Musical-Note

A musical-note is just called a 'Note' within the context of music discussions, and has various sound characteristics that you hear and can identify, which include pitch, duration, volume, and tone.

Imagine the first musicians playing together, and the one plays some sounds on his hypothetical hand-fashioned bone whistle-flute and the other likes what he hears. "Hey," says the listener, "That sounded good! I should play it for her! How'd you do that?" 

"Okay," says the player, "Here's what I did. Make a note: Two-holes-covered for one-heartbeat, then one hole uncovered for two heartbeats, then ..."

And so it could have begun, and a way to remember what sounds were played started developing. 

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As more sounds were produced by more musical instruments, certain regularities were observed--that is, people were able to hear similarities in the sounds, even among instruments with different tones.  Some of these characteristics seemed familiar even when one sounded "high" and one sounded "low", something about them sounded the same--even though they sounded clearly different. 

When scientists and mathematicians investigated they found that the rate of vibration of the instrument producing the tone was directly related to this characteristic-of-familiarity. They counted the number of times the instrument's string, for example, went back and forth in a second and called this the 'Frequency' of the sound.  (The name Hertz (abbreviated Hz) is the name of the units of the number of vibrations that happen in a second.)

As scientists and theorists do, they began to document their findings; people began to organize sounds by these frequencies and give names to them. (For example, today we say 440 Hz is a particular 'A' note.) They noticed that if they doubled the frequency of the vibration, the sound had that characteristic-of-familiarity, despite the faster rate. This was true whatever the initial frequency was; double it, that similar characteristic appeared; or, similarly, cut the vibration rate in half and the sound still had that characteristic-of-similarity.

This vibrational frequency of the sound and it's characteristic-of-familiarity has been named the 'Pitch'. The pitch is the most important element of the Note specification (which includes duration and other characteristics as well) and often in music discussions the word 'note' primarily refers to the pitch, unless otherwise stated.

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The organization of sounds is fundamentally based on the pitch, which has this repeating nature when the frequency of vibration doubles. That means there is no need to take note of every possible pitch and give it an identifier or name, or memorize vibration rates! Western sound organization evolved into the well-known 7-pitch 'Octaves', where every 8th note has the same pitch (that is, an integer multiple of the original pitch (or inverse)).

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The Western pitch identifiers are these letters of the Latin alphabet:

A, B, C, D, E, F, G.

 

(Note that there are 5 other standard pitches that are identified relative to these absolutely-named ones by whether they are higher or lower in frequency. The next identified pitch higher than a named-pitch is called the 'Sharp' (notated #), while the next pitch lower than a named-pitch is called the 'Flat' (notated b).  The same sound for these relative-pitches has 2 common identifiers, both the sharp and the flat.  For example, the sound associated with the relative-pitch C# is the same as the sound of the relative-pitch Db.

Here are all the pitches, absolute and relative, within each repeating-set of frequencies called "octaves" (after the named pitches), first using the sharp relationships, then using the flat relationships:

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           First Octave              |          Second Octave
 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10 11 12 | 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10 11 12

 A  A# B  C  C# D  D# E  F  F# G  G# | A  A# B  C  C# D  D# E  F  F# G  G#

 A  Bb B  C  Db D  Eb E  F  Gb G  Ab | A  Bb B  C  Db D  Eb E  F  Gb G  Ab

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To completely specify the sound, the Note must specify both the pitch and the octave in which the pitch occurs. For example, so-called "middle-c" is called C4, where the 4 specifies the octave in which the C occurs. However, the octave number is seldom specified in practice, arising from the music-notation or common characteristics of the instrument, or traditional pitch ranges, for example for singers, male or female, bass, tenor, alto, soprano.

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Pitch Relationships

Pitches with the same names occur in different octaves. When they are in adjacent octaves they are called simply "octaves" of each-other. "An octave" is two notes sounding at the same time, one octave apart. 

Notice in the pitch-names above there are 12 different absolute plus relative pitch identifiers, after which the names repeat. (I have shown the pitch-names starting with the first letter in the alphabet, 'A', but that is arbitrary. You can start anywhere, but it's convenient to start at the beginning..)

When pitch relationships are discussed, the "distance" between the pitches is often referred to.  As we saw with an octave, the distance between the repeating pitch names is 12, where you start counting at any given pitch.  This distance is called an 'Interval', and the units of measurement of intervals is called the 'Half-Step'.  (Don't blame me! I wouldn't do it that way!) By definition, a 'Whole-Step' is exactly 2 half-steps.  Other common intervals are also named based on the 7-pitch 'Scale' sequence of all pitch names, to be discussed later.

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Scale

The most fundamental scale is just all the named pitches in order, starting at the beginning. So the repeating pattern over different octaves, looks like this:

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[1 2 3 4 5 6 7][8 9 10 11 12  13 14]

[A B C D E F G][A B C D E F G][A B C D E F G]...

Since we're considering the relationships between the pitches, let's look at the pattern of intervals between the successive pitches in this scale.  Using the table of all 12 pitch identifiers from above, and remembering successive pitches are called 1 half-step apart while pitches 2 half-steps apart are called whole-steps, we can see that the interval between the first two pitches, A and B, is 2 half-steps. Just start counting at the first pitch, stepping from there. So: A => A# => B, or A => Bb => B, starting at A yields 2 counts (each => is counted) to get to B, that count is called a half-step, so 2 half-steps are between A and B, which equals a whole-step. The interval between B and C is only 1 half-step because there are no (sharp or flat) pitch names in between. The resulting pattern is this:

whole-step, half-step, whole-step, whole-step, half-step, whole-step, whole-step

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to get back to the beginning of the repeating pitch set scale.

That pattern of whole-steps and half-steps has a characteristic sound-relationship, and is called a 'Minor' scale. (Songs using minor scales are often considered to sound sad.) The scale is named by its first, or 'Root' note, also called the 'Tonic' of the key. So this first scale we've seen starts on A and is therefore called the A-minor scale, which is associated with the key called by that name, notated as "Am".

 

The 'Major' scale has a different characteristic pattern (and sound-characteristic) of whole-steps and half-steps, and the one with all named pitches is the C scale, which is associated with the key of C.  Here is the C major scale, called simply the key of C.
 

[1 2 3 4 5 6 7][8 9 10 11  12 13 14]

[C D E F G A B][C D E F G A B][C D E F G A B]...

 

The pattern of intervals for all major scales is:

whole-step, whole-step, half-step, whole-step, whole-step, whole-step, half-step.

 

Scales can be built for all named pitches in this way, just start with the pitch name and use all pitches in order, starting over after G at A. Each starting pitch yields it associated 'Mode', as discussed in music theory, each with its own unique pattern of intervals that yields a characteristic sound-relationship. 

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Major vs. Minor Chords

The three notes of a chord 'Triad' are named the root, the third, and the fifth. The middle note "third" may have 3 or 4 step-counts (half-steps), but the root and the fifth stay as the same pitch.  If the number of half-steps is 3 the chord is called a 'Minor' chord, while if there are 4 half-steps it is called a 'Major' chord.  For example, the C major chord is C+E+G and the Am minor chord is A+C+E. 
 

To change a major chord to a minor chord, the middle-note third is flatted to go from 4 half-steps to 3 half-steps, so the C major chord C+E+G becomes C+Eb+G. Similarly, to change a minor chord to its major equivalent, the third is sharped (raised) to be 4 half-steps instead of 3, so the Am minor chord A+C+E becomes the A major chord A+C#+E.

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Intervals

Look at the C scale above and see the association between the numbers and the pitch names in the first octave (the notes in the square brackets []). The 1, called the root, is the scale name, here C, then D is 2, E is 3, F is 4, G is 5, A is 6, and B is 7, and so on in the next octave, where the 8 is the octave C, then 9 is D again, like 2, etc. To understand sound, pitch, note relationships this must be thoroughly understood. There is no point going any further until it is.

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The pitch-interval (or simply "interval", in a musical context) is based on distance the pitches are apart, where the count starts with the first pitch and ends at the last. A very important interval is the third, so let's use that as our first example.

Let's start at the beginning of the named notes in a major scale, with the pitch called C.  We always count in successive order, so 1 is C, 2 is D, and 3 is E.  A distance of 3 is called a third. The second pitch E is said to be a third from the first pitch C.

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The interval called a "second" has an interval of--you guessed it--2. C to D is a second. Similarly, C to A is a sixth and C to B is a seventh, called the "Major 7th" because, due to the frequency of use in most music in general, the flat 7th is implied by default when the term "7th" is used without a modifier (e.g. "Major").

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The Fifth is considered the 'Dominant' pitch of the scale, second only in importance to the tonic, or root note (number 1, where you start counting). The Fourth also has a special name, the 'Subdominant' pitch. The chords built on the Root, Dominant, and Subdominant pitches of the scale are the foundational chords of most tonal music.

So, the first chords to be aware of in any key are the One (by convention, Roman Numeral I), Four (Roman numeral IV) and Five (V). The I, IV, V chords are the basis of pop, rock, country, blues, and all their derivatives save Jazz, as well as classical music.

 

(Jazz focusses more on the two, five, one chords, i.e. ii, V, I. The ii chord is a close cousin of the IV chord (ii7 is an inversion of IV6), so it's more the sequence of the chords than the pitches that are used in the music.)

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Key of C Chords 

Proceeding through the pitches in the C scale, taking every other pitch name in the scale to be members of the 3-note triad built (without inversion) starting on that pitch:
1: Root, Tonic, I: C E G,  the C chord (triads) [no inversions]

2: Second, ii:      D F A,  the Dm chord (pronounced D minor)

3: Third, iii:          E G B,  the Em chord

4: Fourth, IV:     F A C,  the F chord (subdominant)

5: Fifth, V:          G B D,  the G chord (dominant)

6: Sixth, vi:          A C E,  the Am chord

7: Seventh, vii:   B D F,  the Bdim chord (B diminished, sometime B-)

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Notice that by convention, chord names use Roman Numerals and major chords are upper case while minor chords are lower case to make it easier to distinguish.

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To build 4-note chords, just add the next in the sequence of every-other-pitch-name to get: 

IM7:     CMaj7  C E G B  where the "Dominant" (normal) 7th is C E G Bb 

ii7        Dm7     D F A C

iii7:       Em7     E G B D

IVM7:   FMaj7  F A C E  where the "Dominant" (normal) 7th is F A C Eb

V7:        G7        G B D F

vi7        Am7     A C E G

vii-7     Bdim7  B D F A

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The Blues Scale

The blues scale has a pattern of intervals different from the major and minor scales, and utilizes pitches not within the major scale of the key. The scale-degree pattern of the Blues Scale considering a chromatic (all pitches) scale starting at the pitch of the key (e.g. key of C starts and ends on C) is:
1, flat-3, 4, flat-5, 5, flat-7, 1.

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For the key of C those pitches are: C Eb F Gb G Bb C.

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The Blues Structure

The ordinary blues structure is 12 bar verses of the I, IV, and V chords, with the melody or lead being taken from the notes in the Blues Scale, in this order:
||:  I  |  I  |  I  |  I  |  IV  |  IV  |  I  |  I  |  V  |  IV  |  I  |  V  :||