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An octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double or half its frequency. For example, if one note has a frequency of 440 Hz, the note one octave above is at 880 Hz, and the note one octave below is at 220 Hz. The ratio of frequencies of two notes an octave apart is therefore 2:1.
For example, C 4 is one note above B 3, and A 5 is one note above G 5. The octave number is tied to the alphabetic character used to describe the pitch, with the division between note letters ‘B’ and ‘C’, thus: "B 3" and all of its possible variants (B, B ♭, B, B ♯, B) would properly be designated as being in octave "3".
An octave band is a frequency band that spans one octave (Play ⓘ).In this context an octave can be a factor of 2 [1] [full citation needed] or a factor of 10 0.301. [2] [full citation needed] [3] [full citation needed] An octave of 1200 cents in musical pitch (a logarithmic unit) corresponds to a frequency ratio of 2 / 1 ≈ 10 0.301.
Pitch classes can be notated in this way by assigning the number 0 to some note and assigning consecutive integers to consecutive semitones; so if 0 is C natural, 1 is C ♯, 2 is D ♮ and so on up to 11, which is B ♮. The C above this is not 12, but 0 again (12 − 12 = 0). Thus arithmetic modulo 12 is used to represent octave equivalence.
3-limit 9:8 major tone Play ⓘ. 5-limit 10:9 minor tone Play ⓘ. 7-limit 8:7 septimal whole tone Play ⓘ. 11-limit 11:10 greater undecimal neutral second Play ⓘ.. In music, an interval ratio is a ratio of the frequencies of the pitches in a musical interval.
Although Boethius is the first author known to use this nomenclature in the literature, Ptolemy wrote of the two-octave range five centuries before, calling it the perfect system or complete system – as opposed to other, smaller-range note systems that did not contain all possible species of octave (i.e., the seven octaves starting from A, B ...
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The purpose of this adjustment is to move the 12 notes within a smaller range of frequency, namely within the interval between the base note D and the D above it (a note with twice its frequency). This interval is typically called the basic octave (on a piano keyboard, an octave has only 12 keys). This dates to antiquity: in Ancient Mesopotamia ...