![]() ![]() If you play all twelve of these notes within one octave you are playing a chromatic scale. ![]() In the Western musical tradition - which includes most familiar music from Europe and the Americas - the octave is divided up into twelve equally spaced notes. The people in different musical traditions have different ideas about what notes they think sound best together. Octaves aren't the only notes that sound good together. The octave was named by musicians who were more interested in how octaves are divided into scales, than in how their frequencies are related. It seems an odd name for a frequency that is two times, not eight times, higher. The word "octave" comes from a Latin root meaning "eight". (For more discussion of how notes are related because of their frequencies, see The Harmonic Series, Standing Waves and Musical Instruments, and Standing Waves and Wind Instruments.) A note that is one (or more) octaves higher or lower than an "F sharp" will also be an "F sharp". ![]() A note that is an octave higher or lower than a note named "C natural" will also be named "C natural". Notes that are one octave apart are so closely related to each other that musicians give them the same name. Any note that is twice the frequency of another note is one octave higher. They are just singing them one octave higher. These two frequencies fit so well together that it sounds like the women are singing the same notes as the men, in the same key. That means their note has exactly two waves for each one wave that the men's note has. Instead they sing notes that are exactly double the frequency that the men are singing. They can't sing where the men are singing that's too low for their voices. Nobody is singing harmony they are all singing the same pitch - the same frequency - for each note. Imagine a few men are singing a song together. (For example, musicians call the note with frequency "440 vibrations per second" an "A".)īut to see where octaves come from, let's talk about frequencies a little more. And instead of numbers, they give the notes names, like "C". So when musicians talk about how high or low a note sounds, they usually don't talk about frequency they talk about the note's pitch. A sound that has a shorter wavelength has a higher frequency and a higher pitch.īut people have been making music and talking about music since long before we knew that sounds were waves with frequencies. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |