Tuning

Thursday 30 Apr 2009 by Orphi the AweKid.

According to legend, it was Pythagorus who discovered that sounds who’s frequencies share a “simple” ratio sound harmonious together. (By “simple” I mean something like 5:4 and not something like 253:612.)

The Pythagorean scale is based on this concept. Let’s say we start with C, and tune that to 300 Hz (just to make the calculations easier). An octave is a 2:1 ratio, so we tune every other C to some multiple of this; the next C will be 600 Hz, the next 1,200 Hz, and so on.

Now, we move one 5th up from C, which takes us to G, and we tune that to 3:2 higher. So we take our 300 Hz, divide by 2, and multiply by 3, yielding 450 Hz. So that’s the frequency for G. (And 900 Hz for the octave above, and so on.)

Next we move up another 5th from G to D, again increasing the frequency 3:2, which gives 675 Hz.

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