www.carlosthrale.com

INTRODUCTION TO NOTE NAMES & PITCH

PITCH is the height or depth of a sound.

Each note takes its name from one of the first seven letters of the alphabet. A B C D E F G

As you progress through the musical alphabet you are going up in pitch. Between some of these notes there is another note that has two names. These names are taken from the notes either side of it. For example, the note between ‘A’ and ‘B’ is called either ‘A#’ (‘A’ sharp) or ‘Bb’(‘B’ flat). Notes with two names are no more or less important than those with only one name.

# = SHARPb = FLAT

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

Bb Db Eb Gb Ab The distance between any two notes is called an INTERVAL.The smallest division of pitch that we will be dealing with is called a SEMITONE.I have listed all twelve notes above. The notes progress from left to right going up in pitch by one semitone, so the distance up from ‘B’ to ‘C’ is a semitone, or down from ‘E’ to ‘D#’ is a semitone and so on. As you progress fret by fret up one string towards the body of the guitar you are going up in pich by semitones. The distance of two semitones (two frets), for example from ‘C’ to ‘D’ or from ‘E’ to ‘F#’ is called a TONE.

There are of course more than twelve notes. Following ‘G#’ / ‘Ab’ the whole series of notes repeats from ‘A’. This ‘A’ is an OCTAVE higher than the previous one.

A# C# D# F# G# A# C# D# F# G#

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

Bb Db Eb Gb Ab Bb Db Eb Gb Ab

carlos thrale

www.carlosthrale.com

NOTES ON THE GUITAR

6 5 4 3 2 1

www.carlosthrale.com

THE MAJOR SCALE

Major scale intervals = Tone, Tone, Semitone, Tone, Tone, Tone, Semitone.

T = ToneS = Semitone

www.carlosthrale.com