Music Pitch

In music theory, 7 letters from the alphabet are used to refer to certain pitches in music. These 7 letters are A, B, C, D, E, F and G. These are considered natural notes.

As you can see in the chart above, natural notes are basically all the white keys on a piano. Even though only 7 letters are used, there are actually 12 pitches in an octave. Similar to 12 constellations in a year. So, if only 7 letters are used, then how do you refer to the other 5 pitches in an octave, specifically the black keys. We refer to the rest of the pitches by altering the natural notes using ‘♯’ or ‘♭’ symbols. The ‘♯’ symbol means to sharpen the note or to pitch up the natural note by a semitone (half step) while the ‘♭’ symbol means to flatten the note or pitch down the natural note by a semitone. Notes with sharp or flat symbols are called altered notes.

Some notes on white keys on a piano can be written using either ‘♯’ or ‘♭’ as well.
• B can be written as C♭
• C can be written as B♯
• E can be written as F♭
• F can be written as E♯

Music Pitch Notes:
A – A♯/B♭ – B – C – C♯/D♭ – D – D♯/E♭ – E – F – F♯/G♭ – G – G♯/A♭