The most basic, raw component of music is the Note. Notes move vertically and horizontally in space. Vertically, notes move up and down in various intervals of Pitch. Horizontally notes move forward in various intervals of time (Rhythm).


The smallest pitch interval in all music in the western hemisphere (Americas, Europe, etc) is the half-step, or half-tone. Far-east forms of music use a quarter-tone system – which to our ‘western hemisphere tuned ears’ can sound out of tune, but actually results in beautiful music with subtle nuances.

Sequences of musical pitches result in melodies, Scales, modes, and arpeggios. Clusters of musical pitches result in Chords. Playing every half-tone sequentially up or down is called a Chromatic scale. Begin anywhere on your instrument, and play every note (fret) up or down, and that’s it! Begin anywhere and play 12 of those in a row, and you have played every note in a Chromatic Octave. Thus, there are 12 half-steps to an octave – actually, note #13 is the same note name as note #1, just an octave higher. Continue past note 12 and you are playing the same note names an octave higher in pitch.

If this is all new to you, take a second, breath, and digest it…

Nearly all music is based on Diatonic scales. There are seven notes to an octave in all diatonic scales. Obviously, there are many other types of scales – which we will eventually get to, but for now our discussions will be based on the major diatonic scale – protocol assumes the term Major Scale, so we’ll just call it that from now on.

Hey, I thought you said a chromatic octave has twelve notes – and now you’re saying an octave in a diatonic scale only has seven! What gives? Well, an octave is an octave – it is always the same distance apart from the first note to the last, no matter how many notes are in between. In other words, we are missing 5 notes from the chromatic scale when we play a diatonic scale.

In actuality, there are only seven note names in all of music! So, how do we get twelve notes in a chromatic octave? With Sharps and Flats. A sharp raises a note by a half-step. A flat lowers a note by a half step. Below is a diatonic scale beginning on C compared to a Chromatic scale starting on C:

1    2    3 4    5    6    7 8
C    D    E F    G    A    B C
1      2      3  4      5      6      7  8
C  C#  D  D#  E  F  F#  G  G#  A  A#  B  C

Since a flat lowers a note by a half-step, C#/Db, D#/Eb, F#/Gb, G#/Ab, and A#/Bb are all the same notes.

Music scales proceed up the alphabet in sequence, regardless of where they start. However, the C diatonic scale is the only one that contains all Naturals – meaning no sharps or flats – as you can see above why. E to F and B to C do not have a half-step interval in between, thus there is really no such thing as E# / Fb, or B# / Cb. Technically, some music needs to be written that way, but for purposes of discussion on this blog we will assume E to F and B to C are natural half steps.

All white keys on the piano are Natural notes – meaning sharp or flat is not part of their name. In contrast, all black keys on the piano have either sharp and/or flat as part of their name. Thus, if you played only the white keys starting on C, you would be playing a C diatonic major scale, otherwise simply known as a C scale.

In our next installment, we will explain why that is, and begin building on this knowledge. For now, go back and look at all the words in Bold – you should be able to define those up to this point – so again, if any of this is new to you – digest it before moving on – because the pace will pick up next time!

Musically Yours,

Al