The Musical Alphabet

When we first started our elementary education we learned our A, B, C's, but the very process of learning this can become a factor in our confusion about music theory. The written alphabet goes from A to Z and letters can be upper or lower case. Letters are combined to form words and spaces are used in text between words.

The musical alphabet goes from A to G and you should think of it repeating again after G with another group from A to G. It should also be considered as going in either direction. What we are doing is defining a significant difference between the written alphabet and the musical alphabet. In addition the musical alphabet should be thought of as having spaces between some of the letters. The distance from A to B is larger than the distance from B to C. The distance from D to E is larger than the distance from E to F. We could then write the musical alphabet something like this: A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A ... etc. The smaller distances are called half tone distances and the larger distances are called whole tone distances. The letters of the musical alphabet represent musical tones.

There are possible tones that can be played in the space between the whole tones, but these would be either a sharp or a flat. It is technically a sharp if it is a tone produced by traveling higher from the alphabet letter or it is a flat if it is produced by traveling lower from the alphabet letter. So, between A and B then there is a possible A sharp or a B flat. It may seem odd that this tone between the A and B can have two possible names, but it is a matter of viewpoint. Think of the view of a glass half filled with water. Is the glass half full or half empty? When such a situation occurs in music, this type of tone, that has two possible names is called an "enharmonic" tone.

Technically an A sharp and a B flat can be played slightly differently on some instruments, but many instruments have averaged this tone so that it is exactly the same. A fretted instrument like the guitar uses this averaging process so we do have true enharmonic sounds. An instrument like a fretless violin could play the slight variation between a sharp and flat. The human ear can distinguish 9 distinct tones between (and including) the start and end tone of a whole tone distance. The average point would be halfway between the total whole tone distance and this is where the "fret" is placed. There is also a slight adjustment to the placement of the fret and also the placement and design of the bridge to correct partially for this difference and also for the diameter and type of string. As you press down on a guitar string you cause it to stretch slightly which does affect the sound. Usually the main amount of correction for this is accomplished through a slightly offset placement of the bridge nut. On electric guitars there may be individual adjustments for each string at the bridge.

The bottom line here is that if you learn the musical alphabet letters and the spacing, it becomes easier to name notes and chords as you progress down the neck of the guitar. Eventually you would want to move from the musical alphabet toward an understanding of distances between tones. It is helpful to tune your guitar with an electronic tuner, so that you hear the distances correctly and consistently between tones. Learning the musical alphabet is a great initial step in understanding music theory.