Talk:Scientific pitch notation

message: Unfortunately, there is no universally-accepted standard associating a particular octave number with a specific frequency range. Is that true? ISTM that it completely defeats the purpose of the notation if so! Andrewa 16:10, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Is 440Hz A4 or A3

message: Time to be bold. Removed text:
Unfortunately, there is no universally-accepted standard associating a particular octave number with a specific frequency range.  For instance, Japanese MIDI specs and American MIDI specs may specify dissimilar ordinals for middle C (C3 vs. C4).  In addition, this notation system assumes 12 tone equal temperament and does not specify that A above middle C must conform to ISO 16 frequency standard (440.00 Hz).  In typical American usage, however, the ISO standard is taken for granted, and middle C is labeled "C4." 
As explained above, I think these claims are quite simply false.
Also removed
For this reason, the notation C4b would be slightly more consistent, though significantly less legible.
as would be suggests to me that this is an original proposal. Assuming that it is, then it has no place in a Wikipedia article. Andrewa 11:05, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Action

message: I think the ambiguity to which you refer may be due to using the terms scientific pitch notation and note-octave notation as synonyms, as the article itself did until a few minutes ago. What seems to be the case is that there are several systems of note-octave notation (probably owing to errors by the writers who proposed them, but that's another story) but only one of these is scientific pitch notation.
That's not to say that some writers may not claim to use scientific pitch notation, but get it wrong. We're all human, and like myths of extreme plutonium toxicity, once something is in the press then however ridiculous it is it will stay in the press. See Snopes. Andrewa 16:41, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, it was actually described under note, it's the "conventional octave naming system"... Han-Kwang 20:18, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is the Helmholtz system: also described here which should have it's own article, and be separated from here. Perhaps both articles could be developed together in a standard way as both are in common usage. –MDCollins (talk) 11:55, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Helmholtz pitch notation now created. Any views welcome. –MDCollins (talk) 00:37, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Aha!

message: (Comment moved from Han-Kwang's talkpage)
I'd like that, too, but it doesn't show up in IE. — Omegatron 20:59, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure how to read this. Do you mean that ♭ (flat symbol, "b", & coding) and "♭" (flat symbol, direct UTF) and "♯" (sharp symbol, UTF) are all invisible in IE? In that case, all occurences should be replaced by the words "flat" or "sharp". I don't think a lowercase b is a suitable replacement for a flat symbol. Han-Kwang 21:05, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Huh.  They used to be.  But now that I try them they all show up fine (IE6).  I don't know what determines whether they show up or not, then.  If they are going to show up as a rectangle on the vast majority of readers' screens though, they are even less suitable than # and b.  Otherwise I would prefer using the proper symbols.  There is also the  template to consider, which supposedly fixes some such problems in IE.  See Template_talk:Unicode#Discussion, , Talk:Accidental_%28music%29#Viewing_Problems — Omegatron 22:07, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: One could consider \flat and \sharp (LaTeX math mode) to render them as images. Han-Kwang 22:22, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Did you consider  and  (use Template:Music?) Lanthanum-138 (talk) 04:14, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  If it's a problem, all b/# should be replaced by flat/sharp. 

message: I've tagged the definition with citation needed, being an agnostic with regard to 'Scientific' claims.     Especially since note-octave notation has been merged here, we need to re-include the caveats of the first version of the article.   
Anyone consulting this article (it links from {[Magic flute]] should be made aware that any writer serious about being precisely understood will define his/her system near the beginning of the book.   It would be interesting to collect examples and see what regional/ national paterns might exist.   Harvard gives both CCC, CC, C, c, c1, c2 and C2, C1, C, c, c1, c2 along with their prefered C1, C, c, c'.  (btw, this 'English' system appears to have been introduced by Ellis' translation of Helmholtz; he notes that previous english writers used lines abouve and below letters).  I first encountered something like the system being described in the article in a British book I've since forgotten, but it started from an 88 note keyboard A1, B1, C1, D1.; this is what my (Californian) piano tech. uses.   For what it's worth, Sibelius software uses A0, B0 C1. Sparafucil 23:30, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: sources?

message: I came across this Wikipedia article, and I thought I might include the reference to the Acoustical Society of America, because this article had been tagged as requiring sources. The article was in fact a discussion of an informal convention used by someone else, but it defines C0 as 'a reference frequency of 16.35 cycles/sec., a frequency which is in the neighborhood of that producing the lowest pitch audible to the average ear'. At the time of me writing this, there is a public abstract of the report that I found here. I also added some clarification to the section about variant methods.
I must confess I've not edited much on Wikipedia, so if I've got my formatting or maybe my etiquette wrong, do fix it or drop me a line :)Geraint 10:00, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: JASA reference

message: If Middle C is C4, how can A4 be above it???  Last time I checked, "a" came BEFORE "c" in the alphabet.  Lower than C4 should be B4, and then A4, a third BELOW C4/Middle C.  Not a sixth above mid-c as the article's "example" says.  Can somebody clear this up for me PLEEEEZ?  SingingZombie (talk) 02:00, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Musically, octaves follow the C major scale, for example C4-D4-E4-F4-G4-A4-B4-C5, corresponding to "do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do" popularized some 50 years ago in The Sound of Music. The chart at http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory1.htm#MIDI illustrates this nicely. --Glenn L (talk) 02:57, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I read the article looking for an answer to the question "on which note does the transition occur", and couldn't find it - C is implied but not stated outright. I'll add this. 79.75.24.63 (talk) 09:03, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: C4 and A4

message: Subtle point but has it been standardized as putting the octave number as a superscript or subscript? In other words, is middle C written as C4 or C4? Justin Tokke (talk) 14:25, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know about standardization but, in music theory articles at least, I find the subscript used far more often, not least because the superscript can too easily be confused with the mathematical "power of" operator, which may occasionally occur.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:22, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Superscript or subscript? 

message: It would be convenient if the article would state that the frequencies and the calculation thereof are based on the 12TET tuning-system and not the just intonation.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.19.26.21 (talk) 20:18, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: . --DavidCary (talk) 16:03, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: 12TET

message: The article on Scientific pitch notation has become mistakenly mixed up with Verdi tuning, also called Scientific pitch. However the two are not related: although writers describing Scientific pitch notation often use A440 to give particular examples, Scientific pitch notation and Helmholtz notation are both just ways to describe octaves relative to whatever is designated as C0 in any system. Please help by avoiding re-introduction of the mix-up. 76.178.152.143 (talk) 15:40, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Commented out '''scientific pitch''' except for references 

message: Since the article makes it clear that this a system of notation, and independent of actual pitch standards and frequencies, I am wondering why there needs to be a big table of specific frequencies near the end of the article?  Seems like that table would be more relevant in an article on "twelve tone equal temperment", than in an article on notation.  
Also, it is unclear what the parenthetical +/- numbers are supposed to be telling us.
I suggest that this table could be replaced with something simpler and more relevant to the rest of the content.  For example:
Scientific pitch notation	Helmholtz pitch notation                          	Helmholtz subprime notation	Octave name 	Frequency @ A=440Hz standard	Frequency @ C=256Hz standard	Common name
C-1                      	CCCC                                              	C,,,                       	Subsubcontra	8.176                       	8                           	
C0                       	CCC                                               	C,,                        	Subcontra   	16.352                      	16                          	
C1                       	CC                                                	C,                         	Contra      	32.703                      	32                          	Lowest C on piano
C2                       	C                                                 	C                          	Great       	65.406                      	64                          	Low C
E2                       	E                                                 	E                          	Great       	82.407                      	81                          	Guitar low E string
C3                       	c                                                 	c                          	Small       	130.813                     	128                         	Tenor C
G3                       	g                                                 	g                          	Small       	195.997                     	192                         	Violin G string
C4                       	c′                                          	c'                         	One-lined   	261.626                     	256                         	Middle C
A4                       	a′                                          	a'                         	One-lined   	440.000                     	432                         	pitch reference (IPN)
C5                       	c′′                                   	c                    	Two-lined   	523.251                     	512                         	Treble C
C6                       	c′′′                            	c                   	Three-lined 	1046.502                    	1024                        	High C
C7                       	c′′′′                     	c'              	Four-lined  	2093.005                    	2048                        	Double High C
C8                       	c′′′′′              	c             	Five-lined  	4186.009                    	4096                        	Eighth octave C, Highest C on piano
C9                       	c′′′′′′       	c'        	Six-lined   	8372.018                    	8192                        	
C10                      	c′′′′′′′	c''       	Seven-lined 	16,744.036                  	16,384                      	
74.95.43.249 (talk) 23:25, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why so many frequencies? 

message: I'm not able to find much use of these terms, especially the title term "scientific pitch notation", predating this WP article (only the ext link added in 2004).  The referenced 1939 JASA abstract does not use this term.  Where did this come from, and are any of these terms used in music literature?  Dicklyon (talk) 17:58, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources for these pitch notation names? 

message: I added octave 10 to the frequencies chart some time ago, since some of those frequencies can be heard by at least a minority of people.  But practically speaking, those frequencies would rarely, if ever, be used in any kind of music. It may be better to remove them to improve formatting and reduce clutter. Thoughts? Jtrevor99 (talk) 21:51, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think removing that column from the table would contribute much to the decluttering of the article, although users of mobile devices might have a different opinion. The usually cited hearing range for humans is 20 to 20,000 Hz, so if anything, column "−1" could be removed. But on balance, I don't think removing these columns would be a net gain. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:53, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. If the MIDI notes didn't extend through octave -1, I'd agree. Jtrevor99 (talk) 03:47, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove octave 10?