Tone / note
A single sound with a pitch.
What it means
A tone (German Ton) is the single sounding event with a determinable pitch — the building block from which melodies and chords are formed. A distinction is to be made between the tone as a sounding event and the written note as a symbol: the note stands on the page, the tone sounds. In acoustics an even narrower sense is used: there, a tone in the strict sense designates a single vibration without admixture, while what instruments produce, consisting of fundamental and partials, is called a sound (Klang).
Musical use
Four properties make up a tone: pitch, duration, loudness, and timbre. Notation fixes the first two, the third is indicated by performance markings, the fourth results from the instrument, register, and manner of playing and is the least notatable. In addition there is the temporal course — attack, sustain, decay — which is more decisive for the character of a tone than its description by numbers would suggest.
Musically, a tone gets its meaning only from context. The same tone is the root in one key, the leading tone in another, the third in one chord and the seventh in the next — and wants to be shaped and intoned differently each time. Considered in isolation, a tone is only a frequency; as a scale degree, chord tone, or goal of a line, it is a musical event.
A tone in the acoustic sense is a pure sine vibration; in musical usage, however, tone means a sound event with a determinable pitch, consisting of fundamental and overtones. English distinguishes tone, pitch, and note. In German, Ton also designates the key or the church mode. In English it is called tone.
Performance practice
Work on the single tone before you work on passages: attack, carrying power, and decay decide the impression more than fluency does. Ask yourself, for every important tone, what role it has — goal, passing note, tension — and shape it accordingly. And listen to a tone through to its end, instead of already being at the next one.