1.6: Octave Designations in Music

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Terry B. Ewell & Catherine Schmidt-Jones
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There are many ways in which to designate pitches by text. In this module we introduce a system of identification developed by the Acoustical Society of America. The lowest C on the piano keyboard is C1. The next C above that is designated C2, the C above that is C3, and so forth. The pitches above each C receive the octave designation of the C they are above as given below on the piano keyboard:

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): are modified from Tobias R. – Metoc, en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Klaviatur-3-en.svg (Accessed 01 May 09). It is licensed for public use under the Creative Commons Attribution License.

Here are octave designations with notation:

Octave Designations in Notation — Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\):

For a video on octave designations see:

Octave Designations (2 minutes) RealPlayer | Windows Media | iPod or QuickTime Player |youtube