Note
Entry for EPMOW by Philip Tagg
note: (1) any single, discrete sound of finite duration within a musical continuum; (2) such a sound with easily discernible fundamental pitch; (3) the duration, relative to the music’s underlying pulse, of any such sound, pitched or unpitched.
(1) Although ‘note’ originally referred to the scribal marking of these minimal elements of musical articulation, the word has come to denote a discrete sonic event on its own, without any reference to musical notation. This terminological practice is illustrated concisely by the notes of MIDI sequencing which are defined by such factors as [i] the point at which a given sound will start; [ii] the type of sound (timbre, volume, attack, envelope, decay) that will occur at that point; [iii] (if pitched) the frequency at which the sound will be articulated; [iv] the point at which the sound will stop. According to this general meaning of the term, a note may be long, short, high, low, pitched, unpitched, loud, soft, sharp, rounded, etc. However, although a note may theoretically have any duration, it is virtually impossible to perceive as such if it sounds for less than 0.1 or for more than 12 seconds. Hence certain types of ornamentation which from a technical viewpoint involve more than one note are perceived as single notes of a particular type (e.g. drum rolls, tremolandi, fast trills), while extremely long notes are heard as pedals or drones.
(2) ‘Note’ is often used in a strictly tonal sense to refer to the specific pitch of a single sound event. A pitched note name refers to either: [i] an absolute pitch in any octave (‘a’, ‘f sharp’, etc.), or [ii] to the particular occurrence of such a sound (e.g. ‘high c’, ‘a low b flat’, ‘c0’, ‘d3’ — see octave), or [iii] to one pitch in relation to another (e.g. ‘a fifth below’, ‘flat seventh’, ‘leading note’, ‘mi-do-so-la’). Pitched notes are named in either absolute terms (a b c d e f g etc.) or in relative terms (for example, doh re mi fa so la ti or sa ri ga ma pa dha ni). In all instances note names are identical from one octave to another. Absolute note names are based on standard concert pitch (a at 440 Hz) while relative note names presuppose the fixation of doh, la or sa to any one pitch for the duration of a musical continuum, the other names denoting intervallic relationship to that doh or la (see tonic sol-fa, India). Three main conventions for naming notes of absolute pitch are in everyday use in popular music throughout the world and are displayed in Table 1: (i) the English-language system; (ii) the Latin convention (exemplified by French names) used in Russia and Poland as well as throughout the Latin world; (iii) the German convention used in Scandinavia and in German-speaking areas.
Table 1: Pitched note names
3. As evidenced by German and North American nomenclature, ‘note’ is often used when referring solely to the duration of a minimal musical sound event, for example ganze Note = ‘whole note’, Viertel(note) = ‘quarter note’ (see Table 2).
Table 2: Note length names
Note English (UK) English (US) German French Italian
W breve double whole note Brevis carrée breve
w semibreve wholenote Ganze (Note) ronde semibreve
h minim half note Halbe blanche minima or
bianca
q . dotted crotchet dotted quarter note punktiert Viertel noire pointée nera con punto
q crotchet quarter note Viertel noire nera or
semiminima
e quaver eighth note Achtel croche croma
x semiquaver sixteenth note Sechzehntel double-croche semicroma
r demisemiquaver thirty-second note Zweiunddreissigstel triple-croche biscroma
Æ hemidemi-semiquaver sixty-fourth note Vierundsechsigstel quadruple-
croche semibiscroma
[This entry by Philip Tagg (75%) and Garry Tamlyn (25%)]
[635 words]
