US music terminology

[Alicks]

Hi, can anyone help me with some music theory?
I'm working on some toy products for the US market and someone from the US commented on one of the games (a sort of music tutor) saying that they have never heard the words "stave" and "dotted" used in the US. Is this true?

What do you call the five bars in a piece of music is it "staff" or "stave" or either or neither?
What do you call a note with a dot after it that adds half the value again, is it a "dotted" note as in a "dotted sixteenth note"?

Thanks everso,
Alex.

[mfrzrdrum]

I think your friend from the US doesn't know much.

It is just as you say. Staff is singular (speaking of one) and Stave is plural (speaking of more than one). If you are talking about the 5 lines and 4 spaces music is written on that is. In your post you said 5 bars, I don't know if you are calling the horizontal lines "bars". A bar is another word for measure here, refering to the vertical lines, or "bars", that seperate measures.

Dotted is also the common term here for adding half the value again.

But if this is for a toy, someone who has never studied music may be confused. If you asked the average guy on a US street what a dotted note was, he would have no idea.

Sorry about all th edits, I want to be as clear as possible.

[This message has been edited by mfrzrdrum (edited January 10, 2002).]

[This message has been edited by mfrzrdrum (edited January 10, 2002).]

[This message has been edited by mfrzrdrum (edited January 10, 2002).]

[Alicks]

mfrzrdrum thank you very much.

"I think your friend from the US doesn't know much."
You're right, but they're not my friend, just someone I have to deal with

Sorry about the bars thing. I was thinking lines and writing bars. (Read into that whatever you want.)

It's for an educational product so I want to make sure I get everything right. Thanks again.

[DJourg]

Originally posted by mfrzrdrum:
Sorry about all the edits...

For future reference, as you re-edit your post you can delete the 'This message ha been edited..' line(s) of your previous edited messages, so that you don't have to have more than one 'message has been edited' line in your post.

FYI. DJourg

[This is my second edit of this post; you'll always have one of these:

[This message has been edited by DJourg (edited January 11, 2002).]

[snared]

I have heard the same thing about 'staff' and 'stave'. As well as 'bar' and 'measure'. As far as I know its common knowledge for anyone with even a minor musical background (like me). So whoever you talked to doesn't know anything about music, apparently (not that I am trying to "judge" or anything).