Note (music)
The amplitude of a musical note varies in time according to its sound envelope.[1]
In music, a note is an abstract representation of the pitch and duration of a tone. The pitch designated by a note is objective only in the case of a simple tone (also called a pure tone) such as produced by a tuning fork, which consists of only a single frequency of vibration, in which case the pitch is uniquely related to that frequency at a given loudness.[2]
A musical instrument on the other hand, produces a tone, which is a superposition of various frequencies with various amplitudes and phases peculiar to the instrument, and also affected by the manner of play that determines the sound envelope of the note (referred to by Lamb below as "adventitious circumstances"). A laboratory determination of pitch is made by a subject listening to a tone from a musical instrument and to a simple tone, such as that produced by a tuning fork, and identifying circumstances where the instrument and the simple tone sound alike.[3] As a result, for other than simple tones, pitch is not a purely objective physical property; it is a subjective psychoacoustical attribute of a sound.
To quote Lamb:[4]
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One musical note may differ from another in respect of pitch, quality, and loudness. The pitch is usually estimated as that of the first simple-harmonic vibration in the series, viz. that of lowest frequency, but if the amplitude of this first component be relatively small, and especially if it fall near the lower limit of the audible scale, the estimated pitch may be that of the second component. By "quality" is meant that unmistakable character which distinguishes a note on one instrument from the note of same pitch as given by another...difference of quality, so far as it is not due to adventitious circumstances,† can only be ascribed to differences of vibration-form, and so to differences in the relative amplitude and phases of the simple-harmonic constituents.
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What Lamb refers to as "quality" of a tone also is referred to as timbre.
Notation
In Western musical notation, the pitch of a sound is indicated by the vertical position of the symbol for the note on a staff or stave, an array of parallel ledger lines, as shown in the figure. Certain lines on the staff are identified by clefs. The upper clef is called the treble or G-clef, and the lower clef is called the bass or F-clef.[5]
The names of the notes correspond to the first seven letters of the alphabet, applied to both lines and spaces, and also to the syllables Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si, Do. The labeling associated with the lines on the staff is indicated, and the labels for the spaces follow alphabetically.[6]
The absolute pitch denoted by a position on the staff is set by the key of the musical piece. Pure tones separated by an octave on the staff (that is, a combination of eight lines and spaces on the staff) are a factor of two different in frequency. A pitch between C and D, say, is called C-sharp (denoted C#) or D-flat (denoted D♭).
The right-to-left position of the notes indicate the order in which they are played, the further to the right the later, with notes directly above one another played simultaneously.
Duration of a note is indicated by its symbol. Examples are shown in the figure, with the longest or whole note at the bottom, and the two half notes above it that combine to the same duration. The quarter note, eighth notes and sixteenth notes are successively stacked above.[6]
The relative duration of a whole note is established by dividing the horizontal length of the staff into measures, bounded by vertical bars, and a time signature that determines how many "beats" occur in a measure. A whole note is assigned four beats, a half-note two beats, and so forth. Musical notation does not assign absolute duration to a beat.[7] Tempo indications, like presto and allegro, provide further guidance for pace.[8]
References
- ↑ Stanley R. Alten (2010). “Sound envelope”, Audio in Media, 12th ed. Cengage Learning, p. 13. ISBN 049557239X.
- ↑ The pitch of pure tones varies somewhat with sound level, perhaps by as much as 5% and varying with the individual listener. Susan Hallam, Ian Cross, Michael Thaut (2011). The Oxford Handbook of Music Psychology. Oxford University Press, p. 50. ISBN 0199604975.
- ↑ Thomas D. Rossing (2007). Springer Handbook of Acoustics. Springer, p. 477. ISBN 0387304460.
- ↑ Horace Lamb (2004). The Dynamical Theory Of Sound, Reprint of 1925 Edwin Arnold Ltd. 2nd ed. Courier Dover, p. 4. ISBN 048643916X.
- ↑ F Leslie Jones (1874). “Chapter II: Musical notation”, A manual of the elements of vocal music. Oxford University Press, pp. 7 ff.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 John Taylor (1876). “Appendix B: Notation”, The student's text-book of the science of music. George Philip and Son, pp. 88 ff.
- ↑ Nancy Scoggin (2010). Barron's AP Music Theory. Barron's Educational Series; Pap/Com edition, p. 15. ISBN 0764196316.
- ↑ Sandra P. Rosenblum (1991). “Chapter 9: Choice of tempo”, Performance Practices in Classic Piano Music: Their Principles and Applications. Indiana University Press, pp. 305 ff. ISBN 0253206804.