Musical Notes and Pitches

Understand Musical Notes, Pitches and tones in music.

Sound is nothing but vibrations produced in air. The frequency of the vibration is known as a Pitch (for example 440 Hz). The greater the frequency, the higher sounding the pitch!

The various pitches are then named as musical notes. It is these musical notes that we need to know and recognize to be able to play any musical instrument.

The seven musical notes are: A B C D E F G.
Besides these seven notes, there are accidentals which sharpen or flatten these seven basic notes.

Here’s how these musical notes are represented on a sheet of music.

You can read more about musical notes here.

Also Read: Why piano is so important to music studies

So, a pitch is basically a particular frequency of sound, and note is a name for that pitch.

What about a Tone?

There is no fixed definition for tone. Some use it as a synonym for “note”, whereas when it comes to keyboard instruments “tone” often means the “timbre” (instrument sound).

Here are some more ways in which the seven musical notes are referred.

In the Solfege system, the seven musical notes are called – do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, and ti (total seven syllables for the seven notes).

Do-Re-Mi” – THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965)

In Indian style, the seven musical notes are named as sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni