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[TITLE]THE NOTES
 
Every sound is characterized by its particular waveform, and is perceived by our hearing as acute or low according to its frequency. Increasing its frequency the sound will results more acute, producing a limited series of tonality cyclically repeated.
 
For musical convention this cycle, that goes from a date tonality to the same more acute, is definited CROMATIC SCALE and divided in 12 notes. The distance between each note is called semitone (half-tone), so we'll find the same tonality every 12 semitones, but more acute.
 
The music scale notes are 7, definited by the DIATONIC SCALE:
[IMG]sdm_do.png
[TXT]C, D, E, F, G, A, B
 
We haven't lost 5 of the 12 notes of the cromatic scale, but simply definited 7 main notes and 5 middle notes: the distance among every note is of 2 semitones (called TONE) for 5 of the 7 main notes, and of 1 semitone for the other 2 notes.
[IMG]DO_ionico.png
 
The 8th note repeats the first one tonality, but more acute: raising a note's tonality by one octave means to play the same but more high note, adding 12 semitones to it.
 
Adding one semitone to a note will give a middle tonality, called SHARP (diesis: #), while lowering it we'll find the FLAT (bemolle: b). For 2 of the 7 notes this intermediary tonality doesn't exist, for which we'll find again the following or previous note, simply moving by one semitone. Only the notes B and E don't have the sharp tonality: adding a semitone to a B we'll find the C note, and E plus a semitone results a F. This means that subtracting a semitone by an F we'll see that the Fb (flat F) is the same note of E; the same thing for C - semitone = Cb = B.
 
So we'll have:  
[TXT]C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B and again C C# ...
moving backward of a semitone we find the flat (bemolle: b), which is the sharp of the previous note:  
[TXT]C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, E, F, F#/Gb G G#/Ab A A#/Bb B/Cb, C
 
[PAGE][TXTE]HISTORY
 
The subdivision of an octave in 12 equal parts is called moderate system and it was exposed in 1691 by Werkmeister in Musikalische Temperatur; this is the musical system today used in the west.
The notes name convention gots its origin in the 6th Century, when Greece decided to call the notes with the first 7 alphabet letters, departing from the note defined as A (frequency 440Hz). 
Thanks to the new criterion and names definition by Guido d'Arezzo, in the 12th Century was born the latin method, which defines the notes name using the first 6 verses initial syllables from the Hhymn to St. Giovanni Battista. The SI note (B) comes from Sancte Iohannes (16th C.), and finally in the 17th Century, in Italy, the first note (UT, of difficulty pronunciation) becomes DO (A).
 
Anglo-Saxon Countries today uses the original alphabetical notation, (, B, C, D, E, F, G); Germany uses the same one but calls note B as H (B means Bb). In Latin Countries the notation of the XVII C. is used (DO - SI) while only the France, which uses the latin notation too, still calls the C note (DO) as UT.   
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