Those Famous Piano Octaves...........

Member

Posts: 242
City: casorate sempione varese

June 19, 2012, 16:34

Dear PIANOEXPERT, it has been a long time since I have wanted to submit to you a doubt that has been bothering me, regarding the difference in the naming of piano keyboard octaves between piano technicians and pianists. To explain myself better, in Max Matthias's book, he names the octaves as studied in music theory, i.e., starting from the 1st key on the left A-1, B-1, C0, etc., until reaching C8; however, in BETTIN's manual, the naming of the octaves is different. On page 44 of the same manual, one can see an illustration of the keyboard but with reference to A1 (first octave), A2 (second octave), etc., up to reaching A8 (octave... octave); in fact, in the chapter on tuning, it says that when starting to tune the middle octave, he numbers the keys F3, G3, A4, B4, C4, D4, E4, F4, G4, A5.

Please tell me, how does it work?

THANK YOU and COMPLIMENTS again for your excellent website.

Regards,

saverio

Rotore

Member

Posts: 337
City: -

June 19, 2012, 17:08

In my opinion, it is just a matter of conventions.

Over time the range of the instrument has expanded and conventions may have been revised; not by chance when discussing in a decontextualized way and without prefaces, one banalizes it by saying ... compared to middle C, C4 or C3, whatever, I am referring to the note A1