Notes and Scales in Strudel

Three Ways to Write Notes in Strudel

In Strudel, you can write notes in three different ways:

1. With letter notation (C, D, E...)
2. With numbers (positions in the scale: 0, 1, 2...)
3. With the direct frequencies of the note (261, 523...)

The Distance Between Notes is What Matters

Now, the three previous examples sound exactly the same. In reality, the name of the note doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you call it C, Do, or 261.

What matters in a melody is not the individual notes. What really matters is the distance between each note.

To understand it better, think of going up and down a staircase. You go up 2 steps, down 1, up 3, and down 2. It doesn't matter if you started on step 10 or on step 34. The movement is the same.

With music, it's exactly the same. You can start a song on the note C2 or on any other note. If you maintain the same distances between notes, the melody will be the same.

Examples of the Same Melody

Now let's see how this works in practice. Below, you will see the same melody written in three different ways. You will find that they sound exactly the same.

Example 1: Letter Nomenclature

Here we use the note names with letters:

As you can see, each note has its specific name: e4, f4, g4, etc.

Example 2: Positions in the Scale

In this second example, we use numbers. Each number represents a position in the scale:

Here we have chosen the major scale starting on C4. Therefore, the numbers indicate the position of each note in that scale.

To better understand how these positions work, we would play all the notes of the scale consecutively:

As you will see in the following diagram, the numbers 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 correspond to the black circles of our scale.

Specifically, the 0 is the first black circle, the 1 is the second black circle, and so on.

On the other hand, the gray keys are outside our scale. For now, we won't use them. However, later you will learn to play them by adding # to the number. For example, 0# would be the first gray circle.

It is important to remember that 0 and 7 are the same note in different octaves: C4 and C5.

Additionally, you can use higher numbers like 8, 9, 10... for higher notes. Or negative numbers like -1, -2, -3... for lower notes.

Example 3: Different Starting Notes

Finally, let's look at a very revealing example. Now play the same song starting on A4 instead of C4.

Notice something important: not a single number changes. This is because the numbers are positions in the scale. Therefore, the positions do not change even if you change the starting note.

Hit play and you'll hear the same song. It may sound a bit deeper because it starts on a lower note. However, the melody is identical.