Historical Pianos/notation

[Richard Moody]

Personally I like C4 being the reference to Middle C.  Middle C is
the most well known note of Western music.   Why C4?  Because 150
years ago C1 was the lowest note on the piano.  Then they went to
A below that which is known as A0.  However some pianos go down to
the F below A0 so that would  still be F0.  Now suppose a piano
was built with a C below F0 which would be C below C1.  It would
still be C0.  Its
frequency would be about 16 cycles per second which if you can
hear is a low guttural rumble.     So since nothing in music would
below C0 we can go with the C4 = middle C.   The highest C on the
piano, (the last note) would be C8.

I use this notation to show what notes of the piano need
attention.  When a music teacher says, "the C two octaves  above
middle C sounds the same as the D" then I look on the piano for C6
and D5.
Sure enough she is right C5 sounds the same as D5.  How can this
be?
It turned out the D6 hammer was broken on this piano and for years
it stayed broken.  It was in a church choir practice room and they
didn't want to spend $40 to get it fixed.  So after the 2nd time I
tuned it somehow I looked in the bench and there was the broken
hammer.  I glued it in with thick CA and therefore for the first
time in....what.... 20 years?  they heard that D6.  It sounded the
same as C6 because over those years it had dropped a whole tone.
I didn't think to pluck the strings the day I glued it in.
    ---rm



----- Original Message -----
From: Dave Doremus <algiers_piano@bellsouth.net>
To: Pianotech <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2003 7:36 PM
Subject: Re: Historical Pianos/notation


> At 12:49 PM -0500 6/4/03, Keith McGavern wrote:
> >
> >A question: When it references the scale as
> >
> >A subscript 2 - C superscript 5
> >
> >is a zero (0) used for that octave, and if so, is it subscript,
> >superscript or something else?
> >
> >Keith McGavern
> >
> >
>
> Keith, I take it you refer to 'range A2 - c5,'  this is standard
> notation except among piano tuners. c is the one an octave below
> middle C, the capitals start there and go down so that the next
> octave is B down to C than BB (or B2), down to AA. c1 (or c') is
> middle c, followed by c2 (c''), c3, c4, c5. So this is modern
piano
> range. I am used to writing it AA - c''''', but it is the same.
This
> notation applies across all instruments and times as the range
> changes, it is not modern piano centered. It is easy to use once
you
> get used to it. I hope I explained this well, it's the end of a
long
> day.
> --
> ----Dave
>
>