Tuning and temperament: closing the spiral
Neil Bibby · 2003
Abstract Each musical note has a basic frequency (essentially, the number of times the sound pulsates in a given period of time): thus the note ‘A’, which you may hear the oboe play while an orchestra is tuning up, has a frequency of 440 Hz (cycles per second). Frequency enables us to talk about relationships between musical sounds. However, for purposes of comparing two notes, the actual frequency is less important than the ratio of their frequencies.