Let’s take a look at another way to identify an alphabet! The way we find the letters of the English language is by using the alphabetic system, or what some call the “musical alphabet.” This was first used in ancient Greece and Rome, where every letter had its own distinct sound.

Today, you probably learned your most common vowels back when you were a kid — as kids, we learn mostly our lower case letters, then later our uppercase ones. It’s not until high school that we get familiar with all the other sounds in the world, like the lisps, fricatives, and sonics.

But the musical alphabet goes one step further than just identifying individual sounds. With it, you can actually identify whole words! That’s why it’s called the “alphabetical system.”

The reason this works so well for learning vocabulary is because each letter has a corresponding number. Just like how there are only 26 letters in the English alphabet, the same is true for the numbers 0 through 25 in any given language. (Some languages have more or less than that!)

So, if you want to know the word for cat, for example, you would start with the letter A, which corresponds to the number 1. Next, you would choose the vowel I, which also has a number -1.

Easy way to remember the musical alphabet

The next step is figuring out how many letters are in each of the major music genres! There are eight notes, or pitches, in a diatonic scale (the most common type) that make up a song. These include the tonic, second tone, third tone, fourth tone, fifth tone, sixth tone, seventh tone, and octave.

By adding together all of these individual letter values, you can determine what the total value of a pitch is called the sum. For example, if the song has three instances of A-sharp, then add them together to get 3 + (-1) + (-1) + 1 = 0+A natural. This is your new tonic!

The term “alphabet” comes from the Greek word alphê, which means “letter.” When musicians talk about having an “ABC” of this thing or that, they mean learning the underpinnings or basics with which to begin.

1) The musical alphabet is a list of the different letters in the alphabet and the corresponding musical note

A music chart does not have notes, it has chords. Chords are just groups of three or more notes that sound good together.

So what we need to do first is determine how many strings (notes) there are in the chord. There are usually one, two, or three bass (lowest pitched) strings, one treble (highest pitched) string, and then another baritone (middle-range) string.

The number of strings in a chord determines which letter we use to describe the chord. So, for example, if you were to say “What chord is this?” I would tell you the chord contains an E tonic, so it must be an Em chord.

This is because there is only one low pitch in the chord — the bass guitar string – and this string can be represented by the letter E. Therefore, the chord is called an Em chord.

2) Recognize the different musical notes

The next thing to learn is how to recognize your first letter of music! You have already learned some basic shapes like major, minor, and seventh chords, as well as their corresponding tones. Now it’s time to apply what you know to something more practical – recognizing the different notes of the scale.

A note is called a “root note” or sometimes a “fundamental tone.” A root note can be at either the beginning or end of a phrase, and it typically stays the same tonal quality (i.e., pitch). For instance, the root note for the song “Happy Birthday” is the B-flat sound.

The other notes that make up a scale are referred to as “harmonics.” These vary in number and position within the song, but all together they create the overall mood and theme of the piece.

There are several ways to identify the various notes of the musical alphabet. You will probably find one method simpler than others depending upon which style of playing you are looking to develop.

3) Recognize the different musical notes

The next thing to do is recognize the different notes of music. Music has many, many notes that we can identify. There are eight major notes (think G, A, D, G, etc.) and six minor ones (Dm, Em, F, Am, B).

There are also several other notations used for certain songs. For example, the song “Happy Birthday” uses an octave repeat note at the end. This is done every second measure to make the song feel longer. An eighth-note rest happens every eight measures as well, which adds more depth to the song.

Other common notes include tied or trilled semitones (notes one half step away from eachother), dotted quarter tones, and whole tone drops! All of these add additional flavor to a song.

Music theory goes beyond just identifying individual notes, however. It involves analyzing how those notes relate to each other and what genre of music they belong to.

4) 5) 7) 8) 9) 10)

The next step is to determine how many letters are in each of these songs! There are two ways to do this, you can use our chart here or you can take our word for it and just add up all the lyrics yourself!

The first way is by using our musical alphabet chart here. You will want to know which letter goes with what song and then look up how many characters that song has in its lyrics. For example, if your song was “My Favorite Song” then you would look at the A column and see that there is one f character in the song. Therefore, there are 1+1=2 total letters in the song.

Likewise, if your song was “Let It Go” then you would look at the I column and see that there is one l character in the song. So there are 2 total letters in the song! This process can be done in reverse as well – find the number of letters in a song and look up what note the lyric starts with to figure out which row it belongs in.

There you have it! Now you know how many letters are in every single song in the music library! Whether you are teaching someone how to sing a new song or helping students learn their favorite songs, this information will help you very much.

12) 13) 14) 15) 16) 17) 18) 19) 20) 21) 22) 23) 24) 25) 26) 27) 28) 29) 30) 31) 32) 33) 34) 35) 36) 37) 38) 39) 40) 41) 42) 43) 44) 45) 46) 47) 48) 49) 50) 51) 52) 53) 54) 55) 56) 57) 58) 59) 60) 61) 62) 63) 64) 65) 66) 67) 68) 69) 70) 71) 72) 73) 74) 75) 76) 77) 78) 79) 80) 81) 82) 83) 84) 85) 86) 87) 88) 89) 90) 91) 92) 93) 94) 95) 96) 97) 98) 99) 100)

The musical alphabet is made up of different notes, or scale elements. There are seven main scales in music that we can use to identify chords, melodies, and songs!

The major scale has three pitches per step which makes it very easy to go down by one note (subtune), two notes (augmented second), or three notes (octave). By lowering the pitch of a song or chord, you can create an octave lower tone, a sub-tone (or suspended harmonic tonal element), or a dimished fifth (paired tones with half steps between them).

Knowing these types of intervals will help you learn how to play some basic tunes! For example, looking at the first position of the D Major Scale, you have a third, a perfect fourth, and then a minor sixth. To play this interval, simply press the middle as if your hand was a piano roll going up. Then release all three fingers quickly together. This creates a minor 6th degree, or diminished 5th! You can also do this vice versa for an augmented 4th.