Music Video Lesson: What Is the Most Common Note in Music?

Hi, this is LivingPianos.com and I'm Robert Estrin. I had a viewer ask a question about what is the most common note in music.

Well, you know, in the English language, E is the most prevalent letter. And so he was wondering, is there a note that is the most common note in music? Well, first of all, there's two things to consider. The kind of note could be the pitch of the note. It could also be the type of note rhythmically. And the first one I'm going to cover because it's so simple. There's, of course, everything from whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes, thirty -second notes, sixty -fourth notes, and it goes all the way up to one hundred twenty -eighth notes. And each of these can be triplets as well. Well, the reason why this is so easy is the most popular time signature is four -four time. It's so common, it's referred to as common time. And what does it mean? It means there are four beats in a measure and the quarter note gets one beat. So yes, the quarter note is the most popular, most common note in music.

But the pitch is a little bit more complicated. Let's consider a few aspects. First of all, of course, A is not only the first letter of the alphabet. It's also the note that an orchestra tunes to. So there's great significance to that note naturally.

And then we can talk about different groups of instruments and what notes are really intrinsic to them. On string instruments, E is a very, very popular note. Think about guitar. Now, I don't play guitar, but there are two chords I can pick up a guitar and easily play, E minor and E major. In fact, the highest and lowest string on a guitar are both Es. So E is really common. The lowest note on a bass is also an E. And there's E and all string instruments have Es on them as well as A. So there's a case to be made for E.

And sharp keys in general, E, A, G, are very popular in popular music in a lot of idioms. Now on the other side of the orchestra in wind instruments, flat keys are really common.

For example, trumpet is pitched in B flat. So is clarinet generally. Of course, there are earlier period music where the pitches of the instruments were not set yet, but B flat for trumpet, B flat for clarinet. Saxophones are usually E flat or B flat and trombone, B flat.

So flat keys are very common as well. So where does that leave us with all of this? Well, naturally, there's one note that as a pianist you look at all the time and that naturally is C.

C is right in the middle of your keyboard and it's all over the place from the highest note to one of the lowest notes. And when you play all white keys, you're playing a C major scale. So C is really common. But there's more to it than that. I mentioned all these transposing instruments. That is, when a trumpet plays their C, a B flat comes out.

So even though the instrument is pitched to B flat, their score written in C comes out in B flat. So it presupposes C as the standard and from which all the other transpositions are derived from. So this is the same thing with a clarinet in B flat. It plays in C, it comes out in B flat. French horn, and I'm a French hornist, interestingly, many, many pieces, all the repertoire before the horn had valves were all written in C. And then the horns themselves would be tuned with a series of extra pipes called crooks. And that's what would pitch the horn in F, which is what the standard is today, or B flat or E flat or D, but the parts always written in C. So C is kind of a standard. When a conductor looks at a score, all the transposing instruments are in C for the conductor and they must figure out the absolute pitch, concert pitch relative to the transposition. So I've got to say, C is the most common note in music. And a good case could be derived for other notes, as I mentioned earlier. That's why that's got a lively discussion going here at LivingPianos.com, your online piano store. Thanks all you subscribers. Once again, I'm Robert Estrin. We'll see you next time.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/what-is-the-most-common-note-in-music/

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

Thank you for your comment, question or request!

Comment/Question deleted successfully.

Post a comment, question or special request:

Comments or questions must be between 3 and 10,000 characters long.

You may: Login  or  

Otherwise, fill out the form below to post your comment:

Add your name below:


Add your email below: (to receive replies, will not be displayed or shared)


For verification purposes, please enter the word MUSIC in the field below

---