revival next to impossible.





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Piano Chord Symbols: Slash Chords

Slash chords are chords that look like this:

C/Bb or F/A or G7/F etc.

Improvising Piano Blues

Improvising the blues on the piano involves learning the structure of the blues as well as the blues scale.

How To Create A "Flowing River of Sound" on the Piano

Use open-voiced arpeggios in the left hand while playing broken chords in the right hand.