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Scientific pitch, also known as philosophical pitch, Sauveur pitch or Verdi tuning, is an absolute concert pitch standard which is based on middle C (C 4) being set to 256 Hz rather than ~ 261.63 Hz, [a] making it ~ 31.77 cents lower than the common A440 pitch standard.
In the period instrument movement, a consensus has arisen around a modern baroque pitch of 415 Hz (with 440 Hz corresponding to A ♯), a 'baroque' pitch for some special church music (in particular, some German church music, e.g. the pre-Leipzig period cantatas of Bach) [10] known as Chorton pitch at 466 Hz (with 440 Hz corresponding to A ...
The initial standard was A = 439 Hz ⓘ, but this was superseded by A = 440 Hz, possibly because 439 Hz was difficult to reproduce in a laboratory since 439 is a prime number. [22] In 1964, of 31 top professional U.S. orchestras, 19 were tuning at 440, the others at 441 or 442. [23]
The A above middle C is usually set at 440 Hz (often written as "A = 440 Hz" or sometimes "A440"), although other frequencies, such as 442 Hz, are also often used as variants. Another standard pitch, the so-called Baroque pitch , has been set in the 20th century as A = 415 Hz—approximately an equal-tempered semitone lower than A440 to ...
A jump from the lowest semitone to the highest semitone in one octave doubles the frequency (for example, the fifth A is 440 Hz and the sixth A is 880 Hz). The frequency of a pitch is derived by multiplying (ascending) or dividing (descending) the frequency of the previous pitch by the twelfth root of two (approximately 1.059463).
Tuning is usually based on a fixed reference, such as A = 440 Hz. The term "out of tune" refers to a pitch/tone that is either too high or too low in relation to a given reference pitch. While an instrument might be in tune relative to its own range of notes, it may not be considered 'in tune' if it does not match the chosen reference pitch.
For standard A440 pitch equal temperament, the system begins at a frequency of 16.35160 Hz, which is assigned the value C 0. The octave 0 of the scientific pitch notation is traditionally called the sub-contra octave , and the tone marked C 0 in SPN is written as ,,C or C,, or CCC in traditional systems, such as Helmholtz notation .
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.