The ABC’s of the Musical Alphabet

A New Alphabet
Play the note on the first fret of the B string. This note is C, a wave that vibrates at a
frequency that you hear as pitch. Pluck the same string at the thirteenth fret. Again, you
hear what sounds like the same pitch, but it’s higher. That’s because the sound wave is
vibrating twice as fast. This can be expressed as a ratio of 1:2, which is so perfect that we
hear the two notes as having the same identity. If two different instruments play the same C
at the same pitch, the ratio is 1:1, and this is called a unison.
On the picture below, the note of the 1st fret would be the leftmost C. The note from the
13th fret would by the rightmost one. All other notes in between are unique notes, but once
they reach “C” again, the sequence repeats, forever, at least until notes exit the range of
human hearing.
The 12 Notes

Intervals
An interval is the distance between two notes. The interval from a low “C” to a higher “C” is
an octave. The octave is the basic source of pitch, with all other pitches created by dividing it
into smaller pieces, called steps. A half step (also known as a semitone) is a movement of
one block, from C to C♯. A whole step (also known as a tone) is a movement of two blocks,
from C to D. Most modern music divides the octave into twelve slices, just as you see above.
You can play this sequence of notes by starting at the Ist fret of the B string and moving up
one fret at a time, playing each fret until you reach C again at the thirteenth fret. Name each
note out loud as you play it.
Together, all twelve of these notes form the chromatic scale. A scale is a sequence of notes
in which no note is repeated and all notes are played in ascending order from lowest to
highest.
The 7 Letters
If you look at this scale carefully, you will notice two interesting things.
First, seven of the notes—C, D, E, F, G, A, B—have unique letter names. These notes are
called natural notes. Five of the notes do not have unique names, but are instead named for
where they fall in relationship to these seven. Notes like C♯ (C sharp) or G♭ (G flat) are
called accidentals. Second: two pairs of notes do not have a note between them: pair E and
F, and pair B and C. The way the musical alphabet is arranged leads to these two pairs of
notes being naturally separated by a semitone or half-step.