A very common question when starting out: are the notes different on each instrument? No. The notes are the same seven on all of them (C, D, E, F, G, A and B; in Spanish-, French- and Italian-speaking countries they are called Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La and Si). What changes from one instrument to another is where the notes are placed and how they are produced. This section gathers a guide to finding the notes on each instrument, with its own logic.
The same idea, a different shape in each family
Learning "the notes" of an instrument really means learning its physical map. That map changes with the family (if you want to see them all together, there is a page on the instrument families):
- Keyboard (piano, organ): the notes are divided into white and black keys that repeat a pattern. → Piano notes
- Fretted strings (guitar, bass): each string and each fret gives one note along the neck. → Guitar notes
- Winds (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet…): each note is produced with a fingering, a combination of fingers or valves. The main woodwinds are covered one by one: flute, piccolo, oboe, clarinet and bassoon.
- Pitched percussion (timpani, mallet instruments): on the timpani the note is chosen by changing drums and adjusting the tension of the head with the pedal; on the xylophone, marimba or glockenspiel, the bars are laid out like the piano keyboard and the hard part is not finding them but knowing what really sounds. → Timpani · Xylophone
That is why each guide is specific: it makes no sense to explain the piano and the flute in the same way, because the way of locating a note is completely different. What does NOT change is the name of the note or its pitch; for that, review the names of the notes and the octave numbering (scientific pitch notation, where C4 is middle C).
Guides by instrument
These are the guides available, grouped by family and ordered roughly from highest to lowest. We will keep expanding the section. Where an instrument transposes, each guide says which note is written and which one sounds.
Woodwinds
Prefer the overview? There is a guide to the woodwind instruments: what they are, how they are classified (flute, single reed and double reed) and their role in the band and the orchestra, with a comparison chart. Inside it, the complete clarinet family (from the E♭ clarinet to the contrabass). And the saxophone family. And one by one:
- Piccolo notes: the highest voice of the orchestra, its real octave and the fingerings of the flute without the foot joint.
- Flute notes: range, registers and Boehm-system fingerings.
- Oboe notes: range by register and fingerings.
- English horn notes: the alto of the oboe family, in F: it sounds a 5th lower than written and has the same fingerings.
- E♭ clarinet notes: the high, bright clarinet of the band: it sounds a minor 3rd higher than written, with the same fingerings.
- Clarinet notes: registers with names of their own, transposition and Boehm fingerings.
- Alto clarinet notes: the E♭ alto, a link between the soprano clarinets and the bass: it sounds a major 6th lower than written, with the same fingerings.
- Bass clarinet notes: the low voice of the clarinet: it sounds a major 9th lower than written.
- Contrabass clarinet notes: the lowest voice of the family: in B♭, it sounds a major 16th lower than written (an octave below the bass clarinet) and strengthens the foundation of the band.
- Saxophone notes: one fingering for all four (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone) and the transposition of each.
- Bassoon notes: range, reading clefs and Heckel-system fingerings.
- Contrabassoon notes: the lowest voice of the orchestra: it sounds an octave lower than written, down to B♭0, with fingerings of its own.
Brass
Prefer the overview? There is a guide to the brass instruments: what they are, how they change notes (harmonics + valves, rotors or slide) and their role in the band and the orchestra, with a comparison chart. And one by one:
- Trumpet notes: the high voice of the brass: how the three valves and the harmonics work, and the B♭ transposition.
- Flugelhorn notes: the mellow cousin of the trumpet: same fingerings, a round, dark tone.
- Horn notes: the warm voice of the brass: rotary valves, the double horn (F/B♭) and the transposition of a 5th.
- Trombone notes: the only brass with a slide instead of valves: 7 positions, it does not transpose, and the F-attachment (the "trigger").
- Bass trombone notes: the low brother of the trombone: the slide plus valves that open up the low register.
- Euphonium notes: the warm baritone of the band: 4 valves in B♭, reading in bass clef and the low register of the 4th valve.
- Tuba notes: the foundation of the brass: the 4 valves, the tuba in C and its low register.
- Cornet notes (Spanish corneta): the bugle-type instrument of the Spanish cornet-and-drum bands: no valves, only harmonics, and a switch (palometa) that changes between two keys.
Keyboard
- Piano notes: where each note is on the keyboard.
Prefer the overview? There is a guide to the keyboard instruments: piano, organ, harpsichord, accordion, synthesizer and celesta, how each one sounds and how its music is written.
Bowed strings
Prefer the overview? There is a guide to the bowed string instruments: what they are, how they sound with the bow, why they have no frets and how they are tuned, with a comparison chart. And one by one:
- Violin notes: the four strings in perfect 5ths, why it has no frets and first position.
- Viola notes: the alto of the strings: tuning in 5ths (C·G·D·A) and its alto clef.
- Cello notes: the singing bass of the strings: C·G·D·A an octave lower, bass clef and thumb position.
- Double bass notes: the lowest: tuning in 4ths (E·A·D·G), and it sounds an octave lower than written.
Plucked strings
Prefer the overview? There is a guide to the plucked string instruments: what they are, how a fading note can be prolonged, fretted and fretless instruments, and the tuning of each in one table. And one by one:
- Guitar notes: the six strings, how frets work and tablature, with a diagram on a real photo of the neck.
- Bass guitar notes: the four strings in 4ths (E-A-D-G), frets and tablature, in bass clef and sounding an octave lower than written.
- Ukulele notes: the four strings and the re-entrant tuning (the high G), the types of ukulele and why it does not transpose.
Pitched percussion
Prefer the overview? There is a guide to the pitched percussion instruments: which seven they are, how each one makes its sound and a table with the range of all of them and the three transpositions to remember. The instruments that give no pitch, such as the snare drum, the bass drum or the triangle, are in the guide to unpitched percussion.
- Timpani notes: which drum of the set of five each note belongs to and where it falls in the drum's range, with the types of pedal, the fine-tuning handle and the mallets.
- Xylophone notes: wooden bars, three and a half octaves, and the trap that it sounds an octave higher than written.
- Marimba notes: from four to five octaves depending on the model, writing on two staves and four-mallet technique.
- Vibraphone notes: aluminum bars, three octaves, and the only one of the family with a pedal and a motor.
- Glockenspiel notes: the highest, and the one that transposes most in the whole orchestra: two octaves.
- Tubular bells notes: an octave and a half of tubes, and a note that the ear reconstructs because it is not in the sound.
- Crotales notes: thirteen bronze discs per octave, played with a bow or a mallet, and again two octaves of transposition.
And if the problem is not the notes but the name of the part (you are handed a sheet that says "Posaune" or "campanelli"), see instrument names in other languages: the 52 of them in Italian, English, German and French, with a search box and the false friends that make someone take the wrong music stand.
Want to practice in the meantime? Test the note names in Spanish, English and German with the note-name equivalence quiz, or read notes on the staff with the note-reading exercises.