In music, an octave or perfect octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems". The word "octave" comes from a Latin root meaning "eight". It seems an odd name for a frequency that is two times, not eight times, higher.

Actually, there are really 12 different notes in an octave if you count the black keys (if you go 12 semitones up from the note "D", you'll end up at D again), so in this sense the 12 different notes on a piano are a lot like the 12 months or the 12 ticks on a 12-hour clock; but it would be really confusing if we referred to the notes as "January, February,...".

The cyclic number relationship comes up when playing notes in computer programs, which often use a digital representation of piano notes called MIDI (for example, these numbers are used in Scratch). In this system, middle C is note number 60, C# is 61, and D is 62. So an octave above 62 is 62+12 = 74. Every 12th number corresponds to the same note name.

A musical scale represents a division of the octave space into a certain number of scale steps, a scale step being the recognizable distance (or interval) between two successive notes of the scale.

Here is the visual representation of different Keys on the Keyboard.

No matter what instrument you play, or even if you write all of your music digitally, it pays to understand the foundations of music theory. When you’re writing music, if you don’t understand what notes create harmonies, and why, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle. Music theory is how musicians explain and describe the phenomena heard in a musical composition.

Major Scales

The major scale is one of the most commonly used musical scales, especially in Western music. It is one of the diatonic scales. Like many musical scales it is made up of seven notes: the eighth duplicates the first at double its frequency so that it is called a higher octave of the same note (from Latin "octavus", the eighth).

The characteristics that give the major scale its specific flavor are found in the sequence (or pattern) of whole steps (WS) and half steps (HS) that form the scale.

The pattern of the major scale is: WS - WS - HS - WS - WS - WS - HS

Minor Scales

Minor scales are of 3 kinds: Natural, Harmonic and Melodic. Each of these minor scales have an unique sound.

Natural Minor Scales

The pattern that characterizes the sound of the natural minor scale is: WS - HS - WS - WS - HS - WS - WS

Harmonic minor scales

The notes of the harmonic minor scale are almost the same as the notes from the natural minor scale. The only difference between these two is that the 7th note from the harmonic minor is raised a half step (semitone) making an augmented second (a whole and a half step - WH) between the 6th and 7th note.

The pattern that gives the harmonic minor scale its sound is: WS - HS - WS - WS - HS - WH - HS.

Melodic minor scales

The notes of the melodic minor scale are somewhat the same as the natural minor scale notes. This time, both the 6th note and the 7th note are raised above the corresponding notes of the natural minor scale. As you can see bellow this is valid only when playing the melodic minor scale upward. When playing the melodic minor scale downward the notes are exactly the same as the descending notes from the natural minor scale.

The pattern that give this scale its specific flavor is:

-upward: WS - HS - WS - WS - WS - WS - HS

Diminished scales and other scales

Also known as the octatonic scales (because it consists of 8 notes), they are divided into 2 types of scales:

- Half step(HS) - Whole step(WS) diminished scales

- Whole step(WS) - Half step(HS) diminished scales

The pattern of the HS-WS diminished scale is: HS - WS - HS - WS - HS - WS - HS - WS (as you can see the HS-WS sequence keeps on repeating until it reaches the octave note, hence the name).

We apply the same logic to the WS-HS diminished scale.

The pattern for the WS-HS diminished scale is: WS - HS - WS - HS - WS - HS - WS - HS.

Other scales worth mentioning are the chromatic scale and the whole tone scale.

The chromatic scale consists of 12 notes, each of them at a whole step (semitone) apart.

So the pattern of the chromatic scale goes like this: HS - HS - HS - HS - HS - HS - HS - HS - HS - HS - HS.

The whole tone scale consists of 6 notes a whole step (tone) apart.

Whole tone scale pattern: WS - WS - WS - WS - WS - WS.

The Basics

Bellow we will go through the basics of music notation.

Music is a language, and in order to be able to read a new language and also write it, we first need to know its specific alphabet. Instead of words we have to learn 7 letters: A B C D E F G, they look familiar don't they? Of course, they're the first 7 letters of the most common alphabet.

You might ask: well, how come there are so many notes on the piano and only 7 note names? Well that's very simple. If you look closely to a piano keyboard you will start to see a pattern unfolding. The most obvious sign is the 2 and 3 black keys alternation.

So that means that there's some repetition going on and if you start counting from the white key on the left of the 2 black notes you will get 7 keys with the 8th being placed the same as the first note, on the left of the 2 black keys group, being named the same as the first note.

The next step is to know which key is A, so we know where to start our 7 note sequence from.

Now, a very inspired question would be: Well, how can we tell where on the stave can we notate a specific note (or sound) from the piano keyboard? This is where the middle C comes in and makes all of this much easier for us.

The middle C is basically the closest C note to the middle of the keyboard. Bellow you will see the middle C on the keyboard and on the stave in both treble and bass clef.

A chord is any harmonic set of three notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios, and broken chords may, for many practical and theoretical purposes, constitute chords.

The tempo of a piece of music generally refers to the speed at which the piece is intended to be played. When reading a piece of music this translates as beats per minute. Bellow you can find the names of all the crystallized traditional tempos along with the beats per minute indication.

The 2 basic dynamic indicators of music are:p or piano (meaning ”soft”) and f or forte (meaning ”loud”).

More subtle degrees of softness and loudness are indicated by: mp standing for ”mezzo-piano” (meaning ”moderately soft”) and mf standing for ”mezzo-forte” (meaning ”moderately loud”).

Beyond f and p there are also:

pp, standing for "pianissimo" (meaning "very soft")

ff, standing for "fortissimo" (meaning "very loud")

ppp, standing for "pianississimo" (meaning"very very soft")

fff, standing for "fortississimo" (meaning "very very loud")

Some pieces contain dynamic designations with more than three f's or p's.

Accents, dynamics, pedaling and other musical artifices, all have the role of articulating the music, therefore giving expressivity to the music being played. Bellow you will find a list of accents used by pianists.

Recommendations

Phonascus is an open source (free) tool designed to help you learn how music works. Included are a number of skills and exercises for music students, including both theory lessons as well as those designed to help you tune your ears to what's happening in a composed piece of music. Learn to identify scales, intervals, notes, chords, and cadences, and explore included interactive books on music theory, all from one program.

LenMus aims at providing a free suite of integrated products to satisfy the needs of music students and teachers. It aims at becoming fully cross-platform and to offer, also, a good tool to write interactive texts on music (eBooks), with an embedded integrated music score editor.

Phonascus is developed on Launchpad, and is made available as open source under version 3 of the GPL. Compiled versions for both Linux and Windows are available for download.

Phonascus allows you to practice specific skills and exercises. The different activities can be customized to meet your needs. Phonascus allows you to work at your own pace, providing interactive feedback until mastery of each concept is achieved. Phonascus includes exercises on:

• Identifying and building key signatures.

• Building and spelling intervals.

• Identifying scales.

• Identifying chords.

• Identifying cadences.

• Music reading: scores composed by the program. Never repeated.

• Clefs reading

These exercises are also fully customizable, to allow you to focus on those points in which you are having difficulties or to trim the exercise to your study level.

• In 'learning' mode the program analyses your answers and schedule questions to systematically covering all the subject and to focus on those questions that are troubling you. This mode is the most systematic one and asked questions are adapted your learning needs, to minimize your study time and optimise your learning rate. Your performance data is saved and the next time you return again to the exercise, the program takes care of asking questions to ensure an optimal learning path. The result is, ideally, a reduction in the amount of time needed to study a subject and the assurance that the subject has been systematically reviewed. This mode is based on the 'spaced repetition' or 'Leitner method'.

• In 'practising' mode the program uses your performance data, saved in learning mode, to choose questions. It selects questions at random but giving more probability to those that are troubling you. Your performance data in this mode is not saved. This mode is useful when you have finished your daily assignment and you would like to practise more.

• In 'exam' mode, neither your saved performance data not your answers to previous questions are taken into account to formulate the next question. At any moment, all possible questions have the same probability of being asked. This mode is useful for testing your knowledge before taking an examination, but is less useful for learning.

• The 'quiz' mode is similar to the 'exam' mode but two answer counters are displayed and questions are accounted in both counters: one in first counter and the next one in the second counter. This mode is useful to work in pairs or in teams at classroom.