Learning The Musical Alphabet

Before I knew anything about music, I often wondered how a person knew the note they were playing was called "C". Why is this called "C" and not some other letter? What I learned is that this person already had knowledge about the musical alphabet and knew exactly the letter name of the note they were playing.

All of the pitches you hear or the notes that you read in music have a name. To identify that pitch, that is what is used. It's just like how you have a name that you go by and so do I. People are less likely to get us confused because our name identifies who we are and separates us from each other. The same is true for music notes.

A standardized system of seven letters was developed to help us name pitches and identify them. With this information, we now know that "C" is different from "G" when we play it or hear it. There are only seven letters in the musical alphabet: A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. After the note "G" is played, the next note is called "A" restarting the musical alphabet over again. In a single piece of music, the entire musical alphabet can by cycled through many different times.

You will notice a repeating pattern of the seven letters used in music on the white keys of the piano too. I tell my students that if they want to play a trick on someone, ask them to play or sing the note "H". This will help you find out very quickly how much a person knows about music.

It is hard to believe that music only has seven notes, especially when you are listening to a very complicated piece of music. Many times the pitches fly by so quickly that you have a hard time listening to what is going on. However music sounds to your ear, there are still only seven different notes that you are listening to.

There are some notes that may sound higher or lower than others. Giving notes yet another very unique sound, they can also be altered by a sharp or a flat. Nonetheless, music is a simple language to learn because it only uses the first seven letters of the English language alphabet to name the notes.

Now that you know what letters are used in the musical alphabet, try memorizing all seven notes. In addition, it's a good idea to memorize the pattern on the white keys of the piano as well. Always remember to practice repeating the musical alphabet by restarting with the letter "A" after you reach "G". As you can see, music really isn't that hard to learn. Your next step is to understand how those seven notes are used when reading music on paper.


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As an active music instructor, Teresa Rose has a passion for helping people learn music. She especially enjoys teaching others how to learn to read music. Read more articles about music at her website and sign up for her free newsletter.