Music note names: sharps, flats, octaves and lengths

Music notes are named with the first seven letters of the alphabet: A, B, C, D, E, F and G. On a piano these are the white keys, and the letters repeat: after G comes A again, one octave higher. The five black keys in each octave take a neighbor's name plus a sharp (♯) or flat (♭), so there are 12 different notes. A note's length has its own name: whole, half, quarter, eighth.

The full set of names:

• Counting from C, the 12 notes are C, C♯/D♭, D, D♯/E♭, E, F, F♯/G♭, G, G♯/A♭, A, A♯/B♭ and B, then C again. There's no black key between E and F or between B and C.
• Middle C is C4, and the octave number goes up by one at every C, so the B just below middle C is B3. The A above middle C, A4, is the 440 Hz tuning note.
• In solfège the notes are do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti (si in many countries). France, Italy, Spain and Latin America use fixed do, where do is always C; in movable do, common in English-speaking classrooms and choirs, do is the first note of the major key.
• In 4/4 time a whole note lasts 4 beats, a half note 2, a quarter note 1 and an eighth note ½.

Seven letters name the white keys

The letters go up the keyboard from left to right. Black keys come in groups of two and three: C is the white key just left of each pair, and F is just left of each group of three. Middle C is the C nearest the middle of the keyboard. Note lists start from C rather than A because the white keys from C to C make the C major scale, and octave numbers change at C.

On the staff, each line or space up is the next letter, and the clef fixes where they start. The treble clef, or G clef, curls around the second line, G above middle C; the bass clef, or F clef, puts its two dots either side of the fourth line, F below middle C.

From the bottom, the treble lines are E G B D F ("Every Good Boy Does Fine") and the spaces F A C E; the bass lines are G B D F A ("Good Boys Do Fine Always") and the spaces A C E G ("All Cows Eat Grass"). Middle C sits on a ledger line between the two staves. How to read piano sheet music and the bass clef guide go through reading them note by note.

The beginner version on the easy Ode to Joy page is in C, and its first eight notes are E E F G G F E D, all white keys. The piano notes chart shows every white key from two octaves below middle C to two above, on the staff and the keyboard: click a note to hear it, or take the note-reading quiz.

Sharps and flats name the black keys

A sharp raises a note a half step, to the next key on the right, and a flat lowers it a half step, to the next key on the left. A natural sign (♮) cancels either one. You say and write the sign after the letter (F♯), but on the staff it's printed before the note, and it lasts for that line or space until the barline. Sharps and flats in the key signature apply to every note of that letter.

Two names for one key are called enharmonic, and the music decides which name you'll see. A major scale uses each letter once, so in G major the black key between F and G is always F♯, never G♭: G already has its place. Notes outside the key usually take sharps when the line rises and flats when it falls.

The same rule gives four less familiar names: E♯ is the white key F, B♯ is C, F♭ is E and C♭ is B. F♯ major needs E♯ as its seventh note. A double sharp (𝄪) raises a note two keys and a double flat (𝄫) lowers it two, so F𝄪 is played as G. Respelling like this often comes up when you transpose music.

Octave numbers tell you which C

In scientific pitch notation, middle C is C4 and each new number starts at C, so the white keys around it run A3, B3, C4, D4. An 88-key piano runs from A0 at the bottom to C8 at the top.

Some keyboards and music programs label middle C as C3, and a few as C5, so check what yours calls it before following a numbered chart. In MIDI, middle C is note 60 whatever the software calls it. Older books use Helmholtz notation, where middle C is c′ ("one-line c") and the C below it is a plain lowercase c.

Do, re, mi are another set of names for the same notes

German matches the English letters except for B: B natural is H, and B♭ is plain B. Sharps add -is and flats -es, so F♯ is Fis and E♭ is Es.

In fixed do, do is always C. In movable do, do is the first note of the major key you're in: in G major, do is G and ti is F♯. The syllables go back to Guido d'Arezzo in the 11th century, who took them from a Latin hymn; the first, "ut", later became "do".

Whole, half and quarter name the note lengths

A "note name" usually means the letter. The shape on the page tells you how long the note lasts, and those shapes are called note values.

A dot adds half the note's length again, so a dotted half note lasts 3 beats. Note values and rests has every shape, its rest and how to count them.

Hearing the note names in PlayableNotes

The free library pieces play in the browser with a sampled piano, and each note lights up as it sounds. You can change the tempo, loop a passage or play one hand at a time. Name the notes in a bar, then play it back and check that the notes lighting up are the ones you named.

To do the same with a page you already have, upload a photo, screenshot or PDF of two-staff piano music, the only kind PlayableNotes reads. Reading costs 1 credit per line of music, and everything after that is free. Check what it read against the page before you start naming.

Name the notes in your own music on your projects page; new accounts start with 50 free credits.