Overview of Terms and Math/Musical Equivalences

As mentioned on the previous page, both the mathematical and musical coordinate planes have a horizontal (x) and vertical (y) axis. In the mathematical coordinate plane we simply call them the horizontal and vertical number lines. In the musical coordinate plane we call them duration (x-axis) and pitch (y-axis). If you remember from the "mathematical coordinate plane" page, there are four quadrants, I, II, III, & IV. In the musical coordinate plane we only use quadrant I.

The horizontal axis (x) in the musical coordinate plane is used to measure time, or duration. Duration is a word meaning the measurment of time. Instead of measuring musical time in seconds, minutes, or hours, musicians measure their time in "beats." Each beat is a measure of time, moving left to right, lasting from one point on the coordinate plane to the next in the x-axis. As soon as one beat is finished, the next one begins. For example, if a musical note begins at "0" and lasts until "1" (on the x-axis) it is said to have a duration of one beat and occurs on "beat 1." If a musical note begins at "1" and lasts until "2" (on the x-axis) it is also said to have a duration of one beat and occurs on "beat 2." What people often find confusing is that we never say "zero" in the musical coordinate plane. We say the name of the beat at the beginning of the beat. (This is similar to the way we name our years. We don't wait until the end of a year to call it by its name, we call it by its name on January 1st!) Some notes have more than one beat. You will see some examples of notes with 1 beat, 2 beats, and 4 beats on the next page.

The vertical axis (y) in the musical coordinate plane tells us how high or low a pitch is. Scientists use a term called frequency to measure how fast something is vibrating. Fast vibrations are high in pitch and slow vibrations are low in pitch. In music we don't name a pitch by its freqency, we instead give the pitches letter names.

To go on to the Description/Diagram of the Musical Coordinate Plane and Labeling click here