Notes and Degrees

A note is a single musical sound. You can speak of "a group of notes" being played without needing to know exactly what those notes are. However, once you try to describe which notes they are, it is important to be clear about a few basic terms.

Note Names

Often in music, you will be referring to the notes by their names. The names of all notes in music are based on the letters A, B, C, D, E, F and G, with perhaps a sharp (#) or flat (b) symbol appearing after the note letter.

Notes fall naturally into groups of twelve, known as octaves, and notes exactly one octave apart are given the same note name, because they sound the same as each other, only lower or higher.

Sometimes, the same note can have more than one name. For example, the note C# is the same as the note Db. Which name you choose depends on the context of the notes, such as whether is part of a chord or scale. For more details, see Naming Notes or Naming Notes in a Chord.

Note Pitches

Even more precise than knowing the name of a note is to know also which octave it belongs to.

This specifies exactly the pitch, or frequency of the note in the musical spectrum. In other words, how low or high it sounds within our audible hearing range.

Usually this is indicated with an octave number after the note name. For more details, see The Octave of a Note.

Degrees

The term degree is used for a component note of a chord type or scale type. The essential property of a degree (that provides its name) is its interval from the root note.

Degree names come from the corresponding interval in the first thirteen notes of the Major scale starting at the same root note.

Degree names, with possibly a sharp (#) or flat (b) symbol before the number, range from 1 to 13 with chord types, and from 1 to 7 with scale types.

Not all possible degree names are commonly used. For examples, see the standard chord types or standard scale types.