Note (music)

In music, a note is an abstract representation of the pitch and duration of a tone. The pitch designated by a note is objective only in the case of a simple tone (also called a pure tone) such as produced by a tuning fork, which consists of only a single frequency of vibration, in which case the pitch is uniquely related to that frequency at a given loudness.

A musical instrument on the other hand, produces a tone, which is a superposition of various frequencies with various amplitudes and phases peculiar to the instrument, and also affected by the manner of play that determines the sound envelope of the note (referred to by Lamb below as "adventitious circumstances"). A laboratory determination of pitch is made by a subject listening to a tone from a musical instrument and to a simple tone, such as that produced by a tuning fork, and identifying circumstances where the instrument and the simple tone sound alike. As a result, for other than simple tones, pitch is not a purely objective physical property; it is a subjective psychoacoustical attribute of a sound.

To quote Lamb: What Lamb refers to as "quality" of a tone also is referred to as timbre.

Notation
The pitch of a sound is indicated in musical notation by placing a symbol for the note on a stave, an array of parallel lines, as shown in the figure. The names of the notes correspond to the first seven letters of the alphabet, and also to the syllables Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si, Do. The labeling associated with the lines on the stave is indicated.

The symbol for the note indicates its duration. Examples are shown in the figure, with the longest or whole note at the bottom and successively shorter notes stacked above.