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Yankadi II font * Notation A to Z
This page explains how to write music for
African percussion, using notation that is half way between letter
notation and tabulature on the one hand, and real western music notation
on the other. The simple principles have been outlined in the
Notationprimer.This page goes into things a bit more and explains the advanced
options you have with the Yankadi font.
Many people
come to djembe music without any other musical background, so I'm assuming
you know nothing about music notation yet.
Music structure
Music takes place in time. It is not two-dimensional like painting, not three-dimensional like sculpture, not four dimensional
like dance that takes place in space
and
time, no, music takes place in time only. Once a note is played, it has moved into the past. And the notes still to come are still in the future. So what you must note down, is which note
to play, and
when. When you play a note, can be defined in
many ways. In tabulature, and in this Yankadi font, it is defined by
creating beats that consist of pulses. For example, there can be 2 beats
of 4 pulses each to a second, which is the same as 120 beats per minute,
or 120 BPM. See, we are dividing time!
To divide time in a meaningful way so we can talk
about it and play it, we use the following concepts, which are loosely
based on traditional western music notation: I use comparisons from books
and writing to give you an idea of what we are talking about.
-
A
score
,
which is the complete written notation of a piece of music. This can be
compared to a full book.
-
A
part,
which
is the music for just one of the instruments. You can think of this as the
story line in a book, in which multiple story lines interweave.
-
Parts are written on a
staff
,
or music line, which in traditional western notation is made up out of 5
horizontal lines. In the Yankadi font this is a single line with different
symbols for the different notes. This is similar to writing a single
percussive instrument in traditional western notation, on a single line.
In a book, story lines are written on pages.
-
A
phrase
,
which is like a chapter. It is one complete section of the
music for one instrument. A phrase can be of any length. There are special
double vertical lines to mark the beginning and ending of a phrase. These
lines may or may not have dots to indicate that the phrase must be
repeated a number of times. And there may be an alternative ending to the
phrase when the last repetition is played.
-
A phrase consists of one or more
measures
or
bars
. Measures are divided by
thin vertical lines. If the phrase is like a chapter, then the measure
is like a page.
-
A measure consists of one or more
beats
.
In Yankadi we indicate beats by using
note
beams
to create groups of notes. So if a measure has 4 groups of notes, it has four beats to it.
You can think of beats as the combinations of stressed and unstressed syllables in a word.
The word "Yankadi" for example would have two beats, "Yanka" and
"di", and the first beat combines
a stressed ("Yan") and unstressed ("ka") syllable.
-
And a beat consists of one or more
pulses
.
Pulses are the regular division of time within the beat so we can position
the notes. Pulses are
possible
note positions. The pulses are
like the individual letters. And we use actual letters, like the s for the
slap or the dot for a rest, to write these pulses.
-
Finally, there is one more subdivision, smaller
than the pulse, and that is to descend into chaos...
Regular music notation allows for ever finer divisions, going from whole notes to
half notes to 1/4 notes, 1/8, 1/16, and so on. As a matter of fact, the default
writing method in the Yankadi font is 1/8 notes, with one note beam.
The
flam
, the
roulement
and
the
triplet
, are notes that are
played in between normal pulses, and have special symbols to write them.
To summarise the main concepts:
-
Written music consists of a
score,
with
parts
that are written on
staff
lines.
-
Musically speaking, a part consists of
phrases,
which are divided into
measures,
which are divided into
beats, which are divided into
pulses
or
possible note positions.
Here is an example without any notes at all, of a
phrase, with 2 bars, with 2 beats with 4 pulses each.
Note: Thenewly introduced elements in the typing are shown in red.
With the last example, if the note groups were
numbered 1 to 6, then you would play the groups 1 to 4 during all repeats,
except the very last repeat, then you play the groups 1 and 2 and 5 and 6.
So you replace the first ending, from the
coda
sign
(
1/2
) to the
repeat sign :||, by the alternative
coda
or ending, which starts at
the second coda sign.
Music notes
Apart from a
structure in time
that tells us how
the music progresses through time, we also need to know which
notes
to
play when. You need to know the instrument, and which notes it must play.
The instrument, djembe, doundoun, bell, can be written in front of
the staff (music line). As for the notes to play, these must be inserted
into our music itself, into our
structure in time
that we have created with phrases, measures, bars,
beats and pulses.
For typing these
notes, we use letters, such as the b for the
bass
,
the t for the
tone
and the s for
the
slap
.
Here are examples of the
Balakulandja1 (S)
and
Balakulandja 2 (B).
The brackets and note beams are not given in the typing for clarity, I'm
sure you know where to type them to create the score as shown.
Note: in
all the examples of what to type in, spaces are inserted for clarity.Don't copy the spaces!
Music instructions
For any musical part, the composer may want to give
lots of instructions to the player about how the part, the notes, are
supposed to be played. Fast, slow, loud, soft, restrained or brash. A lot
of the complexity of proper music notation comes from these instructions,
instructions that have to do with music dynamics and interpretation.
For percussion we don't need many instructions.
What is handy though, are instructions for the right or left hand;
instructions for soft ghost notes or accented loud notes; and a symbol to
tell you where the phrase starts (the asterix), and microtiming shift indicators. These instructions will
modify any particular note. You type the instructions before you type the
note they apply to. Try it!
Music layout
To help you structure the music on paper, there are
some more layout options, such as some symbols; the note beams; the space;
the normal bar line; phrase signs and phrase repeat signs. These are all
half the width of a normal note. There is also a
half
space
under the + key (that means you get
four
half spaces into one normal note width!), that may help you to align phrases underneath each other or to space out certain notes. Because
underneath the note
beam, you can pretty much
space out your notes as you like. You can even use Word's character
spacing options to put notes closer together or further apart. And finally
there is a bar line of zero width, so you can insert bar lines in the
music without widening the line.
Advanced notation
To write flams, rolls and triplets, extra symbols are available. The
keyboardmap
shows them all and explains briefly how to use the symbols.
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Enjoy, and Happy Drumming!
