Stop 2 of 7
Notes and the octave
The musical alphabet, letters and solfège, and the magic of the octave.
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Stop 2 of 7
The musical alphabet, letters and solfège, and the magic of the octave.
In the previous stop you saw that every note is a frequency. But musicians don't say "play 196 hertz": they say "play a G". Here you discover the naming system used by all Western music, which is surprisingly small, and the phenomenon that makes it possible: the octave. By the end you'll be able to name any natural note, say which octave it's in and find the same note in several places on your guitar.
Listen to this climb. These are the notes on the white keys of a piano, one after another, starting on C:
Did you notice that the last note sounds like "back to the start", only higher? That's why seven names are enough. This is the :
A · B · C · D · E · F · G · (A…)
After G there's no H: you start again at A, an octave higher. Each of those named sounds is a . The seven are called natural notes; in the next stop you'll meet the five that live "in between".
There are two naming systems and you'll meet both. Letters are used in the English-speaking world and in almost every chord chart; is used in Spanish-speaking countries, Italy, France and much of Latin America:
| Letter | C | D | E | F | G | A | B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solfège | Do | Re | Mi | Fa | Sol | La | Si (Ti) |
Notice that the letter alphabet usually starts on A, but the scale most people learn first starts on C. So it's worth learning the pairs by heart in both directions: "A is La, La is A". If you play with Spanish-speaking musicians and they call out "La menor", they mean Am; "Sol" means G.
Listen to these three notes. They are the open 6th string, the 4th string at fret 2 and the open 1st string:
Although each one is clearly higher, the three "resemble" each other so much that they share a name: E. Each vibrates at twice the previous one: 82.41 Hz, 164.81 Hz and 329.63 Hz. That 2:1 relationship is the octave.
Why do they sound so alike? Remember harmonics: the 220 Hz note matches the 2nd harmonic of the 110 Hz note exactly, and all the harmonics of the higher note (440, 660, 880…) are already inside the lower one. The two blend without friction. No other pair of notes fits together so well.
Now your ear is the judge. In each pair, is it the same note in another octave or a different note?
Pairs 1 and 3 are octaves: they sound "hollow", like a single richer note. Pair 2 is almost an octave, but falls a little short: it sounds tense, as if it wanted to keep climbing.
If "E" can be the 6th string or the 1st, we need a way to say which one. That pitch zone is the , and shows it with a number after the letter:
With this notation, your open strings are identified exactly:
| String | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Note | E2 | A2 | D3 | G3 | B3 | E4 |
Because the guitar's six strings overlap, the same note in the same octave can appear in several places, and the same note in different octaves turns up all over the neck. Look at every A between frets 0 and 12:
String 6, Fret 5: A2 · 1 · Scale tone
There are three different A's: A2 (open 5th string and 6th string, fret 5), A3 (5th string, fret 12; 4th string, fret 7; 3rd string, fret 2) and A4 (2nd string, fret 10; 1st string, fret 5). Play this little tune that jumps between them:
And the same with the E's in first position:
The name "octave" comes from counting the natural notes including both ends: C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C makes eight. But the distances between those notes differ, and if you count the smallest possible steps (the frets), an octave has twelve. In equal temperament, used by modern guitars and pianos, each of those twelve steps multiplies the frequency by the twelfth root of 2 (), so twelve steps give exactly ×2. You'll see it in the next stop.
Goal: Play the three A's and three E's in the first twelve frets without looking at the diagram, saying each name with its number (A2, A3…).
Turn on the drone and sing a long "aah" on the same note. If it feels too low or too high, sing it an octave up or down: it's still A. That feeling of "locking in" is what you'll be chasing throughout this stage.
Goal: Sing the drone's A and its most comfortable octave in tune, five times in a row.
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