Musical Notes & Intervals

Musical Notes

Composer Guy Michelmore explains some of the essentials of music theory in the video below.

He is going to give you an overview of musical notes and the basic principles and piano layout. He will also be explaining to you the names of the notes.

This video will start at 00:26 and please watch up until 04:25.

The Music Alphabet

Notes are the building blocks for all music. The musical alphabet consists of seven letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Each note has a unique pitch.

Intervals

An interval is a distance between two notes. There are several intervals. Measure these intervals by the number of half steps, whole steps, and their position in the scale.

• A half step interval is one semitone
• A whole step interval is two semitones (tone)
• Two half steps make a whole-step

Below Ben Dunnett from Music Theory Academy will provide an explanation.

Octave

An octave is a musical interval. There are 12 semitones in the octave. These pitches repeat in the same order throughout the range of human hearing.

Below Andrew Huang will give us a demonstration. The video will start at 2.36 and please watch until 5.00.