Let's dive right in to the single most important concept of studying western music, and the specifics of how it is unique to other cultures and their subcategories of music.

When a sound wave vibrates in the air it creates a specific pitch or succession of pitches.

Vocab: Pitch - the relative highness or lowness of a sound's frequency.

At the risk of pissing you off with a common knowledge example- pitch can be demonstrated if you play the farthest key on the right of a piano- which will be vastly higher, shriller and more trebly than if you play the key on the far left, which will be deep, low and bassy.

The piano is the best way to visualize the ranges of pitches our ears can hear, due to the linear design of the keys from left to right. A single string on a guitar can work too, when moving vertically (or horizontally if you are playing the guitar) down the length of the fretboard.

For the sake of these articles, I'm going to use a piano as it is the easiest to understand and most universal tool of studying theory.

Looking at a full size piano or keyboard, you can see that there are quite a lot of keys, usually between 64 and 88. Each of the keys, including both white and black, sounds a single pitch when played, and each pitch is represented by a note.

Vocab: Note - the name given to a specific pitch.

Though there a lot of keys, there are only 12 notes repeated one after the other in octaves. For now we will define an octave as the distance between two notes with the same letter name, (yes, its true octave has the prefix "oct" in it which means 8, not 12- we will expand on this when we get into the major scale.)

These notes in order are:

C - C# or Db - D - D# or Eb - E - F - F# or Gb - G - G# or Ab - A - A# or Bb - B - (C)

Vocab: # (sharp) - This symbol is used when referencing a note in between two notes with standard letter names when ascending in pitch.

Vocab: b (flat) - This symbol is used when referencing a note in between two notes with standard letter names when descending in pitch.

The distance between each of these notes, ie: E to F or A to Bb, is called a half step, (or a semitone.)

The distance between every other note, ie: C to D or E to F#, is called a whole step, (or 2 semitones.)

This is represented on the piano on these particular keys:

Vocab: The Chromatic Scale - The succession of all 12 notes played or sung in any order from one note to the same note at a higher octave.

The Chromatic Scale is the basis for literally everything in western music. Everything we will expand upon can ultimately be traced back to this scale.

If you are sitting with your instrument, play these notes back and forth and listen to the overall sound of each note in succession. If you are on a guitar, the C Chromatic Scale can be played easiest by starting on the 1st fret of your B string, or the second thinnest, and playing fret by fret upwards to the 13th.

Now I'm sure there are those of you wondering... why did we start on C and not A like the alphabet?

The answer? - Cause I said so!

Just kidding. Though the musical alphabet shares the same characters as the English alphabet, it in no way has similar function. When you look back on this chapter later, it will be relatively obvious, but for now it can be explained by the fact that C represents the exact middle of both a piano, and a grand staff (sheet music), and has the refreshing function of not having any sharps or flats in its major scale. We will get into the major scale in the next article.

Each pitch has a special symbol, also called a note, notated on a musical staff to allow a musician to know what to play and at what time.

Vocab: Staff - a five lined graph-like system for plotting notes over time in order to allow a musician to "read" what notes to play.

Just like reading words on a page, the staff is read from left to right and the highness or lowness of pitch is dependent upon the relative highness or lowness of the note on the staff. The length of the note, (how long it should be held,) is determined by the type of note represented, or its rhythmic duration. We will talk about rhythm in later chapters.

The entire range of piano, and many other instruments, cannot be contained on a single five-lined staff. Often it is necessary to move off the staff above and below.

Because of this, two major styles of clefs are used to specify the range of pitches. (There are more instrument-specific clefs.)

Vocab: Clef - A symbol used to clarify the range of pitches on a particular staff.

The clef shaped as a glorified G is called the Treble Clef and encircles the second line from the bottom which states that on this staff that note is G. The Bass Clef looks like a curvy 7 with two dots and encircles the second line from the top- which states that on this staff this note is F.

The combination of both the treble clef staff and the bass clef staff is called the Grand Staff.

The following chart displays the note names of each pitch, their locations on the piano/keyboard, and where each note lies on the grand staff.

It will take time but, no matter what instrument you play, you should be able to memorize this chart.

For now, just practice playing each note on your instrument and saying its name out loud.

Vocab: Accidentals - the sharp and flat symbols preeding a note altering its pitch up or down one half step.

When you see an accidental before a note, either a sharp or flat, its informing you that the note name to which it is applied is going to be altered slightly.

Take for instance the note D. When we add a sharp to D, making it D# we are slightliy raising the pitch by a half step. When we add a flat sign to D, making it Db, we are slightly lowering the pitch by a half step.

Vocab: ♮ (natural) - This symbol is used after a sharp or flat sign has been used previously in order to cancel it out and return the note to its "natural" state.

For example: If we raise D to D#, then cancel out the sharp with a natural sign, (♮), D returns to its original pitch.

Pitch - the relative highness or lowness of a sound's frequency.

Note - the name given to a specific pitch.

# (sharp) - This symbol is used when referencing a note in between two notes with standard letter names when ascending in pitch.

b (flat) - This symbol is used when referencing a note in between two notes with standard letter names when descending in pitch.

♮ (natural) - This symbol is used after a sharp or flat sign has been used previously in order to cancel it out and return the note to its "natural" state.

The Chromatic Scale - The succession of all 12 notes played or sung in any order from one note to the same note at a higher octave.

Staff - a five lined graph-like system for plotting notes over time in order to allow a musician to "read" what notes to play.

Clef - A symbol used to clarify the range of pitches on a particular staff.

There is a lot of information here. If you are new to this material, or even if it is just a lot of intensive review, make sure to take it increments. Don't rush and cram information like this, you may just confuse yourself and get lost in further chapters.

Next we will take a look at the Major Scale, a breakdown of the Chromatic Scale into 7 notes that definite the key and tonality of a piece of music.