Welcome to the second part of our introduction to musical terms and definitions. If you are about to undertake a course of piano online lessons, it will be helpful to gain a basic understanding of terms you will undoubtedly come across as you progress.

Melody - is the dominant musical line. In other words, this is basically the tune you are playing. In most cases this is played with the right hand, and usually appears on written music on the treble clef.

Notes - musical notes determine the duration (or length) and value of the note being played. Notes and values are semibreves (a whole note), minims (a half note), crotchets (quarter note), quavers (an eighth note), semiquavers ( a sixteenth) or demisemiquavers (a thirty-second note). For example, a semibreve in 4/4 time would last four beats, a crotchet would last for one beat.

Pitch - is determined by where the note is played on the keyboard, and the corresponding written note on the sheet music.

Rests - represent periods of silence in a musical piece. That is, you would stop playing for the length of time represented by the rest. Rests are of equal value to notes, therefore a semibreve rest would last for 4 beats in 4/4 time, a crochet rest for one beat.

Rhythm - occurs when playing a sequence of notes. In a musical band, the rhythm would typically come from the drums, which would keep the other musicians in time.

Stave - Staves are made up of horizontal lines and spaces. Using the treble clef, the lines from bottom to top are E, G, B, D, F (often remembered by the phrase "Every Good Boy Deserves Favor"). The names in the spaces are F, A, C, E. Putting the lines and spaces together gives you E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F which correspond with the piano keys.

Stems - are the lines extending from the notehead. They can point up or down. For single-note melodies, the stems usually point down for notes on the middle line or higher, and up for those below.

Tempo - is the speed at which the music is played. This is typically written at the start of a piece of music. In modern music this is called BPM (beats per minute).

Time signature - indicates how many beats there are in each bar of music (e.g. 4/4 for a traditional song, 3/4 for a waltz).

That concludes our overview of musical terms and definitions. As a beginner just starting out on a course of piano online lessons, some of these terms may already be familiar to you. Others may be entirely new, and at this stage it is useful to at least gain a rudimentary understanding of them, as you will quickly begin to come across most of these regularly as you make real progress. Mastering the piano is a challenging experience, but ultimately rewarding, so keep at it and you can gain a unique skill that will stay with you forever.