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Re: SoundNote does not accept "H"

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  • Subject: [mg83318] Re: SoundNote does not accept "H"
  • From: Thomas E Burton <tburton at brahea.com>
  • Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 05:26:42 -0500 (EST)

A private communication from Szabolcs reminded me that my view  
(shared by MIDI standards) is Anglo-centric. Many Europeans do indeed  
use pitch "H". Others use "do", "re", "mi", etc. instead of letters. See

http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory1.htm

especially article 2.

> Heh, by convention in Western music, names of pitches are unique  
> only modulo octave (factor of two in pitch).  The A-minor scale  
> spanning one octave (12 semitones) is therefore ABCDEFGA, where the  
> first and last A's refer to different octaves. So we don't use "H",  
> but "H" might be imagined to be "A" one octave higher. Note that  
> SoundNote["A"] is short for SoundNote["A4"], that is, the 4th A  
> from the left on a standard keyboard. Thus, instead of SoundNote 
> ["H"], you could write SoundNote["A5"]. In terms of semitones, you  
> could equivalently write SoundNote[21], or SoundNote[9] for "A4".   
> SoundNote[11] is actually a "B4". Confused? Check out a web site on  
> western musical notation :-)


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