Musical note
In music, notes are distinct and isolatable sounds that act as the most basic building blocks for nearly all of music. This discretization facilitates performance, comprehension, and analysis. Notes may be visually communicated by writing them in musical notation.
Notes can distinguish the general pitch class or the specific pitch played by a pitched instrument. Although this article focuses on pitch, notes for unpitched percussion instruments distinguish between different percussion instruments instead of pitch. Note value expresses the relative duration of the note in time. Dynamics for a note indicate how loud to play them. Articulations may further indicate how performers should shape the attack and decay of the note and express fluctuations in a note's timbre and pitch. Notes may even distinguish the use of different extended techniques by using special symbols.
The term note can refer to a specific musical event, for instance when saying the song "Happy Birthday to You", begins with two notes of identical pitch. Or more generally, the term can refer to a class of identically sounding events, for instance when saying "the song begins with the same note repeated twice".
Distinguishing duration
A note can have a note value that indicates the note's duration relative to the musical meter. In order of halving duration, these values are:| "American" name | "British" name | |
| double note | breve | |
| whole note | semibreve | |
| half note | minim | |
| quarter note | crotchet | |
| eighth note | quaver | |
| sixteenth note | semiquaver | |
| thirty-second note | demisemiquaver | |
| sixty-fourth note | hemidemisemiquaver | |
| ??? | hundred twenty-eighth note | semihemidemisemiquaver, quasihemidemisemiquaver |
Longer note values and shorter note values do exist, but are very rare in modern times. These durations can further be subdivided using tuplets.
A rhythm is formed from a sequence in time of consecutive notes and rests of various durations.
Distinguishing pitch
Distinguishing pitches of a scale
in most European countries and others use the solfège naming convention. Fixed do uses the syllables re–mi–fa–sol–la–ti specifically for the C major scale, while movable do labels notes of any major scale with that same order of syllables.Alternatively, particularly in English- and some Dutch-speaking regions, and certainly in all of Germany, pitch classes are typically represented by the first seven letters of the Latin alphabet, corresponding to the A minor scale. Several European countries, including Germany and Czechia, use H instead of B. Byzantium used the names Pa–Vu–Ga–Di–Ke–Zo–Ni.
In traditional Indian music, musical notes are called svaras and commonly represented using the seven notes, Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha and Ni.
Writing notes on a staff
In a score, each note is assigned a specific vertical position on a staff position on the staff, as determined by the clef. Each line or space is assigned a note name. These names are memorized by musicians and allow them to know at a glance the proper pitch to play on their instruments.\relative c'
\layout
\midi
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.
Accidentals
Notes that belong to the diatonic scale relevant in a tonal context are called diatonic notes. Notes that do not meet that criterion are called chromatic notes or accidentals. Accidental symbols visually communicate a modification of a note's pitch from its tonal context. Most commonly, the sharp symbol raises a note by a half step, while the flat symbol lowers a note by a half step. This half step interval is also known as a semitone. The natural symbol indicates that any previously applied accidentals should be cancelled. Advanced musicians use the double-sharp symbol to raise the pitch by two semitones, the double-flat symbol to lower it by two semitones, and even more advanced accidental symbols. Accidental symbols are placed to the right of a note's letter when written in text, but are placed to the left of a note's head when drawn on a staff.Systematic alterations to any of the 7 lettered pitch classes are communicated using a key signature. When drawn on a staff, accidental symbols are positioned in a key signature to indicate that those alterations apply to all occurrences of the lettered pitch class corresponding to each symbol's position. Additional explicitly-noted accidentals can be drawn next to noteheads to override the key signature for all subsequent notes with the same lettered pitch class in that bar. However, this effect does not accumulate for subsequent accidental symbols for the same pitch class.
12-tone chromatic scale
Assuming enharmonicity, accidentals can create pitch equivalences between different notes. Thus, a 12-note chromatic scale adds 5 pitch classes in addition to the 7 lettered pitch classes.The following chart lists names used in different countries for the 12 pitch classes of a chromatic scale built on C. Their corresponding symbols are in parentheses. Differences between German and English notation are highlighted in bold typeface. Although the English and Dutch names are different, the corresponding symbols are identical.
| English | C | C sharp | D | D sharp | E | F | F sharp | G | G sharp | A | A sharp | B |
| English | C | D flat | D | E flat | E | F | G flat | G | A flat | A | B flat | B |
| German | C | Cis | D | Dis | E | F | Fis | G | Gis | A | Ais | H |
| German | C | Des | D | Es | E | F | Ges | G | As | A | B | H |
| Swedish compromise | C | Ciss | D | Diss | E | F | Fiss | G | Giss | A | Aiss | H |
| Swedish compromise | C | Dess | D | Ess | E | F | Gess | G | Ass | A | Bess | H |
| Dutch | C | Cis | D | Dis | E | F | Fis | G | Gis | A | Ais | B |
| Dutch | C | Des | D | Es | E | F | Ges | G | As | A | Bes | B |
| Romance languages | do | do diesis | re | re diesis | mi | fa | fa diesis | sol | sol diesis | la | la diesis | si |
| Romance languages | do | re bemolle | re | mi bemolle | mi | fa | sol bemolle | sol | la bemolle | la | si bemolle | si |
| Byzantine | Ni | Ni diesis | Pa | Pa diesis | Vu | Ga | Ga diesis | Di | Di diesis | Ke | Ke diesis | Zo |
| Byzantine | Ni | Pa hyphesis | Pa | Vu hyphesis | Vu | Ga | Di hyphesis | Di | Ke hyphesis | Ke | Zo hyphesis | Zo |
| Japanese | Ha | Ei-ha | Ni | Ei-ni | Ho | He | Ei-he | To | Ei-to | I | Ei-i | Ro |
| Japanese | Ha | Hen-ni | Ni | Hen-ho | Ho | He | Hen-to | To | Hen-i | I | Hen-ro | Ro |
| Hindustani Indian | Sa | Re Komal | Re | Ga Komal | Ga | Ma | Ma Tivra | Pa | Dha Komal | Dha | Ni Komal | Ni |
| Carnatic Indian | Sa | Shuddha Ri | Chatushruti Ri | Sadharana Ga | Antara Ga | Shuddha Ma | Prati Ma | Pa | Shuddha Dha | Chatushruti Dha | Kaisika Ni | Kakali Ni |
| Carnatic Indian | Sa | Shuddha Ri | Shuddha Ga | Shatshruti Ri | Antara Ga | Shuddha Ma | Prati Ma | Pa | Shuddha Dha | Shuddha Ni | Shatshruti Dha | Kakali Ni |
| Bengali Indian | Sa | Komôl Re | Re | Komôl Ga | Ga | Ma | Kôṛi Ma | Pa | Komôl Dha | Dha | Komôl Ni | Ni |
Distinguishing pitches of different octaves
Two pitches that are any number of octaves apart are perceived as very similar. Because of that, all notes with these kinds of relations can be grouped under the same pitch class and are often given the same name.The top note of a musical scale is the bottom note's second harmonic and has double the bottom note's frequency. Because both notes belong to the same pitch class, they are often called by the same name. That top note may also be referred to as the "octave" of the bottom note, since an octave is the interval between a note and another with double frequency.