Name of Music Notes – A B/H C D E F G and DO RE MI FA SOL LA SI/TI

Welcome ! Here you will find all the necessary information about the music note, a musical symbol used to express the pitch and duration of a sound.

You will also learn about two ways to name the notes, either by using syllables – DO RE MI FA SOL LA SI/TI – or by using letters – A B/H C D E F G.

Each Musical Note on a Score Indicates a Pitch and a Duration of the Sound

The pitch of a note is indicated by its position on the staff and the clef placed at the beginning of that staff. The higher a note is placed on the staff, the higher the pitch will be. Conversely, the lower it is placed, the lower the pitch will be.

Its duration is expressed by the shape of the note.

The Clefs and the Place of the Note on the Musical Staff fix its Name and its Pitch

The name and pitch of each musical note is determined by its position on the staff…

…and by the clef placed at the beginning of the staff.

Thus, with a treble clef, a note placed on the fifth line of the staff – counting the lines from bottom to top – will correspond to a midrange F (FA). While with a bass clef, it will correspond to an A (LA) that is almost two octaves lower (an octave is an interval of 8 notes separating two notes of the same name).

You can learn and understand the treble clef (G clef) in just a few seconds by watching the following video:

 

And you can learn and understand the bass clef (F clef) in just a few seconds by watching the following video:

7 Notes of Music and Two Systems to Name Them

There are seven musical notes and two main systems for naming them: A B C D E F G, and DO RE MI FA SOL LA SI.

Each system has variations depending on the country that uses it: H instead of B, TI instead of SI.

The Syllabic Musical Notation: DO RE MI FA SOL LA SI/TI

The origin of the syllabic name of the music notes is attributed to the Italian monk Guido d’Arezzo, who in the 11th century used the first syllables of a Latin hymn from the vespers liturgy of the Feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, “Ut queant laxis,” to name each music note:

Ut queant laxis
resonare fibris
Mira gestorum
famuli tuorum,
Solve polluti
labii reatum,
Sancte Iohannes.

This yields, for the first six verses: UT – RE – MI – FA – SOL – LA

It was only at the end of the 16th century that the note SI, using the initials of the last verse, was added.

Furthermore, the musical note UT, the only one to begin with a vowel, was partially replaced by DO in the 17th century, which is easier to pronounce when reading the names of the notes aloud.

How to Read Music Notes using DO RE MI FA SOL LA SI