Once you can read music, every piece of music in the world is talking to you. Every card here is clickable and audible.
① Notes and rests: the length of sound, the length of silence
Each card is one note value. Tap one: you hear four metronome clicks, then the note sounds for exactly its length — and a rest stays silent for exactly its length. ♩=80.
There is only one rule: each step down halves the value. Whole note (4 beats) → half note (2) → quarter note (1) → eighth (½) → sixteenth (¼).
Add a dot and you get the original length plus half again (a dotted half note = 3 beats). Rests mirror notes one for one — silence is music too,
Count Basie’s signature was playing less and leaving more.
② Four clefs: the same middle C, in four different places
A clef’s job is to tell you which line is which note. All four cards show the very same middle C — tap them and all four sound at exactly the same pitch.
Who uses them? Treble clef: violin, flute, clarinet, saxophone, the pianist’s right hand. Bass clef: cello, double bass, trombone, the pianist’s left hand.
Alto clef (C clef on the third line): the viola’s own clef. Tenor clef (C clef on the fourth line): the upper register of cello, trombone and bassoon——
to avoid piling up ledger lines, the clef simply moves up a line. Whichever line the C clef points to is middle C.
③ Note names and solfège, side by side
A note name (C, D, E…) is a pitch’s ID card and never changes; solfège (do, re, mi…) comes in two flavours. Tap any cell to hear it:
Note name
Fixed do
Numbers (in C major)
German
Frequency (A=440)
Fixed do vs movable do: with fixed do, do is always C (the mainstream in classical training in Taiwan);
with movable do, do is the tonic of whatever key you are in (in G major, G is sung as do). Numbered notation and jazz’s scale-degree thinking (1 = the root) both follow the movable logic.
The numbers on this page are all movable: 1 is always the current tonic, so it works in any key.
④ Musical term lookup
The Italian you meet on a score. Type a keyword (in English or the original) to filter; for tempo markings, press 🔊 to hear a metronome at that speed.
⑤ A = 440: the world’s shared agreement
“A=440” means the reference note A vibrates 440 times a second (440 Hz).
This standard was set by an international conference in 1939, but orchestras everywhere adjust it: European orchestras often use 442–443 for a brighter sound,
period orchestras use 415 (a semitone lower, the Baroque standard), and most orchestras in Taiwan use 440–442.
🎧 Hear the difference: 438–442
440.0 Hz
What are beats? When two nearly identical frequencies sound together, the volume pulses — woo, woo —
and the number of pulses per second equals the difference between them. 440 and 442 together give 2 pulses a second. Tuning is simply making those beats disappear——
the slower the beating, the closer you are; when it vanishes entirely, you are in unison. This is faster and more accurate than watching a tuner needle, and it is exactly how a musician’s ear gets trained.
🎼 Who gives the tuning note, and which note is it?
Situation
Reference note
Who gives it
Procedure
Symphony orchestra
A (concert pitch 440–442)
Oboe principal
The oboe is the hardest instrument to adjust and its tone cuts through, so it gives the A → the concertmaster (first violin) confirms → woodwind and brass tune first → strings follow
Wind band / chamber winds
B♭ (concert pitch)
Principal clarinet or oboe
Most wind instruments are B♭ transposing instruments, so a concert B♭ is the most natural note for everyone (a B♭ instrument reads it as C)
When a piano is present
The piano’s A
Piano
A piano cannot be retuned on the spot, so everyone tunes to the piano — true for jazz combos and recitals alike
Jazz combo
A or B♭
Piano or bass
A quick check on stage and off you go; the ear keeps adjusting all night — a jazz player’s intonation is a moving target
A quick note for clarinettists: to sound a concert A, a B♭ clarinet fingers a written B (a major second higher); to sound a concert B♭, finger a written C.
A cold instrument plays flat — warming it up before you walk on does more good than pulling the barrel.