# Musical notes



## Outsider

Inspired by this thread and by this one, I thought I'd ask what the seven musical notes of the diatonic scale are called in everyone's language. I'll start off with Portuguese:

dó, ré, mi, fá, sol, lá, si


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## diegodbs

Spanish: do re mi fa sol la si


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## Jana337

Czech: do re mi fa sol la si 

Accent marks aside, do you expect any deviations from this pattern? 

Jana


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## Outsider

In English, they use letters to name the notes. I was wondering if other languages did the same.


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## Whodunit

Jana337 said:
			
		

> Accent marks aside, do you expect any deviations from this pattern?


 
At least, I do. 

In German we usually call them

C, D, E, F, G, A, H

The only letter that is different from the English system is the H, which would be "B" in English. The German "B", however, corresponds to the English "B flat". 

Jana, if you want to express major and minor keys in Czech, how would you do that? In German it's quite easy:
C-Dur, D-Dur, E-Dur, ...
a-Moll, h-Moll, cis-Moll, ...

To expand your knowledge of German musical terms, you might have a look at this.


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## Jana337

Whodunit said:
			
		

> At least, I do.
> 
> In German we usually call them
> 
> C, D, E, F, G, A, H


Actually, we do the same.  Both the above and these letters are used in my country. 


> The only letter that is different from the English system is the H, which would be "B" in English. The German "B", however, corresponds to the English "B flat".
> 
> Jana, if you want to express major and minor keys in Czech, how would you do that? In German it's quite easy:
> C-Dur, D-Dur, E-Dur, ...
> a-Moll, h-Moll, cis-Moll, ...


Same. 

Jana


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## Whodunit

But would you still say that the "do re mi" thing is more popular in your country? I think it is in France (I'd like to have a confirmation ), but it is definitely not in Germany.


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## Jana337

I'd say everyone knows both, but at school you are more likely to encounter the letters.

Jana


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## combustion

Italian: Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si
The musical notes names derives from the first six verses of a latin hymn to San Giovanni Battista (Saint John?): _UT queant laxis / REsonare fibris / MIra gestorum / FAmuli tuorum / SOLve polluti / LAbii reatum, Sancte Iohannes_
Only the UT changed in DO!
comb...

PS: mods... I don't know if I can post the hymn... sorry if I can't!

EDIT: the hymn is enough old to be not protected by copyright, Jana confirmed me that!


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## TarisWerewolf

As a musician, the way I learned it is that the do re mi are used in most countries for solfège singing (singing without note names, seeing the relationships of notes to keys, etc...). Some countries use them as the names of the notes too. 

And to add French to the list:

Ut Ré Mi Fa Sol La Si Ut

Sharps are called Dièse and flats are Bémol.

So you have for G-sharp minor, Sol Dièse mineur; and for D-flat major, you have R&eacute; Bémol majeur

And yes, it's "si", not "Ti" like in English. In English, we use movable-do solfège where "Do" is the tonic note of whatever scale/key you're in. So if the piece is in A, Do is the note A. If you're in E-flat, Do is the note E-flat, and so on.

The French (and many other countries, I believe), use fixed Do where Do/Ut is always the note C.


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## ronanpoirier

In Portuguese, sharps are called *sustenidos* (sing. = sustenido) and flats are called *bemóis *(sing. = bemol).
_C major_ would be called _dó maior_
_C minor_ would be called _dó menor_
C, D, E, etc. are used only to show the chords and we call each note by its name (dó, ré, mi, etc.)

In Hungarian it would be:
_C major = C-Hang_
_C minor = C-Moll
_Sorry, but I don't know about the notes (however I believe it follows the same pattern).


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## shaloo

Namastey!

Can anyone please tell me about the 7 musical notes in the european languages(esp.,french,italian and spanish)?

In the Indian language, they call the seven notes as 'saptaswar' where
sapta means *'seven'* and swar means *'notes'*.

The seven sacred musical notes are:

Sa - Rey - Ga - Ma - Pa - Dha - Nee - Sa

The first _*Sa*_ starts with a low pitch and the last one has the highest pitch of all the _swar._

_P.S: My french professor said that these notes exixt in french classical music too.And so, I want to know more about it._

_Merci à tous !_


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## Honour

Turkish:
do re mi fa sol la si
si bemol (half up)
si diyez (half down)


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## Whodunit

shaloo said:
			
		

> Can anyone please tell me about the 7 musical notes in the european languages(esp.,french,italian and spanish)?


 
Namaste!

You can use this pattern. (I know it's a German one, but you can see where each note is situated).


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## optimistique

In Dutch both the "*Do re mi fa sol la si do*" (we repeat the 'do' to complete the octave) and the '*C D E F G A B C*' are used. _Do_ always corresponds to _C_. The letters are more used in practice.

For _C sharp_ we say *Cis, *so *Cis Dis Eis Fis Gis Ais Bis*
_C flat _is *Ces, *so *Ces Des Es Fes Ges As Bes*

Double sharped C (???) becomes *Cisis *etc.
Double flatted C becomes *Ceses

*And for the sake of completeness: C major is *C groot*/*C majeur*
and c minor is *c klein/c mineur*


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## alby

In Croatian: *Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do*

Nataša


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## linguist786

In Gujarati, they say something like:

Sa Re Ga Ma Pa

I'm not sure though, i'll have to check this.


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## shaloo

Dhanyavaad Whodunit,

It means 'Thankyou'.

Shaloo


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## shaloo

Merci a tous !!

Your help has been greatly useful in enhancing my knowledge.

Merci encore,

Shaloo


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## linguist786

shaloo said:
			
		

> Dhanyavaad Whodunit,
> 
> It means 'Thankyou'.
> 
> Shaloo


धन्यवाद


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## shaloo

Merci beaucoup !


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## Chazzwozzer

*Turkish:*
do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si


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## albondiga

Does anyone know where the sa-re-ga-ma-pa... comes from?


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## sam1978

Chazzwozzer said:


> *Turkish:*
> do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si



The same for the *Italian *language


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## apmoy70

Greek:

Western Music: *«ντο, ρε, μι, φα, σολ, λα, σι, ντο»* [dɔ ɾe mi fa sɔl la si dɔ]
Byzantine Music: *«νη, πα, βου, γα, δι, κε, ζω, νη»* [ni pa vu ɣa ði ce zɔ ni]


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## tsoapm

apmoy70 said:


> Western Music: *«ντο, ρε, μι, φα, σολ, λα, σι, ντο»* [dɔ ɾe mi fa sɔl la si dɔ]
> Byzantine Music: *«νη, πα, βου, γα, δι, κε, ζω, νη»* [ni pa vu ɣa ði ce zɔ ni]


Interesting: so you take the Latin syllables for the fixed-pitch system whereas the Byzantine syllables are relative in terms of pitch?

I imagine the concept of moveable do is a very hard sell in do-re-mi countries. I tried to explain it to an Italian colleague once in Italian but it made both of our heads hurt.


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## apmoy70

tsoapm said:


> Interesting: so you take the Latin syllables for the fixed-pitch system whereas the Byzantine syllables are relative in terms of pitch?


Indeed, Byzantine Music is Modal therefore in the Plagal 2 Mode, which is based on Pa, Vou is flat. In the 1st Diatonic Mode, which is based again on Pa, Vou is a bit flatter than in the fixed-pitch Western scale, yet not so flat as in Plagal 2, in both Modes however, Vou is Vou


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## Yendred

albondiga said:


> Does anyone know where the sa-re-ga-ma-pa... comes from?



https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-r...ke-the-flat-note-ri-is-called-shuddha-rishbha


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## tsoapm

You’ve blinded me with science there @apmoy70 !


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## nimak

*Macedonian*
[CODE] до   ре   ми   фа   сол   ла   си
(do) (re) (mi) (fa) (sol) (la) (si)
[dɔ] [rɛ] [mi] [fa] [sɔɫ] [ɫa] [si][/CODE]
They are mainly used for solfège singing.

Musicians also use C D E F G A B, and C-dur, D-dur, c-mol, d-mol etc.


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