(This is some technical stuff and you can skip this if you don’t like Math)
Music is nothing but physics, which is nothing but mathematics. When you pluck a string, this causes the air molecules around the string to vibrate which causes the melody of the note (string) plucked. The tighter the string, the more the vibrations, and less tighter the string, lesser the vibrations. Another name for vibration is frequency. That is why the 1st string on your guitar sounds higher in pitch than the 6th string. So each note has one frequency. The higher the frequency the higher the pitch (note) and lower the frequency the lower the pitch and so on. Confusing? Don’t fret my friend! You don’t need any of this technical mumbo jumbo to play guitar! It’s just information which can benefit some of you’ll.
Western music has 12 notes. Some cultures in other Countries and cultures have more or less notes in their system. The human ear can distinguish frequencies in the range of 20Hz(20 vibrations/sec) to about 20000Hz. But in reality most humans don’t have this wide range and are limited to under 8000hz(8Khz). Musical frequency ranges from 20Hz to 4KHz. The average human speech ranges under 1000Hz. Won’t it be nice to know what frequency each note on your guitar corresponds to? Well there is a simple mathematical formula, which you can use to calculate the frequency of each note. A, the first note in music has a frequency of 440Hz. We will keep this as the fundamental note and frequency respectively for this formula:
where,
is the new Frequency, 440 is the frequency of A, s is the steps from A, ie; one note from A which is A#, will be 1 step, two notes from A which is B will be step 2 and so on. So if you wanted to find the frequency of A#, then you will substitute s=1, and if you wanted to find the frequency of B, s=2 and so on.
Example: Find the frequency of C immediately following A.
First count the number of notes from A to C. Counting: A#, B, C. (Note: B and E have no sharps or
flats. Sharps&flats will be explained later). There are 3 notes. So s=3. Now substituting the values in the above formula,
So the Frequency of C is 523 Hz. Similarly if you wanted to find the frequency of C below A,
simply substitute s= -3. The frequency for C below A will be 370Hz.
Octave:
An Octave of a note is the same note, but at twice the frequency and hence twice the pitch or half the frequency and hence half the pitch. So the first octave of A will be A, but it will have a frequency of 880Hz. Like wise the first octave of A below, will be half of 440Hz which is also A but with a frequency of 220Hz. The same principle will follow all notes. For example the 5th fret and the 17th fret on your guitar are both A, but they are both an octave apart.
PHEW! Now that you know the science involved in music we can go to the real fun part-The Guitar!
