In cryptography, a music cipher is an algorithm for the encryption of a plaintext into musical symbols or sounds. Music-based ciphers are related to, but not the same as musical cryptograms. The latter were systems used by composers to create musical themes or motifs to represent names based on similarities between letters of the alphabet and musical note names, such as the BACH motif, whereas music ciphers were systems typically used by cryptographers to hide or encode messages for reasons of secrecy or espionage.