In music, the term note has two primary meanings:
- A sign used in musical notation to represent the relative duration and pitch of a sound;
- A pitched sound itself.
Notes are the "atoms" of much Western music: discretizations of musical phenomena that facilitate performance, comprehension, and analysis.
The term "note" can be used in both generic and specific senses: one might say either "the piece 'Happy Birthday to You' begins with two notes having the same pitch," or "the piece begins with two repetitions of the same note." In the former case, one uses "note" to refer to a specific musical event; in the latter, one uses the term to refer to a class of events sharing the same pitch.
Read more about Note: Note Name, Written Notes, Note Frequency (hertz), History of Note Names
Famous quotes containing the word note:
“... if we look around us in social life and note down who are the faithful wives, the most patient and careful mothers, the most exemplary housekeepers, the model sisters, the wisest philanthropists, and the women of the most social influence, we will have to admit that most frequently they are women of cultivated minds, without which even warm hearts and good intentions are but partial influences.”
—Mrs. H. O. Ward (1824–1899)
“There is a note in the front of the volume saying that no public reading ... may be given without first getting the author’s permission. It ought to be made much more difficult to do than that.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“Poor old Jonathan Bing
Went home and addressed a short note to the King:
If you please will excuse me
I won’t come to tea;
For home’s the best place for
All people like me!”
—Beatrice Curtis Brown (1901–1974)