Not familiar with the alto clef?
It’s not a very common clef, so don’t worry. The key is knowing that the middle line of the staff is C. From there, you can work all the other notes out. For more information, check out my guide to the alto clef here.
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Answers
Ready for the answers? Keep scrolling down, and you’ll find them.
Here they are:
- Bad
- Edge
- Decaf
- Beaded
- Beef
- Egged
- Babe
- Cafe
- Defaced
- Beg
- Facade
- Cabbage
- Feed
- Cage
- Badge
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Answers
Ready for the answers? Keep scrolling down, and you’ll find them.
Here they are:
- Bad
- Bead
- Edge
- Faded
- Ace
- Beef
- Decaf
- Feed
- Dad
- Baggage
- Deaf
- Deface
- Cafe
- Cabbage
- Caged
Imagine how tricky it would be to have a bunch of instruments in different keys playing together. If the conductor says, “Everyone, play an A!” which A should they play?
That’s where concert pitch comes in. Concert pitch is the standard pitch used for performances, set at A=440Hz.
It’s like a universal language for musicians so that when the conductor asks for an A, everyone knows exactly which pitch to play, no matter what instrument they have.
Some instruments, like the piano or the flute, are already in concert pitch. We call these “concert pitch instruments.”
But others, like the clarinet or the trumpet, have a different “written pitch” on the page than the “sounding pitch” that comes out.
These are called “transposing instruments.”
The History of Concert Pitch
Before the 20th century, there were no real standards for pitch. Tunings varied a lot depending on where and when you were playing.
Even famous composers like Mozart and Handel had their own preferences (Mozart was known to have liked A=422Hz, while Handel preferred A=423Hz).
But as concert venues got bigger and radio broadcasts became popular, people realized we needed a universal standard. In 1939, everyone finally agreed on A=440Hz as the concert pitch, and we still use it today.
Transposing Instruments
Instruments that are not in concert pitch are called transposing instruments.
Transposition is simply taking a melody, chord sequence, or whole piece of music and changing the pitch of the notes while keeping the relative intervals between them the same.
Usually, a composer will write out the transposition for each instrument’s part. That way, you can just play what’s written on the page, and the notes that come out will be correct in concert pitch.
However, if you are playing music that was not specifically written for your instrument, you might have to do the transposition in your head.
Most people who play a transposing instrument have a basic ability to transpose to concert pitch in order to tune and play scales with their ensemble.
The Keys of Common Instruments
Here is a list of instruments found in band and orchestra and the keys they are tuned to.
When a Bb instrument plays its C, the note that comes out is a Concert Bb. As you can see, transposing instruments are mainly found in the wind family.
Concert Pitch Instruments
- Piccolo
- Flute
- Oboe
- Bassoon
- Trombone
- Tuba
- Violin
- Viola
- Cello
- Double Bass
- Piano
- Guitar
Bb Instruments
- Clarinet
- Bass Clarinet
- Soprano Saxophone
- Tenor Saxophone
- Trumpet
Eb Instruments
- Alto Saxophone
- Baritone Saxophone
F Instruments
- French Horn
- English Horn
*Some instruments can be made in different keys. For example, the clarinet is listed in its standard key of Bb, but you could specify which type of clarinet by saying “Bb clarinet,” “A clarinet,” etc.
Why are Instruments Tuned to Different Keys?
You may be thinking, “Wouldn’t it be easier to make all the instruments in concert pitch?” It seems intuitive that way, but here are a few reasons why an instrument might not be in concert pitch:
To Make the Music Easier to Read
One reason we have transposing instruments is to make music easier to read.
Depending on an instrument’s range, writing all the notes in concert pitch might cause the music to have many ledger lines.
This can be annoying–both for the player to read and for the composer and/or publisher to fit onto the page.
To Keep Fingerings Consistent
Another reason instruments are in different keys is to keep fingerings the same for instruments in the same family.
For instance, soprano and tenor saxophones are in Bb, while alto and baritone saxophones are in Eb.
If we were to make them all in the same key, saxophone players would have to switch fingerings when switching between these instruments.
To Help with Tuning
Lastly, some instruments are in different keys to make them easier to tune.
Each instrument–especially wind instruments–has its own tuning tendencies. Some notes tend to be sharp, while others might go flat.
While it’s the player’s responsibility to adjust accordingly, having an instrument in a different key might help with tuning issues.
Summing Up
We hope that you now have a better sense of what concert pitch is and why not all instruments are in concert pitch.
If you have any questions about things that we haven’t covered, feel free to get in touch, and we’ll get back to you.
]]>One of the best ways to practice is to take a quiz. Check out our quizzes below and see how well you know all the notes.
We have three different versions:
Up to One Ledger Line
First, the easiest version of this quiz contains notes up to one ledger line above and below the staff. Give it a go below.
Up to Two Ledger Lines
Next, we have a slightly easier version of this quiz, which contains notes up to two ledger lines above and below the staff.
Up to Three Ledger Lines
Finally, we have the hardest version of this quiz, which contains notes up to three ledger lines above and below the staff.
One of the best ways to practice is to take a quiz. Check out our quizzes below and see how well you know all the notes.
We have three different versions:
Up to One Ledger Line
The easiest version of this quiz contains notes up to one ledger line above and below the staff. Give it a go below.
Up to Two Ledger Lines
Next, we have a slightly harder version of this quiz, which contains notes up to two ledger lines above and below the staff.
Up to Three Ledger Lines
And finally, we have the hardest version of this quiz, which contains notes up to three ledger lines above and below the staff. Try the quiz here or watch the YouTube video version.
Do you have a Suggestion?
Can’t find the quiz you’re looking for? Click here and let us know what we should make next.
Not only do the lyrics cover every different interval quality, but the melody is also each interval. From minor 2nds to major 7ths, this catchy tune is a great way to internalize intervals, and you’ll find yourself singing along in no time.
Check it out below.
Quite different, right?
So why does mastering intervals matter so much for musicians? Well, it’s a game-changer!
Learning songs like this can massively boost your interval recognition skills, which is a fancy way of saying your relative pitch is about to level up.
Think of relative pitch as your musical GPS. It helps you navigate through melodies and harmonies, understanding how each note relates to the next.
This is super important, especially for musicians who want to play by ear, improvise a solo, or work out the chords to a song without looking at the music.
It’s one thing to know that a major 6th is four whole steps apart, but it’s another thing entirely to recognize its sound in the middle of a song. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll start noticing these intervals everywhere – music will never sound the same again!
Having a good ear for intervals is like being able to speak a language fluently. You understand the conversation between notes, making you a more versatile and confident musician.
You can jump into jam sessions more easily, write more expressive music, and even tune your instrument better. And let’s be honest, there’s something pretty cool about being able to play back a melody or chord progression just by ear.
How To Improve Your Interval Recognition?
There are loads of ways to improve your interval recognition. Some of my favorite ways to practice are:
- Using Ear Training Apps
- Online courses
- YouTube Videos
- Transcribing melodies
Check out this free ear training app from musictheory.net that I use and recommend to all my students.
Do a little bit every day, and you’ll notice a difference quickly in how well you know your intervals.
Let me know how you get on.
]]>All of the music you hear on the radio or on TV uses the octave, and it has been around for centuries.
This post will cover everything there is to know about how the Octave is used in music.
However, to best talk about octaves, we should cover what pitches and intervals are first.
What is Pitch?
When we play a note on an instrument or sing a note, that produces a sound.
We can define that sound by a few different criteria, like how loud it is, how long it is, and what the pitch is.
Pitch is just another word for the frequency of a note, or how “low” or “high” the note is.
If we hear a note that sounds like a baby’s cry, that would be a high-pitched note.
On the other hand, a rumbling sound like thunder or train wheels would have a low pitch.
Notes on a musical staff are ordered vertically by pitch – the higher the note is on the staff, the higher the pitch of the note is:
A note sounds higher or lower than another if it has a higher pitch, or frequency, than the other note.
What is an Interval?
Now that we know what pitch is, we can discuss intervals.
An interval occurs when two notes – notes with different pitches – are played at the same time, and the interval is the distance in pitch between the two notes.
If two notes produce a really big interval when played together, then their pitches are really far apart, and if the interval between the notes is small, then they’re close together.
There are many different names for all of the intervals. The smallest interval (shown on the right side of the picture above) is called a “semitone”, or “half step”.
If you put two semitones together, you get a “tone”, or “whole step”.
Other intervals are given numbers as names, such as a “third”, “sixth”, “eleventh”, and so on.
This brings us to the octave.
What is an Octave?
An Octave is a very unique interval.
It is the interval between two notes, in which one of the notes has a pitch that is exactly double the pitch of the other note.
Pitch, as we said before, is another word for frequency, and we can define a note by giving its frequency as a number.
So, say, for example, that we have a note with a frequency of 220 Hz.
We can call it A (in fact, the note with that frequency is an A).
If we want to produce another note that will create an octave interval with the A, we have to either double that number – 440 Hz – or cut that number in half – 110 Hz.
Therefore, if we have two notes, one with a pitch of 220 Hz and the other with a pitch of 440 Hz, then those two notes create an octave:
You can also have notes that are two or three octaves away from each other.
For example, the note with a 110 Hz pitch and the note with a 440 Hz pitch are two octaves away because you have to double 110 twice to get 440.
We can then determine the octaves above 440 by doubling (880, 1720, etc.) and the octave below 110 by cutting it in half (55).
Octaves are sometimes heard as basically the “same” note – like if a man and a woman are told to sing a “C”, they will most likely sing C’s an octave apart.
However, it still sounds like they’re singing the same note, because they sound so similar.
Note Lettering
If you’ve ever been taught music or how to read it, then one of the first things you’re taught is the note letters or the musical alphabet – A, B, C, D, E, F, G.
For example, a C Major scale uses these letters in this order, but starting on C:
As you can see, we only have 7 letters to correspond to all of the different notes and pitches that are in music.
So, we have to repeat them sometimes, and this is where octaves come in.
One way to remember an octave interval is that it is two different pitches with the same letter note.
As you see in the C Major scale, the C note on the bottom left is different from the C note on the top right, but they’re both labelled C.
This is because they form an octave.
We can say the C on the top right is an “octave higher” or an “octave above” the C on the bottom left, and the C on the bottom left is an “octave below” the other C.
The pitches of the two C’s are half/double each other – the bottom left one has a frequency of 262 Hz, and the top right has a frequency of 524 Hz.
Examples:
In “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, the first two notes “Some” – “where” create an octave interval.
Another example is Chopin’s “Etude in B Minor”, in which the majority of the song – especially in the upper staff – is played with octaves:
Summing Up
To sum up, the octave is one of the most common and easily-identified intervals in music.
Each instance of the same note (but different pitch) on a piano or guitar occurs as an octave, and each octave doubles the frequency of the one before it.
]]>Perfect pitch, also known as absolute pitch, is the ability to identify or re-create a given musical note without the benefit of an external reference.
Essentially, it is the capacity to hear a note and immediately know what it is (for example, hearing a piano play a C and recognizing it as a C) or to produce a specific note without needing to hear it first.
What is Pitch in Music?
In music, when you play an instrument or sing a note, what you’re really doing is creating a sound wave.
This sound wave is made up of vibrations in the air, and it vibrates at a certain frequency.
Pitch is just the term for how we interpret that frequency with our ears.
It’s very technical, and we have a full article that talks about pitch in more detail, but the main point is every note you play or sing has a pitch, and that pitch is how we describe how “high” or “low” a note sounds.
Someone like Johnny Cash in “I Walk the Line” has a very low voice and, therefore, sings notes that have a very low pitch.
On the other end of the spectrum, a high-pitched note sounds piercing and shrill, and instruments that can play high-pitched notes include the flute, violin, and trumpet.
Definition of Perfect Pitch
The concept of perfect pitch does not deal, however, with an instrument or a voice producing a pitch, but rather refers to how a person’s ear hears a pitch being played.
Perfect pitch, which is also known as Absolute Pitch, is a person’s ability to identify, understand, and reproduce a given musical note with the benefit of an external reference.
And it is very rare – only about 1 in 10,000 people (0.01%) are thought to have it.
The way one can demonstrate perfect pitch is if you play or sing a note, say on a piano or violin, they will be able to tell you exactly what note you are playing or singing without having to search around for it.
Specifically, a person with perfect pitch doesn’t need a reference tone to identify what they hear.
Here is an example of a person with perfect pitch.
He is able to identify a note almost immediately, can identify multiple notes at once, and can also reproduce (sing) any note upon request.
Specific Abilities
There are five abilities that people with perfect pitch have some or all of:
- Identify (by name) any pitch played by any instrument – e.g. A, B, F#, Db, etc.
- Identify (by name) the key of any piece of music (provided it has a key to begin with) – e.g. knowing that “Sweet Child of Mine” by Guns N Roses is in the key of D Maj
- Name all of the notes in a given chord that you hear, or any random collection of notes
- Sing a pitch off the top of your head – e.g. “Sing a C#”
- Name the pitches (frequencies) of common, non-musical sounds, like a car alarm or the squeak of a door
Perfect pitch is found more often in people who speak a language that relies on tones – like Chinese or Vietnamese – to produce meaning.
These people are more reliant on their ability to hear the difference in specific pitches and, therefore, are more likely to develop perfect pitch.
Famous People With Perfect Pitch
Although rare, perfect pitch is not so uncommon, and as you’d expect, over the years, there have been a number of famous people who have perfect pitch.
Here are a few names that you might recognize:
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Ludwig Von Beethoven
- Camille Saint-Saens
- John Philip Sousa
- Mariah Carey
- Jimi Hendrix
- Bing Crosby
- Ella Fitzgerald
- Charlie Puth
Can You Learn Perfect Pitch?
Experts are not sure whether or not perfect pitch can be learned or if you have to be born with the ability.
However, there are no cases of someone developing perfect pitch after becoming an adult, so it is at least impossible to learn after a certain age.
Some researchers believe there is a specific “critical period” of auditory development in which, if a child is taught the names and pitches of notes, they could learn perfect pitch, but others believe that this only reveals the innate abilities of the child.
Relative Pitch, however, is able to be learned, even in adulthood.
Some people can even get so good at Relative Pitch that they develop what is known as “Pseudo-Absolute Pitch,” which is very close to perfect pitch.
This is done by memorizing specific reference tones so well that they can ‘hear’ them in their mind without having to hear them out loud and can then learn to identify pitches with seemingly no reference point.
However, while perfect pitch does make it easier to learn and produce music, having it or not is not at all correlated with musical ability.
In Summary
Perfect pitch, also called Absolute Pitch, is an innate human ability to understand and recall specific musical notes.
If you can hear a song and say, “That song is in the key of Eb,” or hear a note played on the piano and say, “That is a G#,” or are able to sing a Bb on the spot, then you might have perfect pitch.
There are multiple quizzes online that you can test your perfect pitch ability, like TonedEar.com, or Playback.fm, you should check them out!
If you have any comments or questions, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
]]>But it is also sometimes misunderstood, and often, what we think of as pitch is different from its actual meaning. We might think of a note as sounding “higher” or “lower” than another note, but what does that actually mean?
In this article, we’ll cover everything about pitch. But first, what is pitch in music?
Definition of Pitch
Pitch is the word we use to describe the degree of highness or lowness of a sound.
It comes from the frequency of the soundwave that creates a sound. The higher the frequency of a soundwave, the higher the pitch, making the note sound higher. While a lower frequency results in a lower pitch, making the note sound lower.
An example of a high-pitched sound would be a whistle, bird song, or a flute, while examples of low-pitched sounds would include distant thunder, a tuba, or a foghorn on a large ship.
Soundwaves and Frequency
What actually happens when you play a note on an instrument?
Whether you play a piano key, strum a guitar string, or blow into a saxophone, that instrument produces a sound wave.
A sound wave is just vibrations of air molecules that go back and forth, creating a wave of pressure that travels from the instrument (that produces the sound) and is picked up by our ears.
The speed at which a sound wave moves up and down and makes a full cycle is called its frequency. Pitch is then how the human ear hears and understands that frequency.
This is all a bit technical and mathematical, but just know that pitch is basically the frequency of a note. The higher the frequency, the higher the pitch, and vice versa; the lower the frequency, the lower the pitch.
So, a note sounds “higher” or “lower” than another note if it has a higher or lower frequency than that note.
You can easily see on a staff what notes are high-pitched and which are lower because they are literally written “higher” on the staff.
Here is an example of notes rising in pitch.
And the opposite is also true. The lower the note is written on a stave, the lower the pitch.
Here’s an example of notes descending in pitch.
How is Pitch Measured?
Pitch is measured mathematically as the number of times a sound wave can repeat in one second.
This number is then displayed in Hertz (Hz for short).
For example, a tone can have a pitch of 400 Hz, which means the sound wave produced by the note repeats 400 times in one second.
The human ear can only hear tones with pitches between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz, and almost all of the music you see and play would be between 50 Hz and 8,000 Hz.
What is a Note?
A note is a pitch that has a specific name and frequency.
Because pitch is a property of sound and not just music, any sound can have a pitch.
For example, when you speak, your voice has a pitch, but you wouldn’t say you are making music.
Same when you clap your hands or clink a fork to a glass of water; you are producing a tone with a pitch, but it is not necessarily a note.
A note refers to specific pitches, and in Western Music, a note refers to one of 12 named tones that all music is made from – the notes of the chromatic scale.
These notes are:
C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, E, F, F#/Gb, G, G#/Ab, A, A#/Bb, and B.
Now, each of these notes can be repeated in different octaves, and so there is not one specific pitch that is associated with each note.
For example, on a regular piano, the note C can have one of 8 pitches: 32.70 Hz, 65.41 Hz, 130.81 Hz, 261.63 Hz, 523.25 Hz, 1046.50 Hz, 2093.00 Hz, and 4186.01 Hz.
Here is a C Major scale, starting at Middle C and going up a full octave.
Here are the pitches of the notes in sheet music and in Hertz:
| Note in a C Major Scale | Pitch/Frequency of the Note (in Hertz) |
| C (lower) | 261.63 Hz |
| D | 293.66 Hz |
| E | 329.63 Hz |
| F | 349.23 Hz |
| G | 392.00 Hz |
| A | 440.00 Hz |
| B | 493.88 Hz |
| C (higher) | 523.25 Hz |
But this required the notes to be in tune.
If the note is out of tune, then it won’t meet these frequencies.
Pitches of Related Notes
Notes that are in the same scale, and specifically notes from the same chord, are mathematically related by pitch.
For example, take the note A from the table above.
This A has a frequency of 440 Hz. But to get the frequency of the A an octave higher, you double the pitch and the frequency.
So if the lower A has a frequency of 440 Hz, then the higher A is 440×2 = 880 Hz.
This continues up and down the entire frequency range – every A found in music is either 55 Hz, 110 Hz, 220 Hz, 440 Hz, 880 Hz, 1760 Hz, and so on.
Perfect 4ths and 5ths of a note are also closely related.
The pitch of a perfect 4th is 4:3 the pitch of the main note, and the 5th is 3:2 above.
So, if the A above is 440 Hz, then the perfect 4th above that (D) is approximately 440×4/3 = 587 Hz and the perfect 5th above that is 440×3/2 = 660 Hz.
The ratio between pitches of other notes in a major or minor scale are as follows:
| Interval | Ratio between pitches |
| Major 2nd | 9:8 |
| Minor 3rd | 6:5 |
| Major 3rd | 5:4 |
| Minor 6th | 8:5 |
| Major 6th | 5:3 |
| Minor 7th | 9:5 |
| Major 7th | 15:8 |
These ratios aren’t really necessary to memorize, but they are helpful to point out that the notes we hear in a chord and scale sound harmonious together because their pitches are closely related mathematically.
Summing Up
So, hopefully, that gives you a good overview of what pitch is.
In general, pitch is the term for how “high” or “low” the note sounds, and it can be measured and written in terms of Hertz or notation on a musical staff.
There are a lot of terms and numbers in this post, so it could be worth going over a few times to make sure everything makes sense.
If you have any questions, let us know, and we’ll help you out!
]]>In this post, we’re going to cover the building blocks of pitch: semitones and tones. But first, we need to cover what intervals are.
What is an Interval?
Before we can talk about semitones and tones, it is essential to understand what an interval is.
An interval in music is the distance in pitch between any two notes.
The larger the distance in pitch, the larger the interval, and vice versa; the smaller the distance in pitch, the smaller the interval.
We work out large or small intervals by how many semitones or tones the notes are apart.
What is a Semitone (Half Step)?
A semitone, or half step as they’re known in the US, is the distance in pitch between a note and the very next note, higher or lower.
It’s the smallest interval in western music.
On a piano, a semitone would be the distance in pitch between E and F or C and C#, for example.
The Two Types of Semitones
There are two types of semitones to know about:
- Chromatic semitones
- Diatonic semitones
They’re not to be confused with chromatic or diatonic scales, though. It’s all to do with how we name the two notes in the semitone.
Let’s take a look at chromatic semitones first.
Chromatic Semitones
Chromatic semitones are when you have a semitone interval where both notes have the same letter name.
For example, C to C# and Gb to G are both chromatic semitones because they share the same letter name.
Side note
This is where we get a chromatic scale from. A chromatic scale has twelve notes, and each note is a semitone higher than the last.
Diatonic Semitones
The other type of semitone is called a diatonic semitone.
These are when you have a semitone interval where the two notes are different letter names.
For example, C to Db or F# to G.
On a piano, chromatic and diatonic semitones are exactly the same notes, but when you write them on a stave, they are written differently.
These are an example of what we call enharmonic equivalent notes, which we’ll look at next.
Enharmonic Equivalent Notes
Chromatic and diatonic semitones are the same notes but are an example of what we call enharmonic equivalents.
An enharmonic equivalent is just another name for the same note. For example, D flat is the same note as C sharp.
It’s just a different way to name it.
And Gb is the same note as F# it’s just named differently.
What is a Tone (Whole Step)?
A tone, or whole step as it’s called in the US, is the next smallest interval after a semitone.
The word semi actually means half, so we can think of a semitone as half a tone.
Using that logic, a tone is therefore made up of two semitones intervals.
An example of this would be from E to F# or C to D.
With the example of E to F#, E to F is a semitone, F to F# is another semitone, and two semitones are equal to a tone.
With the example of C to D, C to C# is a semitone, and C# to D is another semitone, and two semitones are equal to a tone.
Summing Up
Semitones and tones are essential building blocks of scales, chords, intervals, melodies, and lots more things in music.
They’re key things to learn about, especially in the context of learning music theory.
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