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.
Scientific versus Helmholtz pitch notation
Two nomenclature systems for differentiating pitches that have the same pitch class but which fall into different octaves are:- Helmholtz pitch notation, which distinguishes octaves using prime symbols and letter case of the pitch class letter.
- * The octave below tenor C is called the "great" octave. Notes in it and are written as upper case letters.
- ** The next lower octave is named "contra". Notes in it include a prime symbol below the note's letter.
- ** Names of subsequent lower octaves are preceded with "sub". Notes in each include an additional prime symbol below the note's letter.
- * The octave starting at tenor C is called the "small" octave. Notes in it are written as lower case letters, so tenor C itself is written c in Helmholtz notation.
- ** The next higher octave is called "one-lined". Notes in it include a prime symbol above the note's letter, so middle C is written c′.
- ** Names of subsequently higher octaves use higher numbers before the "lined". Notes in each include an addition prime symbol above the note's letter.
- Scientific pitch notation, where a pitch class letter is followed by a subscript Arabic numeral designating a specific octave.
- * Middle C is named C4 and is the start of the 4th octave.
- ** Higher octaves use successively higher number and lower octaves use successively lower numbers.
- ** The lowest note on most pianos is A0, the highest is C8.
Meanwhile, the electronic musical instrument standard called MIDI doesn't specifically designate pitch classes, but instead names pitches by counting from its lowest note: number 0 ; up chromatically to its highest: number 127
Pitch frequency in hertz
Pitch is associated with the frequency of physical oscillations measured in hertz representing the number of these oscillations per second. While notes can have any arbitrary frequency, notes in more consonant music tend to have pitches with simpler mathematical ratios to each other.Western music defines pitches around a central reference "concert pitch" of A4, currently standardized as 440 Hz. Notes played in tune with the 12 equal temperament system will be an integer number of half-steps above or below that reference note, and thus have a frequency of:
Octaves automatically yield powers of two times the original frequency, since can be expressed as when is a multiple of 12. Thus the above formula reduces to yield a power of 2 multiplied by 440 Hz:
Logarithmic scale
The base-2 logarithm of the above frequency–pitch relation conveniently results in a linear relationship with or :When dealing specifically with intervals, the constant can be conveniently ignored, because the difference between any two frequencies and in this logarithmic scale simplifies to:
Cents are a convenient unit for humans to express finer divisions of this logarithmic scale that are of an equally-tempered semitone. Since one semitone equals 100 cents, one octave equals 12 ⋅ 100 cents = 1200 cents. Cents correspond to a difference in this logarithmic scale, however in the regular linear scale of frequency, adding 1 cent corresponds to multiplying a frequency by .
MIDI
For use with the MIDI standard, a frequency mapping is defined by:where is the MIDI note number. 69 is the number of semitones between C−1 and A4.
Conversely, the formula to determine frequency from a MIDI note is:
Pitch names and their history
Music notation systems have used letters of the alphabet for centuries. The 6th century philosopher Boethius is known to have used the first fourteen letters of the classical Latin alphabet,to signify the notes of the two-octave range that was in use at the time and in modern scientific pitch notation are represented as
Though it is not known whether this was his devising or common usage at the time, this is nonetheless called Boethian notation. Although Boethius is the first author known to use this nomenclature in the literature, Ptolemy wrote of the two-octave range five centuries before, calling it the perfect system or complete system – as opposed to other, smaller-range note systems that did not contain all possible species of octave. A modified form of Boethius' notation later appeared in the Dialogus de musica by Pseudo-Odo, in a discussion of the division of the monochord.
Following this, the range of used notes was extended to three octaves, and the system of repeating letters A–'G in each octave was introduced, these being written as lower-case for the second octave and double lower-case letters for the third. When the range was extended down by one note, to a G', that note was denoted using the Greek letter gamma, the lowest note in Medieval music notation.
The remaining five notes of the chromatic scale were added gradually; the first being B, since B was flattened in certain modes to avoid the dissonant tritone interval. This change was not always shown in notation, but when written, B was written as a Latin, cursive "", and B a Gothic script or "hard-edged". These evolved into the modern flat and natural symbols respectively. The sharp symbol arose from a , called the "cancelled b".