What is the technical term for the note names C, D, E, F, G, A, and H?

Question

^{I'm trying to find out whether my knowledge of the theory is correct, so this question might look a bit silly.}

There's the term pitch. Pitch allows objectively tell whether two sounds are equal, and which one is higher (if not). This can be expressed using two approaches:

• using frequency of the sound (e.g., 440Hz is objectively lower than 441Hz, and objectively equal to 440Hz); this allows arbitrary precision, and easy to operate with for a computer.
• using human terms (for example, F4 is higher than C♯4, and lower than A♭4); this is precise up to the difference between two adjacent alterations.

The problem I'm facing at this moment is related to the second approach. It is obvious for me, that there are three entities needed to fully define a pitch:

• octave (exact portion of pitch space, from C to the next H),
• tone (C, D, E, F, G, A, or H), and
• alteration (♯, ♭, ♮, etc.).

My concerns is that I wasn't able to find usages of the word "tone" in that sense. So my question is whether this is the correct term for this entity. If it is not, which one is?

---

In this question the OP calls this entity using the term principal note, but I think it is even more confusing, since notes have pitch, not the opposite. Also, there are no other usages of this term in this sense.

The closest thing I was able to find is pitch class, but it is still different: for example, D♭ is not a separate tone (it is one of the possible alterations of D), but it forms its own pitch class, along with all the other D♭'s (see the link for a better definition).

Answer 1

I agree that there is a lack of a good term. Note is a poor choice, not only because, as you say, "notes have pitch, not the opposite," but notes also have duration. If asked, "what are the notes?" You could just as easily answer, "whole notes, half notes, quarter notes..." as "A, B, C..."

I don't think there is a formal term, though "note letters", "white keys", or "the naturals" would probably be well understood (in English). You can get the meaning from context in the question you linked, where the OP calls it "principal tone". But tone can also mean other things (whole step, timbre, e.g.).

The class of C, D, E, F, G, A, H/B is a useful notion in software that models music, and I would argue generally as well. A class (in the computer science sense) called ScientificPitch (to distinguish it from other meanings of "pitch" such as frequency, which you mention) might have properties like MidiNote, NoteLetter, PitchClass, Accidental (or Alteration), StatedOctave, and AbsoluteOctave. The notes shown below:

...share the same pitch class, MIDI note, and absolute octave, but they do not share note letters, stated octaves, or scientific pitches. Given MIDI note 60 or the-white-key-called-middle-C, how does software—or indeed a person—know whether to render the pitch as B♯3 (H♯3?), C4, or D♭♭4? You can only do so if you're given context or told something like, "in this case, use note letter C."

For what it's worth, "Note Letter" is the term I've used in my own software.

Answer 2

Historically, the idea to identify pitch with a letter or solfege name is part of an idea called: gamut. But I think that meaning is really a reference to the whole set in connection with diatonic pitches.

The modern term for a pitch and it's related higher and lower octaves is: pitch class.

D♭ is not a separate tone (it is one of the possible alterations of D)

Certainly Db and D are separate tones. The question is just what labels to use in the nomenclature you have made.

From the wiki article:

• Important to musical set theory, a pitch class is, "all pitches related to each other by octave, enharmonic equivalence, or both."
• Note that in standard Western equal temperament, distinct spellings can refer to the same sounding object: B♯3, C4, and Ddouble flat4 all refer to the same pitch, hence share the same chroma, and therefore belong to the same pitch class; a phenomenon called enharmonic equivalence.

I think the point then is D and Db are different pitches and it doesn't matter how you spell them to classify them in a pitch class. According to the points above Db and C# belong to the same pitch class. Your "tone" concept says C# is a different "tone" from D, but Db is not a different "tone" from D. That runs contrary to the meaning of pitch class.

My suggestion is to just use established terms or plain English labels:

• octave has a clear, established meaning in scientific pitch notation and is just a number.
• the gamut A B C D E F G are just letters, call that attribute letter. I have also seen the terms "name" and "letter name" used in music theory writing.
• ♯ ♭ ♮, etc. are called accidentals, just call that attribute accidental.

I kind of suspect this is about a computer program. Is so, you could have a "tone" object with attributes: octave, letter, accidental. The reading of those labels would be perfectly clear with no misuse of terms.

Answer 3

The vernacular term is Note. Regardless of technical nuances, all musicians know what "note" means in the context you are referring to. IMO nothing more is necessary.

Another term, not particularly technical, that you'll find in the introduction to every theory book, is Musical Alphabet, when referring to the group at large.

However Musical Alphabet includes only C-D-E-F-G-A-H, while Note also includes accidentals - Eb is a different note than E.

Answer 4

Well, if you are really talking about the set (in strict mathematical sense) which the entities C, D, E, F, G, A and H belong, the answer will be the scale - because it's a set of notes (in your case it will be C major, as well as A minor, H Locrian etc.).

But you probably have meant the other thing — speaking in the language of computer science, the class of objects like C or D. Yes, you're likely right that this has no standard notion, since the separation of notes and keys into "white" and "black" ones has mostly historical reasons (since in the early days of notation, namely in the Middle Ages, the diatonic scale was the only used one, and the only difference was in the now-7th degree "B", which can be either "soft"/"round" (♭) or "hard"/"squared" (♮) — so, that's the reason for writing B and H respectively). Now, in the days of equal temperament, chromaticity and scales based on different notes, notes like E and E♭ "have equal rights", so E♭ is now not just E with a flat attached to it, but a note on its own; we can invent an own letter to it, for example writing S (from the syllabic Eastern European notation Es), so there would be no more illusion that this is not the note on its own.

So, likely the best notion for this (i.e. a note letter without the accidental) will be just "letter" (if you use C-D-E-F-G-A-H) or "syllable" (if you use do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si).

Answer 5

The term for the meaning of the 7 alphabetical letters used for the notes and their pitch respectively for the steps of the key scales is "absolute note names" corresponding to the fixed do in opposite to the "relative note names" corresponding to the movable do, (the alterations marked by sharps and flats for the 5 halftones used for the 12 keys and the 12 tone scale.) The absolute note names stand for a scale tone (which pitch is indicated: the octava by the letters of the alphabet A,B,C... and a,b,c... or by adding an Arabic number like an C1, C2, C3 ... or the sign c', c'', c'''.

http://www.flutopedia.com/octave_notation.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_note