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In music, an octave (Latin: octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) [2] is a series of eight notes occupying the interval between (and including) two notes, one having twice the frequency of vibration of the other. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music ...
The next lower octave is named "contra". Notes in it include a prime symbol below the note's letter. Names of subsequent lower octaves are preceded with "sub". Notes in each include an additional prime symbol below the note's letter. The octave starting at middle C is called the "small" octave. Notes in it are written as lower case letters, so ...
Musical symbols are marks and symbols in musical notation that indicate various aspects of how a piece of music is to be performed. There are symbols to communicate information about many musical elements, including pitch, duration, dynamics, or articulation of musical notes; tempo, metre, form (e.g., whether sections are repeated), and details about specific playing techniques (e.g., which ...
In Western music, scale notes are often separated by equally tempered tones or semitones, creating 12 intervals per octave. Each interval separates two tones; the higher tone has an oscillation frequency of a fixed ratio (by a factor equal to the twelfth root of two , or approximately 1.059463) higher than the frequency of the lower one.
A variety of musical terms are encountered in printed scores, music reviews, and program notes. Most of the terms are Italian, in accordance with the Italian origins of many European musical conventions. Sometimes, the special musical meanings of these phrases differ from the original or current Italian meanings.
The duration (note length or note value) is indicated by the form of the note-head or with the addition of a note-stem plus beams or flags. A stemless hollow oval is a whole note or semibreve, a hollow rectangle or stemless hollow oval with one or two vertical lines on both sides is a double whole note or breve.
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".
In music, letter notation is a system of representing a set of pitches, for example, the notes of a scale, by letters. For the complete Western diatonic scale , for example, these would be the letters A-G, possibly with a trailing symbol to indicate a half-step raise ( sharp , ♯ ) or a half-step lowering ( flat , ♭ ).