The musical alphabet consists of the first 7 letters of the English alphabet: 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', and 'G'. After 'G', it wraps back around to 'A' instead of moving on to 'H', 'I', etc. These letters correspond to single notes, or tones of a certain pitch.
The basic building block of Music as we know it in the West (The USA) is the half step (HS). 2 half steps = whole step (WS). 12 HS = 6 WS = An Octave. An octave is also the interval of one sequence of the musical alphabet. For instance, the interval from one 'C' to the next higher or lower 'C' is an octave. (C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C) Notice the number of letters in the sequence is 8, hence the name: OCTave. If a note is "sharp", it is raised up a half step. If it is "flat", it is lowered a half step. So, the half step above 'D' is referred to as "D sharp", also notated by the number sign "D
#". Similarly, the half step below 'D' would be "D flat", also notated by a small 'b' (D
b).
A "scale" is a sequence of notes, consisting of half steps and whole steps. The sequence of halves to wholes is what determines what kind of scale it is, such as major, minor, blues, chromatic, etc. The most commonly known type of scale is the major scale, and is defined by the following sequence ascending in pitch: 2 WS, 1 HS, 3 WS, 1 HS. Not surprisingly, most people end up memorizing their scales and don't derive them from these simple mathematical formulas, but here they for your information.
In order to get a visual picture of the above ideas, let's look at a piano keyboard.
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As you can see, the white keys are the notes that correspond with the alphabet, and the black keys are the sharps and flats.
(more to come...)
