The Difference Between Tone and Notes
Tone and Note Are Anagrams But Not Synonyms
There's a very interesting and useful new book by Mehdi Hasan entitled Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking that has prompted me to bite the bullet and write this short article, one I've been mulling for quite some time.
In my review of the book, after waxing poetic about how much I enjoyed and benefited from Hasan’s book, I added:
I only found one thing in the entire book that I take issue with, and am even willing to argue with Mr. Hasan about it. That is his statement at the 67% mark in the kindle version (I don't know what the page number in the dead-tree version would be) that of the four Ps in speaking (pitch, pace, power, and pausing), pitch is your tone of voice. Pitch is actually the "notes" you are using (varying from high to low). Tone of voice is not necessarily tied to pitch, but is an aural clue to how you feel about what you're saying / the matter under discussion. e.g., you can speak in a sarcastic tone of voice, which will be spoken at different pitches/notes depending on your natural speaking voice (typically higher pitch for women than men). Typically pitch goes up when the speaker is excited, but the tone may stay the same. Pitch is related to notes; tone of voice is more closely associated with a person's body English or facial expression. So pitch is only indirectly related to tone of voice.Let me expand a little on that. If a person were to approach a pianist or other keyboardist and say, "How do you get that note?" the question would make no sense. The keyboard (typically) has 88 distinct keys, and the answer is obvious (“I get that note by pressing this key”). But if the question was, "How do you get that tone?" you're talking about something else altogether; the question makes a lot more sense.
So, although sometimes used interchangeably, the words notes and tones do not refer to the same thing. Making it somewhat confusing, the word “tones” can sadly sometimes refer to notes (as in, “the tones of the song are so lovely”). But that is a villainous use of the word “tones” (because it can cause confusion).
To get all scientific about it, notes are differentiated from one another by their frequency or wavelength. You can tune a guitar, for example, by using an electronic tuner that displays those values (and shows you whether a certain string is “spot on” or a little flat or sharp). There is no device, though (AFAIK), that will tell you the “tone” of your instrument — or of your voice, for that matter; in other words, you can’t hook up to a device that will inform you that you are speaking in a sarcastic tone of voice. Notes are measurable, whereas tone is about the quality of the sound. A middle C is a middle C (note), no two ways about it, but the tone of the instrument playing the middle C (or any other note) is unique based on various factors, and which tone is “best” or the tone you are “after” is a matter of personal taste and likely situational (a certain tone is best for some styles of music, or for a particular song).
Another way to approach it is that an instrument, such as a piano, has a certain tone as a whole, but each of its white and black keys plays a different note. There are 88 possible notes to be played, but all will have the same basic tone, or quality of sound. With electr[on]ic instruments, the tone can be altered via settings on the amp (accentuating the bass or treble tones, adding effects such as reverb, and so forth).
How you play an instrument can also affect its tone. For example, whether you play a stringed instrument with your fingers or with a plectrum (pick) will produce a different sound, or tone. Where you strike the string changes the tone, too; If you pluck or strike the string directly under where you are “fretting it” (pressing down with your “off-hand” — i.e., left hand if you are right-handed), as high up on the neck as you can go (towards the instrument’s head), it will have a lighter/smoother/mellower sound than if you strike or pluck the string down by the bridge (where the strings enter from the bottom).
Unlike a keyboard, you can also play the same note in several places on an instrument such as a guitar or bass. For one example, on a standard four-string bass guitar you can play a G on the first string open (not fretted); also on the second (D) string, fret 5; the third (A) string, fret 10; and the fourth (E) string, fret 15. All four of those string/fret combinations will play the same note, but they will all generate a slightly different tone, due to where on the neck the note is fretted and due to the differing sizes of the strings being played subtly changing the tone.