1. Basic Music Theory

Lesson 1

Music Notes or Tones

Notes are the frequencies and sounds we here in music aside from the crashes and hisses (white noise and pink noise). There are twelve notes altogether. The twelve notes repeat on octaves. An octave is the same note repeated at a frequency higher than the original note. The frequency is twice as much hertz or double the amount at each octave.

Example:
"A" = 440hz
"A"one octave higher = 880hz

In between the octaves are all the other notes. There are twelve notes all together. The twelve notes, from lowest to highest, is what is call the chromatic scale. On a piano, the scale can be played by hitting a key then one key higher (a half step higher) and another, up to twelve times then it repeats an octave higher. These twelve notes are the basis of music writing, (aside from partial bends and certain foreign genres, of course).