Quote:
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Music, 12 pitches create all (western culture for the past few hundred years) all songs.
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Not quite, from my weak and pitiful knowledge of music theory. =)
Given a base frequency, the notes around it are defined in "low integer multiples" of that frequency.
So you might have
1/2 Base Freq
2/3 Base Freq
3/5 Base Freq
3/4 Base Freq
Base Freq
5/4 Base Freq
4/3 Base Freq
3/2 Base Freq
5/3 Base Freq
7/4 Base Freq
2/1 Base Freq
Even an untrained ear can here these small integer multiples.
Going from a base frequency, to twice that frequency, is an 'octave'.
Given a base frequency and an octave, you have one set of notes.
If you select another note in that octave, then base a new set of notes off that new note, you get a new octave of completely different notes. Not one note is exactly the same.
So, you start with a set of notes (say 12), but you end up with 12*12 different 'real' notes as you change (I think it is called key).
The piano is often tuned differently, not using small integer multiples. Which is why you never want to start someone's musical training on the piano, apparently.
Note: my knowledge here is pretty damn sketchy, could be full of holes. But, I find the mathematical and physical basis of music quite interesting: musical notes aren't arbitrary or magical, they actually are part of a legacy of mathematics that goes back thousands of years.