Note Block

A Note Block is a block that plays a single note when struck by the player or powered by redstone. An indefinite number of note blocks can be connected this way to form music.

Note blocks will play when next to a powered block, which allows for more compact music circuitry.

Music


Note blocks play a colored musical note when hit or when powered by redstone. Redstone current only causes the note to play once, even if it is a continuous current. A note block must have at least one block of air above it to play a sound. Notes can be heard up to 48 blocks away.

Note blocks will play when next to a powered block. Each time a note block plays a note, a note particle will fly out of the top, with the color depending on the pitch (but not the instrument).

Right clicking increases the note pitch up a half step, with a total of two full octaves being available to play for each instrument (bass is two octaves lower than the standard range, giving you four octaves of effective range if you combine instruments). The range of notes span from F♯3 to F♯5. After reaching the highest note, right clicking again resets it back to F♯3, as does breaking the block and picking it back up. The exact pitch to click assignment is shown below.

Alternatively, there is a graphical version available:



You can roughly check the tuning of a block by looking at the note icon.



Instruments
The instrument played depends on the block underneath the note block:

Powering note blocks


Note blocks can be powered in a variety of different ways following normal redstone principles, however some ways of powering note blocks are more convenient than others or produce unexpected results.
 * When a note block is powered by a switch on its side it does play but is often very difficult to hear since the sound of the switch activating is so loud.
 * Since note blocks need a space above them, note blocks powered by pressure plates or redstone directly above them do not make a sound.

Sequencing
It is possible to link together a set of inverters, connected to note blocks, which are then played after each other when the first inverter is given power. This can be used to create songs, without having to manually give power to every note (through pressure plates for example). See also: Redstone circuits.

Redstone repeaters greatly simplify the process of timing note blocks in sequence to make melodies. The delay can be set to one, two, three, or four redstone ticks, which is equivalent to 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 seconds.

As of Snapshot 13w01a Comparators can be used for a shorter delay of only 1/2 tick, though in 13w05b this has been modified back to 1 redstone tick, the same as a first position repeater.

Another way is putting down a railway of detector rail and powered rails and connect the detector rails to note blocks beside the track. This is useful if you want to hear your music without the degrade in sound as the note blocks play from farther and farther away. However, due to new minecart sounds added in the 1.4.2 update, this option is no longer practical. *As of 1.7.2, players can now navigate to the Sounds menu and turn the Players bar to 0% to cancel out the minecart sounds, or use a customized resource pack to remove the minecart noises entirely.

Chords


When creating melodies in Minecraft one will often want to play chords. This is done by playing two or more note blocks at the same time and is relatively easy. Note blocks can be tuned to create harmony or dissonance using the same semitone intervals as on piano or almost any other instrument.

Assuming there is already a sequence of note blocks powered by repeaters:
 * Additional note blocks can be placed adjacent to it. when the main note block is powered the adjacent note blocks also become powered on the same tick, creating a chord.
 * A redstone wire can be led out of the block in the main sequence. Note blocks placed adjacent to a block with a powered the redstone wire on will be powered on the same tick.

Pressure plates - removing the click
Stepping on a pressure plate is a simple way to trigger a note block, but also triggers the pressure plate sound effect. People can remove the pressing/clicking sound by modifying the plate's sound file in the Minecraft folder. This enables a screen recording of the created song without having the pressure plate sound messing up their recording. Note in 1.7, this isn't necessary because you can just turn the sound of all blocks, including pressure plates, off.
 * 1) The sound file is .minecraft\assets\sound\random\click.ogg (Note: this is also the sound for the in-game menu buttons).
 * 2) Replace the file with a blank text file, with the ".txt" extension replaced with a ".ogg" extension.
 * 3) Set the file as read only, thus preventing Minecraft from re-downloading the sound file.



Trivia

 * The sound files for the note blocks can be found in assets\sounds\note, you can see that the piano sound is named harp and also that there is an unused sound called pling
 * You can tune a note block even if there is a block above it, however the note will not be seen nor will any sound be made.
 * If you are 18 or more blocks away from a note block you will not see the note coming out.
 * If you are 47 or more blocks away from a note block you will not hear the sound.
 * Note blocks use the same texture as jukeboxes but the top texture is the same as the side textures.
 * Triggering (playing) a note block or changing the note played does not count as a block update, however, it provides a comparator update and so this can be detected with a CUD.
 * Note blocks cannot be pushed by pistons.