The interval is so natural to humans that when men and women are asked to sing in unison, they typically sing in octave.
Notes separated by an octave "ring" together, adding a pleasing sound to music. The human ear tends to hear both notes as being essentially "the same", due to closely related harmonics. The melody is paralleled in three ways: (1) in octaves ( consonant and equivalent) (2) in fifths (fairly consonant but not equivalent) and (3) in seconds (neither consonant nor equivalent).Īfter the unison, the octave is the simplest interval in music. The melody to " Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" with parallel harmony. Any of these directions can be cancelled with the word loco, but often a dashed line or bracket indicates the extent of the music affected. to play the notes in the passage together with the notes in the notated octaves. 8 va stand for coll'ottava, meaning "with the octave", i.e. Similarly, 15 ma ( quindicesima) means "play two octaves higher than written" and 15 mb ( quindicesima bassa) means "play two octaves lower than written." Sometimes 8 va is used to tell the musician to play a passage an octave lower (when placed under rather than over the staff), though the similar notation 8 vb ( ottava bassa or ottava sotto) is also used. 8 a or 8 va stands for ottava, the Italian word for octave (or "eighth") the octave above may be specified as ottava alta or ottava sopra).
The notation 8 a or 8 va is sometimes seen in sheet music, meaning "play this an octave higher than written" ( all' ottava: "at the octave" or all' 8 va). In this notation, middle C is C 4, because of the note's position as the fourth C key on a standard 88-key piano keyboard, while the C an octave higher is C 5. In scientific pitch notation, a specific octave is indicated by a numerical subscript number after note name. Among the most common are the scientific, Helmholtz, organ pipe, and MIDI note systems. Octaves are identified with various naming systems.
The use of such intervals is rare, as there is frequently a preferable enharmonically-equivalent notation available ( minor ninth and major seventh respectively), but these categories of octaves must be acknowledged in any full understanding of the role and meaning of octaves more generally in music. While octaves commonly refer to the perfect octave (P8), the interval of an octave in music theory encompasses chromatic alterations within the pitch class, meaning that G ♮ to G ♯ (13 semitones higher) is an Augmented octave (A8), and G ♮ to G ♭ (11 semitones higher) is a diminished octave (d8). The word is also used to describe melodies played in parallel in more than multiple octaves.
You can download the audio file.īecause of octave equivalence, notes in a chord that are one or more octaves apart are said to be doubled (even if there are more than two notes in different octaves) in the chord. For example, the C major scale is typically written C D E F G A B C (shown below), the initial and final C's being an octave apart.Īudio playback is not supported in your browser. Most musical scales are written so that they begin and end on notes that are an octave apart.
Further octaves of a note occur at 2 n Music theory The ratio of frequencies of two notes an octave apart is therefore 2:1. The octave above or below an indicated note is sometimes abbreviated 8 a or 8 va ( Italian: all'ottava), 8 va bassa ( Italian: all'ottava bassa, sometimes also 8 vb), or simply 8 for the octave in the direction indicated by placing this mark above or below the staff.įor example, if one note has a frequency of 440 Hz, the note one octave above is at 880 Hz, and the note one octave below is at 220 Hz. Other interval qualities are also possible, though rare. To emphasize that it is one of the perfect intervals (including unison, perfect fourth, and perfect fifth), the octave is designated P8.
In Western music notation, notes separated by an octave (or multiple octaves) have the same letter name and are of the same pitch class.
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." The interval between the first and second harmonics of the harmonic series is an octave. In music, an octave ( Latin: octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency.