Notes · Step 1
What a note is
Every sound you have ever heard is something vibrating: a string, a column of air, a speaker cone. Vibrate faster and the sound goes up; slower and it goes down. That up-and-down is pitch, and it is the one property of a sound this course is about.
A note is a pitch with a name. Western music picks twelve of them, gives seven of those a letter from A to G, and repeats the set as the pitch climbs. Two notes with the same letter sound like the same thing at different heights — which is why the pattern on a keyboard repeats.
Below, a note is named and you find it on your instrument. Only the seven lettered notes for now: the white keys on a piano, the natural notes on a fingerboard.