Piano Notes: The Alphabet of Music

Piano notes, or notes played on a piano, are deceptively simple little things. They are the alphabet of music. All told, there's only twelve of them in a diatonic scale, a fact which makes the whole concept sound much less complicated than it really is. Even the term piano notes itself is often misused; while it's usually meant to refer to the actual pitch, the term piano notes technically only applies to the written notation of a pitch and not the actual sound. Then there are the issues of rhythms, scales, accidentals, octaves -- the whole thing can get very complicated, very fast.

Piano notes are named after the first seven letters of the English alphabet and keep that name regardless of the octave; on a typical 88 key piano, these notes are represented by the white keys. But since the diatonic scale has twelve notes and not seven, some of these can be altered. To get the extra five notes, we can sharpen (raise a half-step) or flatten (lower a half-step) some notes; these piano notes are the black keys. Not every note can be sharpened or flattened, however. Since C is only a half-step away from B, B cannot be sharpened and C cannot be flattened. Likewise, E is only a half-step away from F; therefore, F cannot be flattened and E cannot be sharpened (there are, of course, some exceptions to this depending on the key signature).

The rhythmic aspect of piano notes are based on their duration, creating a series of piano notes all differing in type and value. Whole piano notes are four beats and represented by a hollow oval with no stem. Half piano notes are two beats, or half of a whole, and represented by a hollow oval with a stem. Quarter piano notes represent a fourth of a whole note, eighth piano notes an eight, sixteenth notes and sixteenth and so on as far as 128th piano notes (which are rarely used). It's also important to mention that piano notes can be altered by adding a dot after the written note. Dotted piano notes indicate that the note's value is that of the original note plus one half. Dotted half piano notes, for instance, are worth three beats and dotted quarter piano notes are worth one and a half.

Music Notes & How They Work

Notes are the musical notation representing a fixed pitch. While the word strictly refers to the physical notation of a pitch, it's more commonly used to refer to both the pitch and the notation. When we're trying to figure out a piece of music, we rarely ask which pitches are being played; we always ask which notes are being played. But if we try to describe a song as having the same note in several places, we're technically wrong. Considering that each note is a separate notation, even if the pitch is the same, it's impossible to have the same note in several places.
Notes are named after the first seven letters in the alphabet -- A, B, C, D, E, F, and G -- and keep the same letter value regardless of the octave. But since there are twelve notes in a diatonic scale, the seven notes can be altered. To get the extra five notes, we sharp (raise by a half-step) and flat (lower by a half-step).

The types of notes and their values are based on the amount of time they take up in a song.
Whole notes (or breve notes) are four beats, which is equal to one measure in 4/4 time. They are represented by a hollow, oval note with no stem.
Half notes (or minim notes) are half of a whole note, or two beats. They are written as a hollow note with a stem that points up when placed below the middle of the staff, up when placed above it.
Quarter notes (or crochet notes) represent a quarter of a whole note, or one beat in 4/4 time. They are the most recognizable note: a solid black note with a stem.
Eighth notes (or quaver notes) are one-eighth of a whole note and are written exactly like a quarter note, but with a flag attached to the stem. When more than one eighth note is placed side by side, a solid beam connects the adjacent notes.
Sixteenth notes (or demiquaver notes) are one-sixteenth of a whole note and represented as an eighth note with two flags or two solid beams.
Thirty-second and sixty-fourth notes represent the section of a whole note indicated by their names; they are drawn as eighth or sixteenth notes with an additional flags.
It's also important to mention that a note's value can be changed by adding a dot. Dotted notes represent the value of the original note, plus one half. For instance, dotted half notes are held for three beats, dotted quarter notes for a beat and one half, and so on.