Chapter-2
Octave

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What is an octave?

Seeing above pictures that have been put in this book to explain the notes, a question may arise in mind of the readers that why are the notes repeated again and again in a keyboard? Why the other notes are not represented by a different letter but the same one? To have answers to these questions one needs to understand the concept of octave.

An octave is the distance between a particular note to the other note that is either double or half of its frequency. An octave covers a distance of 12 notes. The note having either the double or the half of the frequency of another note is represented by the same note. The concept of an octave can more easily be understood by the following example:

Example - A note (say C) has a frequency “x” then the note having frequency “2x” will also be called C and the note having “1/2 x” frequency will also be called C. Thus we can have many notes that are represented by the same letter. For example the notes having 1/ 64x, 1/32x, 1/16x, 1/8x, 1/4x, 1/2x, x, 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x etc frequencies would be represented by the letter C.

When the frequency of a certain note is doubled or halved, the new sound produced is musically similar to the previous sound (or the previous note) and gives the similar audible sense or the similar musical quality except that it is either lower or higher than the other. As it has the similar musical quality of the previous note, although having different pitch (or the different frequency), it is named the same of the previous note. This happens after an  interval of 12 notes i.e. pitch of a note gets an octave higher or an octave lower when we move up or down the 12 notes respectively.

But the main note in musical system is “C” and therefore generally we say an octave to be from one C to next C unless we are referring to a particular scale (scale is explained in the Chapter-Scales).

Types of octaves:

There are broadly three types of octave:

• Low Octave
• Middle Octave
• High Octave

When the sound is heavy or when the sound is has low frequency, it falls in the low octave. These types of sounds (sounds in low octave) sounds like the voice that the most of the aged people have.

When a sound is neither heavy nor very high, it falls in the middle octave.

When a sound is at very high pitch, having high frequency;  it falls in the high octave. These types of sounds (sounds in high octave) are similar to the voice of most of the females and children.

There are 7 complete octaves in a full sized keyboard (or a piano) which has 88 notes.

Important points An octave covers a distance of 12 notes. The frequency of a note is doubled or halved when moving across an octave. The same note is repeated after covering the distance of an octave. There are basically three types of octaves viz. low, middle and high.

Exercise:

1. Try to identify which note falls in which octave.
2. Jump the same note from low to high and high to low.

Chapter-1
Notes

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What is a note?

The very first thing that one needs to know about the music is the term “note”. A note is a sound of certain frequency (or a sound of a definite pitch) that is used in conventional music system and has been given a specific letter of english alphabet to represent it.

For example A sound of frequency 261.63 hz is named as note C, a sound of frequency 440 hz is known as note A etc.

Altogether there are twelve notes in western music system. These are:

A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G#

These are located on the music keyboard as shown in the figure.

The hash sign (#) in music is called a sharp. The notes without sharp are the white keys of the keyboard and notes with a sharp are the black keys of the music keyboard. The black key (a sharp note) receives its name from the key adjacent to it. E.g. The black note right to the note C (or the note higher than the note C) is called C# (C sharp) and the black note right to the note D (or higher to the note D) is called D#.

It is to be noticed and remembered that the notes “E” and “B” have no sharp note of theirs because these notes are not followed by a black key but white keys “F” and “C” respectively.

The same black keys can also be represented in another way. These are represented by a sign called flat (). Note that though this sign may look similar to the english alphabet “b” but this sign is unique in itself and should not be confused with the alphabet “b”. But for the ease of typing alphabet “b” is used to represent it in computers. So all above notes can also be written as:

A Bb B C Db D Eb E F Gb G A

These are located on the music keyboard as shown in the below diagram.

The black notes also acquire their names as flats by receiving it from their adjacent note. E.g. A note left to the note D is called Dd (D flat), and the note left to the note E is called Eb.

Here also we need to keep in mind that the notes “F” and “C” have no flat note of theirs as the keys adjacent to their left are not the black keys but the white keys “E” and “B” respectively.

Note: Sometimes few students are confused between “C” and “C#” notes or between “Db” and “D” notes. As the notes “C” and “C#” both have letter C does not mean that these both notes are somewhat similar or have some relation between them. Understand that there is no absolute relation between them except that being adjacent to each other and therefore one note derives its name from the other. Similarly “Db” and “D” notes have no relation between them.

Now knowing that sharps are also called flats, we can write above two representations of notes in a one combined form:

A A#/Bb B C C#/Db D D#/Eb E F F#/Gb G G#/Ab

This combined representation of the notes is shown upon the keyboard as:

As the notes C# and Db are the same note and represent the sound of the same frequency, that are called “enharmonic equivalents” meaning that they are the two different representations of the same sound and have no audible difference between them.

Important points A note is a sound of a definite pitch (or a definite frequency) that is used in conventional music system. There are 12 notes in music out of which 7 are naturals (A, B, C, D, E, F and G) and 5 sharps or flats (A#/Bb, C#/Db, D#/Eb, F#/Gb and G#/Ab). There are no sharps/flats between E-F and B-C.

EXERCISE NO. 1

1. Identify the notes on keyboard.till you become perfect in identifying all the notes.
2. Try to remember the names of sharp notes as flats too.