Notes and Scales

Ableton Tutorial

Let’s go and look at the Ableton learning site and explore pitch, notes etc.:

Ableton’s Learning Music Site about Notes

Pitches

One of the main purposes of MIDI is to transmit information about musical notes. You have:

• The Note (C, D, E etc to B) together with the:
• Octave (-2 up to 8)
• Velocity
• Note On & Off (or Note Length)

The range of values is between 0 and 127

Music Instrument

Given this information a synthesiser or sampler can generate a sound. You’ll find these instruments in Ableton unter Sounds and Instruments:

To input notes you can use the Draw Tool (shortcut B) or you can record with a Midi Keyboard or Launchpad. It is very helpful to turn on Record Quantisation:

Fold Option

When editing a MIDI clip, you can “hide” all not-playing notes:

Scales

Ableton 12 has a feature where you define a scale like C Major or Eb Minor, like we saw earlier on the website tutorial. You have these options:

• set the root note
• set the scale tyoe
• highlight scale notes
• hide non-scale notes