• Music Tutorials
• Piano Tutorials
• Quick Lessons
• My Videos

• Music Tutorials
  • Introduction
  • Structure of Music Notation
  • Letters and Notes
  • Rhythm & Time Signature
  • Accidentals & Key Signature
  • Musical Terminology
  • Additional Info
• Piano Tutorials
  • Introduction
  • Hand Positions
  • Hand-Eye Coordination
  • Practice & Sample Music
  • Additional Info
• Quick Lessons
  • Introduction
  • Canon in D
  • Flight of the Bumble Bee
  • Für Elise
  • Moonlight Sonata
  • Turkish March
  • Unfaithful
• Piano Info
  • Why Learn Piano?
  • This Website and You
  • Private Lessons Info Sheet
• Extras
  • FAQ
  • Videos

Music Notes

Notes are, quite simply, the black blobs that sit on the five bars of standard music notation. They represent different pitches based on their vertical position on the bars.

Structure of Notes

Note Structure

Stem: the stem is the line that protrudes from the note head. Every note has a stem, except the whole note. Head: the head is the large circle attached to the end of the stem. The position of the head on the music bars determines the pitch/tone of the sound.

Types of Notes

There are many different types of notes in music notation, and all of them have their own distinctive qualities, including beat and pitch.

Beat The shape of a note's stem and head establishes its beat value, or the number of counts it should be held when played. Example: The picture to the right shows differently-shaped notes that have different beat values. For this lesson, we'll only need to recognize that there are various types of notes and not the exact beats of each note.

Different types of notes

Pitch

The position of a note's head on music bars describes its pitch, or the tone of sound. Example: In the picture to the right, the two notes have different pitches because one is located relatively higher than the other on the music bars. Note: Also, notice that one of the note stems descends rather than ascends from the note head. This is because stems shouldn't extend beyond the topmost bar of music notation. A "down stem" must be written for every note on or above the middle line of each 5-bar cluster.

Piano connection: On the piano, different pitches are conveniently located on different keys. Thus, every note has its own unique key, making it easier for piano players to read music.

Rests

Akin to notes, rests are also littered throughout standard music notation. However, instead of playing a rest, we wait for a rest to pass. The number of beats we wait is the same number of beats for notes of the same name. I.e. quarter rest = quarter note, 8th rest = 8th note, etc.

Review

1. Every note has 2 parts: head and stem, except the whole note, which does not have a stem.
2. The beat value of a note is determined by the shape of its head and stem.
3. The pitch of a note is determined by the position of the note head on the bars of standard music notation.
4. Rests are similar to notes, except that instead of playing a rest, we wait for a rest to pass.

« Standard Music Notation

Music Bars »