Notendanöfn

Notendanöfn are the names used to refer to individual pitches in a musical system. In Western music the standard approach uses the seven-letter names A through G, with octave information to indicate pitch height. Notes can be named simply by their letter (C, D, E, F, G, A, B) or with accidentals that raise or lower the pitch (for example C#, Db). When an octave is specified, scientific pitch notation is commonly employed, so C4 denotes middle C and A4 is tuned to 440 Hz. These names align with the keys on instruments and with staff notation, providing a common reference across singers, players, and composers.

Two closely related naming traditions are commonly used alongside letter names. Solfège assigns syllables to scale degrees (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si or ti) and is widely used in singing and music education. Solfège can be taught with fixed-do or movable-do systems, and it often serves as an alternative method for learning pitches and intervals.

Notendanöfn underpin many aspects of music theory, notation, and pedagogy. They facilitate transposition, tuning discussions, and harmonic analysis, and they help standardize communication about melodies, chords, and scales across instruments and genres. While the Western letter-name system is dominant in many contexts, other musical cultures employ different pitch-naming schemes that reflect distinct tunings, syntaxes, and pedagogical traditions.