Musical note

For other uses, see Musical note (disambiguation).

In music, a note is either a unit of fixed pitch that has been given a name, or the graphic representation of that pitch in a notation system, and sometimes its duration, or a specific instance of either, so one can speak of "the second note of Happy Birthday" for example. The general and specific meanings are freely mixed by musicians, although they can be initially confusing: "the first two notes of Happy Birthday are the same note", meaning, "the first two sounds of Happy Birthday have the same pitch." A note is a discretization of musical or sound phenomena and thus facilitates musical analysis (Nattiez 1990, p.81n9).

Note name

In English, notes are given 7 letter names: A, B, C, D, E, F, and G (in order of rising pitch). These letter names repeat, so that the note above G is A (an octave higher than the first A) and the sequence continues indefinitely. Notes are used together as a musical scale or tone row. However, because there are actually 12 notes needed by diatonic music, the 7 letter names can also be given a modifier.

The two main modifiers are sharps and flats which respectively raise or lower the pitch of a note by a semitone. These are used to create the additional five notes necessary to complete the chromatic scale. The sharp symbol is ♯ (similar to the pound symbol, #), the flat symbol is ♭ (similar to a lower-case italic b). These accidentals are written after the note name; for example F♯ represents the note F sharp, B♭ is B flat.

In music notation the symbols are placed before the note symbol or at the beginning of the line as a key signature. The natural symbol (♮), can be inserted before a note to cancel a flat or sharp in the signature.

Sharps can also be applied to notes B and E creating notes that are equal to C and F respectively (in modern western musical practice). Similarly flats applied to C and F are other names for B and E. Pushing this further, double-sharps and double-flats are used to indicate raised sharps and lowered flats. For example B♭♭ is another name for A.

Numbers can be suffixed to the letter names to distiguish the octaves they fall in. Octaves are counted upward and run starting from C, where A4 is nowadays standardised to 440 Hz, lying in the octave containing notes from C4 to B4. The lowest note on most pianos is A0.

Continental note names

Another style of notation, rarely used in English, uses the suffix "is" to indicate a sharp and "es" (only "s" after A and E) for a flat, e.g. Fis for F♯, Bes for B♭, Es for E♭. In parts of Europe, the letter H is sometimes used instead of B, in which case B represents B♭.

Note name example

When notes are written out in a score, each note is assigned a specific vertical position on a staff position (a line or a space) on the staff, as determined by the clef. Each line or space is assigned a note name, these names are memorized by the musician and allows him or her to know at a glance the proper pitch to play on his or her instrument for each note-head marked on the page.

The staff above shows the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C and then in reverse order, with no key signature or accidentals.

Name	prime		second		third	fourth		fifth		sixth		seventh
Natural	C		D		E	F		G		A		B
Sharp (symbol)		C♯		D♯			F♯		G♯		A♯
Flat (symbol)		D♭		E♭			G♭		A♭		B♭
Sharp (text)		Cis		Dis			Fis		Gis		Ais
Flat (text)		Des		Es			Ges		As		Bes
Italian	Do		Re		Mi	Fa		Sol		La		Si
German	C		D		E	F		G		A	B	H
Frequency [Hz]	262	277	294	311	330	349	370	392	415	440	469	495

The frequency of a note doubles per octave. So the next C has a frequency of 524.

History of note names

Music notation systems have used letters of the alphabet for centuries. The 6th century philosopher Boethius is known to have used the first fifteen letters of the alphabet to signify the notes of the two-octave range that was in use at the time. Though it is not known whether this was his devising or common usage at the time, this is nonetheless called Boethian notation.

Following this, the system of repeating letters A-G in each octave was introduced, these being written as minuscules for the second octave and double minuscules for the third. When the compass of used notes was extended down by one note, to a G, it was given the Greek G (Γ), gamma. (It is from this that the French word for scale, gamme is derived, and the English word gamut.)

The remaining five notes of the chromatic scale (the black keys on a piano keyboard) were added gradually; the first being B which was flattened in certain modes to avoid the dissonant augmented fourth interval. This change was not always shown in notation, but when written, B♭ (B flat) was written as a Latin, round "b", and B♮ (B natural) a Gothic b. These evolved into the modern flat and natural symbols respectively. The sharp symbol arose from a barred b, called the "cancelled b".

In parts of Europe, including Germany, the natural symbol transformed into the letter H: in German music notation, H is B♮ (B natural) and B is B♭ (B flat).

In Italian notation the notes of scales are given in terms of Do - Re - Mi - Fa - Sol - La - Si rather than C - D - E - F - G - A - B. These names follow the original names given by Guido d'Arezzo, who had taken them from the first syllabs of the first seven verses of a Gregorian Chant called Ut queant laxis. "Do" replaced the originary "ut".

Note value

A written note can also have a note value, a code which determines the note's relative duration. These note values include quarter notes (crotchets), eighth notes (quavers), and so on.

See also

• Pensato
• Solfege

Source

• Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (1990). Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music (Musicologie générale et sémiologue, 1987). Translated by Carolyn Abbate (1990). ISBN 0691027145.

External links

• Tonalsoft Encyclopaedia of Tuning