Solfeggio · RE
417Hz
Solfeggio narrative: Change
Just under a semitone below the standard. The point where fine-tuning turns into an audible shift.
Chladni figure · n 4.91 · m 7.86
What happens when you switch
This is no longer a fine adjustment.
About 93 Cents measure small pitch differences: 100 cents make a semitone, 1 cent is barely audible. More about cents → — seven Cents measure small pitch differences: 100 cents make a semitone, 1 cent is barely audible. More about cents → short of a full semitone. That’s exactly what makes it interesting: it sounds almost like a cleanly transposed track, but not quite. Compare the two directly and you hear the difference between “a semitone lower” and “a bit lower than a semitone.”
Origin
Where the name comes from
The syllables Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La go back to Guido of Arezzo in the 11th century. He took the opening syllables of the lines of a Latin hymn and turned them into the first workable method for naming melodies, rather than just singing them back by ear. This “Ut–Re–Mi” became today’s “Do–Re–Mi”.
What Guido did not do: assign hertz values to these syllables. The term hertz did not exist at the time, and neither did a binding tuning standard. The assignment of specific frequencies to these syllables is considerably more recent and does not date back to the Middle Ages — it is often told that way, but the sources for it are modern.
All ten, as the ear hears them
Plotted in Cents measure small pitch differences: 100 cents make a semitone, 1 cent is barely audible. More about cents → relative to 440 Hz — the unit the ear actually reckons in. A semitone is 100 Cents measure small pitch differences: 100 cents make a semitone, 1 cent is barely audible. More about cents → , an octave 1200.