Note pitch

There are three basic ways of indicating the frequency or pitch of a note:

Specifying the frequency in terms of the number of vibrations per second is the most precise method of the three, but it is not used in music notation.
- All standard musical instruments are designed to be able to play the set of notes described in the other two methods discussed below; they are not designed to play a specific frequency given by a number of vibrations per second.
- The reasons for this are historical of course; notes and scales developed before much was known about the physical characteristics of sound. Prior to the existence of electronic equipment, it was not really possible to measure a frequency with any accuracy.
- The only time the frequency might be encountered is when tuning instruments; a standard has been established for so-called "concert pitch" for "A" = 440Hz.
This possible method is a "modern" innovation (i.e. the last 100 years or so!).
Notes are named using the letters of the alphabet from "A" to "G", with the cycle of seven names repeating.
- The use of these particular letters is not significant, just as with other uses for letters of the alphabet, such as the use of "A" to "F" as hexadecimal characters, or the use of "A" onwards as grades for exam marks.
- However, as with these examples, the order of the letters and the fact that they are consecutive, is significant.
This method, on the face of it, does not give any real information, except relative pitches.
The position in which a note is written on a stave is a guide to its pitch:
In this example, each note has a higher frequency or pitch than the previous one (reading from left to right). But this only indicates relative pitches, not exact ones. A method is required to indicate where the stave lies, and a clef is the thing that does this.

There are a number of features which apply to both note names and use of a stave, which means that the two methods are very closely linked:

There are modifiers called accidentals, which, when applied to a note, change its pitch by a small amount.
A set of consecutive notes with these names, and without accidentals is found in two places:
1. On a stave, without any modifiers
2. On the white notes of a piano.
The diagram below brings these two together by showing notes written on a stave with a treble clef at the start, immediately below the notes that they relate to on a piano keyboard:

It can be seen from this diagram that the note "A" is always found between the second and third of a group of three black notes.
Some people like to teach or learn the names of the notes that lie on the lines or in the spaces of the two most common clefs. There are a number of mnemonics for the letters. These are only useful for someone who has learnt to play notes by name on an instrument; it is far better to learn the reasons behind the naming conventions.
- When a stave has a treble clef at the start, the note names are as follows:
  
  Every Good Boy Deserves Food/Favour
  (FACE does not need a mnemonic!)
- When a stave has a bass clef at the start, the note names are as follows:
  
  Good Boys Deserve Favour/Food Always
  A Cow Eats Grass

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