Inmusic,notes are distinct and isolatablesounds that act as the most basic building blocks for nearly all ofmusic. Thisdiscretization facilitates performance, comprehension, andanalysis.[1] Notes may be visually communicated bywriting them inmusical notation.
Notes can distinguish the generalpitch class or the specificpitch played by a pitchedinstrument. Although this article focuses on pitch, notes forunpitched percussion instruments distinguish between different percussion instruments (and/or different manners to sound them) instead of pitch.Note value expresses the relativeduration of the note intime.Dynamics for a note indicate howloud to play them.Articulations may further indicate how performers should shape theattack and decay of the note and express fluctuations in a note'stimbre andpitch. Notes may even distinguish the use of differentextended techniques by using special symbols.
The termnote can refer to a specific musical event, for instance when saying thesong "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".
Arhythm is formed from a sequence intime of consecutive notes (without particular focus on pitch) andrests (the time between notes) of various durations.
Alternatively, particularly in English- and some Dutch-speaking regions, and certainly in all ofGermany, pitch classes are typically represented by the first seven letters of theLatin alphabet (A, B, C, D, E, F and G), corresponding to theA minor scale. Several European countries, including Germany andCzechia, use H instead of B (see§ 12-tone chromatic scale for details).Byzantium used the namesPa–Vu–Ga–Di–Ke–Zo–Ni (Πα–Βου–Γα–Δι–Κε–Ζω–Νη).[2]
In traditionalIndian music, musical notes are calledsvaras and commonly represented using the seven notes, Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha and Ni.
In ascore, each note is assigned a specific vertical position on astaff position (a line or space) on thestaff, as determined by theclef. Each line or space is assigned a note name. These names are memorized bymusicians and allow them to know at a glance the proper pitch to play on their instruments.
Notes that belong to thediatonic scale relevant in atonal context are calleddiatonic notes. Notes that do not meet that criterion are calledchromatic notes oraccidentals. Accidental symbols visually communicate a modification of a note's pitch from its tonal context. Most commonly,[note 2] thesharp symbol (♯) raises a note by ahalf step, while theflat symbol (♭) lowers a note by a half step. This half stepinterval is also known as asemitone (which has anequal temperament frequency ratio of12√2 ≅ 1.0595). Thenatural symbol (♮) indicates that any previously applied accidentals should be cancelled. Advanced musicians use thedouble-sharp symbol () to raise the pitch by twosemitones, thedouble-flat symbol () to lower it by two semitones, and even more advanced accidental symbols (e.g. forquarter tones). Accidental symbols are placed tothe right of a note's letter when written in text (e.g. F♯ isF-sharp, B♭ isB-flat, and C♮ isC natural), but are placed tothe left of anote's head when drawn on astaff.
Systematic alterations to any of the 7 letteredpitch classes are communicated using akey 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 thatbar. However, this effect does not accumulate for subsequent accidental symbols for the same pitch class.
Assumingenharmonicity, accidentals can create pitch equivalences between different notes (e.g. the note B♯ represents the same pitch as the note C). Thus, a 12-notechromatic 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 achromatic scale built on C. Their corresponding symbols are in parentheses. Differences between German and English notation are highlighted inbold typeface. Although the English and Dutch names are different, the corresponding symbols are identical.
Chromatic scale note naming conventions of various languages and countries
Two pitches that are any number ofoctaves apart (i.e. theirfundamental frequencies are in a ratio equal to apower of two) are perceived as very similar. Because of that, all notes with these kinds of relations can be grouped under the samepitch class and are often given the same name.
The top note of amusical scale is the bottom note's secondharmonic 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 theinterval between a note and another with double frequency.
The octave belowtenorC is called the "great" octave. Notes in it and are written asupper 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 tenorC is called the "small" octave. Notes in it are written aslower case letters, sotenorC itself is writtenc inHelmholtz notation.
The next higher octave is called "one-lined". Notes in it include a prime symbol above the note's letter, so middleC is writtenc′.
Names of subsequently higher octaves use higher numbers before the "lined". Notes in each include an addition prime symbol above the note's letter.
MiddleC is namedC4 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 isA0, the highest isC8.
For instance, the standard440 Hz tuning pitch is namedA4 in scientific notation and instead nameda′ in Helmholtz notation.
Meanwhile, theelectronic musical instrument standard calledMIDI doesn't specifically designate pitch classes, but instead names pitches by counting from its lowest note: number 0(C−1 ≈ 8.1758 Hz); up chromatically to its highest: number 127(G9 ≈ 12,544 Hz). (Although theMIDIstandard is clear, the octaves actually played by any oneMIDI device don't necessarily match the octaves shown below, especially in older instruments.)
Comparison of pitch naming conventions over different octaves
Pitch is associated with thefrequency of physicaloscillations measured inhertz (Hz) representing the number of these oscillations per second. While notes can have any arbitrary frequency, notes inmore consonant music tends 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 playedin tune with the12 equal temperament system will be aninteger number of half-steps above (positive) or below (negative) that reference note, and thus have a frequency of:
Octaves automatically yieldpowers of two times the original frequency, since can be expressed as when is a multiple of 12 (with being the number of octaves up or down). Thus the above formula reduces to yield apower of 2 multiplied by 440 Hz:
Logarithmic plot of frequency inhertz versus pitch of achromatic scale starting onmiddle C. Each subsequent note has a pitch equal to the frequency of the prior note's pitch multiplied by12√2.
Thebase-2 logarithm of the above frequency–pitch relation conveniently results in a linear relationship with or:
When dealing specifically with intervals (rather than absolute frequency), the constant can be conveniently ignored, because thedifference 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 are1⁄100th of an equally-tempered semitone. Since one semitone equals 100 cents, one octave equals 12 ⋅ 100 cents = 1200 cents. Cents correspond to adifference in this logarithmic scale, however in the regular linear scale of frequency, adding 1 cent corresponds tomultiplying a frequency by1200√2 (≅ 1.000578).
Music notation systems have used letters of thealphabet for centuries. The 6th century philosopherBoethius is known to have used the first fourteen letters of the classicalLatin alphabet (theletter J did not exist until the 16th century),
A B C D E F G H I K L M N O
to signify the notes of the two-octave range that was in use at the time[10] and in modernscientific pitch notation are represented as
A2B2C3D3E3F3G3A3B3C4D4E4F4G4
Though it is not known whether this was his devising or common usage at the time, this is nonetheless calledBoethian 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 theperfect system orcomplete system – as opposed to other, smaller-range note systems that did not contain all possible species of octave (i.e., the seven octaves starting fromA,B,C,D,E,F, andG). A modified form of Boethius' notation later appeared in theDialogus de musica (ca. 1000) by Pseudo-Odo, in a discussion of the division of themonochord.[11]
Following this, the range (or compass) of used notes was extended to three octaves, and the system of repeating lettersA–G in each octave was introduced, these being written aslower-case for the second octave (a–g) and double lower-case letters for the third (aa–gg). When the range was extended down by one note, to aG, that note was denoted using the Greek lettergamma (Γ), the lowest note in Medieval music notation.[citation needed] (It is from this gamma that the French word for scale,gamme derives,[citation needed][12] and the English wordgamut, from "gamma-ut".[13])
The remaining five notes of the chromatic scale (the black keys on a piano keyboard) were added gradually; the first beingB♭, sinceB was flattened in certainmodes to avoid the dissonanttritone interval. This change was not always shown in notation, but when written,B♭ (B flat) was written as a Latin, cursive "𝒷", andB♮ (B natural) a Gothic script (known asBlackletter) or "hard-edged"𝔟. These evolved into the modern flat (♭) and natural (♮) symbols respectively. The sharp symbol arose from aƀ (barred b), called the "cancelled b".[citation needed]
In parts of Europe, including Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Norway, Denmark, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Finland, and Iceland (and Sweden before the 1990s), theGothic𝔟 transformed into the letterh (possibly forhart, German for "harsh", as opposed toblatt, German for "planar", or just because the Gothic 𝔟 and𝔥 resemble each other). Therefore, in current German music notation,H is used instead ofB♮ (B natural), andB instead ofB♭ (B flat). Occasionally, music written inGerman for international use will useH forB natural andBb forB flat (with a modern-script lower-case b, instead of a flat sign,♭).[citation needed] Since aBes orB♭ in Northern Europe (notatedB in modern convention) is both rare and unorthodox (more likely to be expressed as Heses), it is generally clear what this notation means.
In Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Romanian, Greek, Albanian, Russian, Mongolian, Flemish, Persian, Arabic, Hebrew, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Turkish and Vietnamese the note names aredo–re–mi–fa–sol–la–si rather thanC–D–E–F–G–A–B. These names follow the original names reputedly given byGuido d'Arezzo, who had taken them from the first syllables of the first six musical phrases of aGregorian chant melodyUt queant laxis, whose successive lines began on the appropriate scale degrees. These became the basis of thesolfège system. For ease of singing, the nameut was largely replaced bydo (most likely from the beginning ofDominus, "Lord"), thoughut is still used in some places. It was the Italian musicologist and humanistGiovanni Battista Doni (1595–1647) who successfully promoted renaming the name of the note fromut todo. For the seventh degree, the namesi (fromSancte Iohannes,St. John, to whom the hymn is dedicated), though in some regions the seventh is namedti (again, easier to pronounce while singing).[citation needed]
^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♯, Ges for G♭, Es for E♭). This system first arose in Germany and is used in almost all European countries whose main language is not English, Greek, or a Romance language (such as French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and Romanian).In most countries using these suffixes, the letter H is used to represent what is B natural in English, the letter B is used instead of B♭, and Heses (i.e., H𝄫) is used instead of B𝄫 (although Bes and Heses both denote the English B𝄫). Dutch-speakers in Belgium and the Netherlands use the same suffixes, but applied throughout to the notes A to G, so that B, B♭ and B have the same meaning as in English, although they are called B, Bes, and Beses instead of B, B flat and B double flat. Denmark also uses H, but uses Bes instead of Heses for B𝄫.
^used in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden.
^used in the Netherlands, and sometimes in Scandinavia after the 1990s, and Indonesia.
^used in Italy (diesis/bemolle are Italian spellings), France, Spain, Romania, Russia, Latin America, Greece, Israel, Turkey, Latvia and many other countries.
^Browne, Alma Colk (1979).Medieval letter notations: A survey of the sources (Ph.D. thesis). Urbana-Champaign, IL: University of Illinois.
Herlinger, Jan (2002). "Medieval canonics". In Christensen, Thomas (ed.).The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.ISBN0-521-62371-5.
^Pick, Edward (1869).An Etymological Dictionary Of The French Language. John Murray.
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