A notebook (also notepad, writing pad, drawing pad, legal pad, etc.) is a book, usually of paper, of which various uses can be made, including writing, drawing, and scrapbooking. Notebooks can be distinguished along several dimensions and sub-dimensions:

• type of surface
• form factor (size and weight)
• binding and cover material (including printing and graphics)
• pre-printed material on writing surfaces (lines, graphics, text)

The specific dimensions determine the most suitable usage for a given type of notebook.

Notebooks on sale at a drugstore.

Contents  [hide] 1 Binding and cover 2 Preprinting 3 Uses 4 Possible electronic successors 5 References

[edit]Binding and cover

Principal types of binding are padding, perfect, spiral, comb, sewn, clasp, disc, and pressure, some of which can be combined. Binding methods can affect whether a notebook can lie flat when open and whether the pages are likely to remain attached. The cover material is usually distinct from the writing surface material, more durable, more decorative, and more firmly attached. It also is stiffer than the leaves, even taken together. Cover materials should not contribute to damage or discomfort.

It is frequently cheaper to purchase notebooks that are spiral-bound, meaning that a spiral of wire is looped through large perforations at the top or side of the page. Other bound notebooks are available that use glue to hold the pages together; this process is commonly referred to as "padding". ^[1] Today it is common for pages in such notebooks to include a thin line of perforations that make it easier to tear out the page. Spiral-bound pages can be torn out but frequently leave thin scraggly strips from the small amount of paper that is within the spiral, as well as an uneven rip along the top of the torn-out page. Hard-bound notebooks include a sewn spine, and the pages are not easily removable. Some styles of sewn bindings allow pages to open flat, while others cause the pages to drape.

Variations of notebooks that allow pages to be added, removed, and replaced are bound by either rings, rods, or discs. In each of these systems the pages are modified with perforations that facilitate the specific binding mechanism's ability to secure them. Ring-bound and rod-bound notebooks secure their contents by threading perforated pages around straight or curved prongs. In the open position, the pages can be removed and re-arranged. In the closed position, the pages are kept in order. Disc-bound notebooks remove the open or closed operation by modifying the pages themselves. A page perforated for a disc-bound binding system contains a row of teeth along the side edge of the page that grip onto the outside raised perimeter of individual discs. Pages can be added or removed at any time by peeling the perforations away from each disc.

[edit]Preprinting

Notebooks used for drawing and scrapbooking are usually blank. Notebooks for writing usually have some kind of printing on the writing material, if only lines to align writing or facilitate certain kinds of drawing. Inventor's notebooks have page numbers preprinted to support priority claims. Many notebooks have graphic decorations. Personal organizers can have various kinds of preprinted pages.

[edit]Uses

Artists often use large notebooks which include wide spaces of blank paper appropriate for drawing. Lawyers are also known for using rather large notebooks known as legal pads that contain lined paper (often yellow in color) and are appropriate for use on tables and desks. These horizontal lines or "rules" are sometimes classified according to their space apart with "wide rule" the farthest, "college rule" closer, "legal rule" slightly closer and "narrow rule" closest, allowing more lines of text per page. When sewn into a pasteboard backing, these may be calledcomposition books, or in smaller signatures may be called "blue books" or exam books and used for essay exams. In contrast, journalistsprefer small, hand-held notebooks for portability (often called reporters' notebooks), and sometimes use shorthand when taking notes.Scientists and other researchers use lab notebooks to document their experiments. The pages in lab notebooks are sometimes graph paper to make it easier to plot data. Police officers are required to write notes on what they observed whilst on duty, to do this they use a Police notebook.

[edit]Possible electronic successors

Since the late 20th century, many attempts have been made to integrate the simplicity of a notebook with the editing and searching abilities of a computer. Laptop computers began to be called notebooks when they reached a relatively small size in the 1990s, but they did not have any special note-taking ability. Personal digital assistants (PDAs) came next, integrating small liquid crystal displays with a touch-sensitive layer to input graphics and written text. Tablet PCs are considerably larger and provide more writing and navigation space. The fictional PADD ofStar Trek is sometimes said to have been the inspiration for PDAs and tablet PCs, but the first PADD was not seen until "Encounter at Farpoint" in 1987, after the first flat calculator-like PDA was made in 1978.

This article is about the use of the term "note" in music. For other uses, see Note (disambiguation).

The term note has two primary meanings: 1) a sign used in music to represent the relative duration and pitch of a sound; and 2) a pitched sound itself. Notes are the "atoms" of much Western music: discretizations of musical phenomena that facilitate performance, comprehension, and analysis (Nattiez 1990, p.81n9).

The term "note" can be used in both generic and specific senses: one might say either "the piece Happy Birthday to You begins with two notes having the same pitch," or "the piece begins with two repetitions of the same note." In the former case, one uses "note" to refer to a specific musical event; in the latter, one uses the term to refer to a class of events sharing the same pitch.

Contents [hide] 1 Note name 1.1 Note designation in accordance with octave name 2 Written notes 3 Note frequency (hertz) 4 History of note names 5 See also 6 Source 7 External links

[edit] Note name

Two notes with fundamental frequencies in a ratio of any power of two (e.g. half, twice, or four times) will sound very similar. Because of that all notes with these kinds of relations can be grouped under the same pitch class. In traditional music theory pitch classes are represented by the first seven letters of the Latin alphabet (A, B, C, D, E, F and G) and various modifications added to these letters (more on this below). The span of notes between one pitch and another that is twice (or half) its frequency is called an octave. In order to differentiate two notes that have the same pitch class but fall into different octaves, the system of scientific pitch notation combines a letter name with an Arabic numeral designating a specific octave. For example, the now-standard tuning pitch for most Western music, 440 Hz, is named a′ or A4. There are two formal ways to define each note and octave, the Helmholtz system and the Scientific pitch notation.

Letter names are modified by the accidentals sharp (♯, similar to the symbol #) and flat (♭, similar to the letter b). These symbols respectively raise or lower a pitch by a semitone or half-step, which in modern tuning will multiply or divide (respectively) the frequency of the original note by , approximately 1.059. They are written after the note name: so, for example, F♯ represents F-sharp, B♭ is B-flat. Other accidentals, such as double-sharps and double-flats (which will raise or lower the frequency by two semitones), are also possible in traditional music theory: avoiding sharps/flats in the key signature, "C♯♯" yields D, when D's sharp is in the signature. Assuming enharmonicity, it is possible that use of accidentals will create equivalences between pitches that are written differently. For instance, raising the note B to B♯ is equal to the note C. Assuming the elimination of all such equivalences, however, the complete chromatic scale adds five additional pitch classes to the original seven lettered notes for a total of 12, each separated by a half-step.

Notes that belong to the diatonic scale relevant in the context are sometimes called diatonic notes; notes that do not meet that criterion are then sometimes called chromatic notes.

In musical notation, alterations to the seven lettered pitches in the scale are indicated by placing an accidental immediately before the note symbol, or by use of a key signature. The natural symbol (♮), can be inserted before a note to cancel a previously indicated flat or sharp (so as "F♮" an F-sharp would become simply F).

Another style of notation, rarely used in English, uses the suffix "is" to indicate a sharp and "es" (only "s" after A and E) for a flat, e.g. Fis for F♯, Ges for G♭, Es for E♭. This system first arose in Germany and is used in almost all European countries whose main language is not English or a Romance language.

In most countries using this system, the letter H is used to represent what is B natural in English, the letter B represents the B♭, and Heses represents the B♭♭ (not Bes, which would also have fit into the system). Belgium and the Netherlands use the same suffixes, but applied throughout to the notes A to G, so that B♭ is Bes. Denmark also uses h, but uses bes instead of heses for B♭♭.

This is a complete chart of a chromatic scale built on the note C4, or "middle C":