Notes and pitch
What a note is, the names of the seven natural notes, and how the octave repeats the same name higher or lower.
Essential
Content under musical review. It may contain inaccuracies.
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What a note is, the names of the seven natural notes, and how the octave repeats the same name higher or lower.
Essential
A note is a sound with a definite pitch: lower or higher. Western music uses seven note names that repeat over and over: C, D, E, F, G, A and B. After the seventh, the series starts again one step higher.
The seven natural notes going up, with the first one repeated at the end:
Now the same note at three different heights. Notice how they sound "the same" even though one is lower:
On the guitar, the note A shows up in many places. They all share a name, but not all of them have the same pitch:
String 6, Fret 5: A2 · 1 · Root
The open fifth string is a low A; at the 12th fret of that same string you find the same name one octave higher.
Play the open fifth string, then the 12th fret on the same string. Next try the 7th fret of the fourth string and the 2nd fret of the third. They're the same note on another string or in another octave. Check it with the tool:
See every A on the fretboard Train your ear with single notesThere are two naming systems. Letters (C D E F G A B) are standard in English, in chord symbols and in jazz. Solfège (Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Si) is standard in Spanish, Italian and French. Guitar Trip lets you pick either in your preferences, and the names on this page switch automatically.
| Letter | Solfège |
|---|---|
| C | Do |
| D | Re |
| E | Mi |
| F | Fa |
| G | Sol |
| A | La |
| B | Si |
Guitar music is written in treble clef but sounds one octave below the page. That's why its lowest note in standard tuning is E2, even though it's written as E3. The six open strings sound E2, A2, D3, G3, B3 and E4.
Scales, arpeggios & fretboardFretboard notesFind any natural note on any string in less than one bar.Theory separates pitch (a specific note, with its octave) from pitch class (every note with the same name or sound, in any octave). Equal temperament has twelve pitch classes.
The most common reference is A4 = 440 Hz. From there, each octave doubles or halves the frequency: A3 vibrates at 220 Hz and A5 at 880 Hz. The pitch and frequency page shows how the twelve notes are spread inside each octave.