Pitches on the tenor staff are as follows:Īny accidentals follow the octave designation of the natural pitch with the same generic name. Pitches on the alto staff are as follows: So an ascending scale from middle C contains the following pitch designations:Īnd a descending scale from middle C contains the following pitch designations: The tricky bit about this system is that the octave starts on C and ends on B. An octave higher than middle C is C5, and an octave lower than middle C is C3. In that system, middle C (the first ledger line above the bass staff or the first ledger line below the treble staff) is C4.
We will follow the International Standards Organization (ISO) system for register designations.
#Musical note c plus#
A pitch-class plus a register together designate a specific pitch. In fact, if all you have is C-sharp or B-flat, you do not have a pitch, you have a pitch-class. When specifying a particular pitch precisely, we also need to know the register. Theoretically, each key could have several names (the note C could also be considered D♭♭, for instance), but it’s usually not necessary to know more than two enharmonic spellings. When two pitch classes share a key on the keyboard, they are said to have enharmonic equivalence.
Notice that some of the keys have two names. On the illustration below, the pitch-class letter names are written on the keyboard. The keyboard is great for helping you develop a visual, aural, and tactile understanding of music theory.