How Musical Notes Are Constructed
You couldn't read or write music without notes. If you think of music as a language, the notes are like letters of the alphabet. If you know how to recognize the notes, you can learn the language.
Notes are made up of up to three specific components: note head, stem, and flag. Every note has a head — it’s the round part of a note. A note stem is the vertical line attached to the note head. A note flag is the little line that comes off the top or bottom of the note stem.
Every note has a head. An eighth note (the third one shown here) has all three possible components of a note: the head, the stem, and the flag.
By the way, stems can point either up or down, depending where on the staff they appear (pointing up or down makes no difference in the value of the note). Only eighth notes and smaller notes have flags. Quarter notes and half notes have stems but no flags. Whole notes have neither stems nor flags.
Instead of each note getting a flag, though, notes with flags can also be connected to each other with a beam (sometimes called a ligature), which is really just another, more organized-looking incarnation of the flag. For example, two eighth notes can be written as each having a flag, or as connected by a beam.
Eighth notes can be connected together with beams instead of having individual flags.
Four sixteenth notes can have flags, can be grouped into two pairs connected by a double beam, or can all be connected by one double beam. It doesn’t matter which way they are written, they would sound the same when played.
These three groups of sixteenth notes, written in three different ways, would all sound alike when played.
Likewise, eight thirty-second notes could be written in a number of ways. Note that thirty-second notes get three flags (or three beams).
Like eighth notes and sixteenth notes, thirty-second notes can be written separately or “beamed” together.
Using beams instead of individual flags on notes is simply a case of trying to clean up an otherwise messy-looking piece of musical notation.
Piano Glossary
accidental
A sharp or flat not in the key signature.
Piano Glossary
bar line
A line that divides music into measures, breaking up the musical paragraph into smaller, measurable groups of notes and rests.
Piano Glossary
bass clef
A musical symbol that indicates lower the notes, generally played with the left hand.
Piano Glossary
beat
The steady pulse of a piece of music; what you tap your foot to.
Piano Glossary
C position
Placing your right-hand thumb on middle C and your other right-hand fingers on the four successive white keys.
Piano Glossary
chord
Three or more notes played at the same time.
Piano Glossary
Circle of Fifths
An order that starts with no sharps and flats and cycles the ring of keys to all 12 keys.
Piano Glossary
clef
A musical symbol that tells you the names of the lines and spaces on the staff.
Piano Glossary
fingerings
Numbers written above the notes that tell you which finger to use for each note.
Piano Glossary
G position
Placing your right hand on the G above middle C and your other right-hand fingers on the four successive white keys.
Piano Glossary
grand piano
The largest piano. A concert grand is 9 feet long; a baby grand is about 5 feet.
Piano Glossary
grand staff
The treble clef and bass clef joined together with a brace at the start of the left side.
Piano Glossary
home note
The base note of a piece of music. All the notes in a song have a relation to the home note based on how close or far they are to home.
Piano Glossary
interval
The distance between any two musical notes.
Piano Glossary
key
A set of notes that corresponds to a certain scale.
Piano Glossary
key signature
Notation placed just after the clef on every line of music to tell the performer what key the song is in.
Piano Glossary
ledger line
An imaginary line running above or below the staff, extending the five-line staff to represent notes above and below the staff.
Piano Glossary
measure or bar
A batch of notes with a specific number of beats — most commonly four beats — that helps a performer keep time.
Piano Glossary
middle C
The 40th key of a piano, close to the center of the keyboard. The first key a new pianist learns the placement of.
Piano Glossary
MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface
A device that allows communication between electronic, digital equipment.
Piano Glossary
notehead
The printed representation of a note. A notehead is oval and may be solid or open, an attached to a stem or not.
Piano Glossary
octave line or ottava line
The line that tells you to play the indicated note or notes an octave higher or lower than written.
Piano Glossary
root note
The lowest note of a chord.
Piano Glossary
scale
A series of notes in a specific, consecutive order.
Piano Glossary
staff
The five lines and four spaces music is written on.
Piano Glossary
tempo
How fast or slow the beat is.
Piano Glossary
time signature
The indication of the meter of a piece of music.
Piano Glossary
tonic
The bottom note of a scale.
Piano Glossary
treble clef
A musical symbol that indicates higher the notes, generally played with the right hand.
Piano Glossary
triplet
Three notes per beat.
Piano Glossary
upright piano
A piano that sits upright against a wall. Also called verticals, they vary in height from the spinet up to full-size uprights.
