Musical Practice and Performance Stack Exchange
Musical Practice and Performance Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [octave]

An octave or perfect octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency.

In music, an octave (Latin octavus: eighth) or perfect octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems". It may be derived from the harmonic series as the interval between the first and second harmonics.

(Wikipedia)

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A (440 Hz) and A (880 Hz) are completely different sounds to me. Does this mean I'm tone deaf?

A recent episode of the podcast Surprisingly Awesome about music theory featured the line: So just to be clear, pretty much every human, when they hear a 440 or an 880, it’s going to sound like the same note. But they don't sound the same to me.…
laffoyb
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Does an accidental apply to all octaves?

I've been playing French Horn for 20 years, and thought I had most basic concepts regarding accidentals understood. But the other day I came across the following image via Wikipedia, which had me questioning what I thought I knew: Wikipedia…
Siyual
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Why do octaves sound equivalent?

It is, I think, a perfectly clear observation that one note an octave above another note sounds as if it were the same in a certain sense; while they are by no means the same exact note, they are named with the same letter, and one can for example…
Cayley-Hamilton
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Why does the octave number change between B and C?

I noticed that everywhere I read about music in scientific pitch notation, I see the notes in ascending pitch as in: A2 B2 C3 D3 E3 F3 G3 A3 B3 C4 Instead of what I expected, which was A2 B2 C2 D2 E2 F2 G2 A3 B3 C3 So why does the octave number…
Délisson Junio
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Fast octaves on the piano

I'm working on the piano accompaniment to Schubert's "Trockne Blumen" variations for flute and piano. Variation 2 is all sixteenth-note octaves in the left hand. I began by practicing very slowly with the metronome and gradually increased the…
Mark Lutton
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Speed of playing notes in different octaves

Is it common for pieces to have lower notes played slower? Do instruments with lower registers typically play slower? I ask because notes in lower octaves are closer together in frequency. For example, A0 to A#0 is about 1.6 Hz different while A1 to…
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How many notes are in an octave in Indian classical music? Is it 7, 12, or 22?

What is the logic behind dividing an octave into 22 notes?
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How do you refer to a note that is more than one octave above or below middle C?

I know you say the A above Middle C when refering to the A that is in the same Octave as Middle C in the Treble Staff, or you say the A below Middle C when referring to the A in the previous Octave on the Bass Staff, but what about if you're…
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Musical systems with more than 12 notes

From what I remember of music theory, all music (at least Western music) boils down to scales that revolve around the 12 notes (circle of fourths/fifths). I know there are scales in different regions that have different combinations of those notes…
Lance
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Why don't two Boomwhackers with a one-octave pitch difference have a 2:1 length ratio?

I frequently use the tuned percussion tubes Boomwhackers in my elementary music teaching. I noticed something odd about them. When I compare the smaller and larger C tubes, they sound one octave apart. The sound decays too quickly for me to verify…
nuggethead
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Does octave not matter when tuning?

Why does it not matter what octave you're tuning to? If you wind a string to two different octaves of the same note, surely it's going to have a big effect on the sound, no?
コナーゲティ
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Is doubling the root when converting guitar chords to piano wrong?

If you take guitar chords and put them into sheet music for piano, should you double the root (CEGC) or not (CEG)? And if you do is it wrong because you'd have parallel octaves? I mean I know parallel octaves are wrong to use in music theory…
Aly
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Was the term "octave" coined after the development of early music theory?

I have some confusion as to the use and history of the word octave in the context of music and tuning systems. The (western) tuning system comes from the Pythagorean division of the octave, based on consonant frequencies, found by simple ratios.…
hirschme
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What is an octave?

It may be simple but I am not able to wrap my head around it. I am new to musical tongue. What exactly is an octave? Is it a range of frequencies? And is it specific to an instrument?
Visal
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8 below note played as octave or singular note?

I'm working on the piano solo version of Rhapsody in Blue, and I'm unsure - when there is an 8 underneath this E, is it meant to be played as just the lower E, or as a full octave (as in the measure before)?
Theo
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