Half Steps and Whole Steps

In this article, we will cover what an what a half and whole step are, and their differences.

What is a Half Step?

Remember when we were naming the notes on the piano? We used this diagram:

Do you remember what sharps (#) and flats (b) do? Try to recall before looking ahead.

Recall that sharps raise a pitch by one note on the piano (including black keys) and flats lower them by one pitch on the piano. Well, instead of having to say "one pitch on the piano (including black keys)," we can instead say half step (or semitone for our UK friends!). 

Thus, a half step is the smallest distance possible between two notes, and is also the distance by which an accidental will normally change a note.

Knowing that a half step is the smallest possible distance between two notes, what do you think are the maximum amount of ascending half steps that we can write before running into the same note that we started with? The answer is 12! That's because, as we said before, there are 12 notes in the Western musical tradition. Playing these notes in sequence is called a chromatic scale, and any time you hear of chromaticism, that simply refers to using half steps to build something new.

What is a Whole Step?

Do you remember what a double sharp and double flat will do to a note?

That's right, they will raise/lower the note by 2 notes on the piano! Perhaps you can see where this is going... A whole step ('tone' in the UK) is simply the distance between two notes on the piano. For example, the distance between C and D is a whole step, whereas the distance between E and F is only a half step. 

Practice

Let's practice identifying whole steps and half steps in notated and performed music.

Label the intervals between each note.

Now, listen to the following audio example. The sequence of notes will start on A. What note does it end on? Optionally, write the sequence of notes on a separate sheet of paper.

Note that this may be extremely difficult, and that's ok! Remember there are only whole steps and half steps. Work it out at a piano if you need to.

Now, listen to the following audio example. How many half steps are there? How many whole steps? Optionally, write the sequence of notes on a separate sheet of paper (the first note is Bb).