Note frequency chart

By Daniel Breyer, physicist and one half of Acado, Berlin. He studied theoretical quantum physics, published in Physical Review A, and has made club music as Acado for twenty years.

How to read the note frequency chart

Each row is one note: its name, its frequency in hertz (vibrations per second), its MIDI number and its wavelength. Frequency is what is measured; pitch is how high the note sounds, and the note name is the label for it, so this is also a pitch chart: C4 is the pitch, 261.63 Hz its frequency. An octave runs from C up to B, so B3 sits just below middle C, which is C4 at 261.63 Hz, and the A above it, A4, is the 440 Hz every other number is counted from. A sharp and the flat of the next note up are the same key and the same frequency: C♯4 and D♭4 are both 277.18 Hz. The wavelength is the speed of sound, 343 m/s in air at 20 °C, divided by the frequency: 78.0 cm for A4, 21 m for C0. Every number is text in the page, so Find in page (“G3”) jumps to a row.

A few numbers carry the rest. Every A is 27.5 Hz doubled again and again: 27.50, 55.00, 110.00, 220.00, 440.00, 880.00, 1,760.00, 3,520.00 and 7,040.00 Hz. Every C: 16.35, 32.70, 65.41, 130.81, 261.63, 523.25, 1,046.50, 2,093.00 and 4,186.01 Hz. Every G: 24.50, 49.00, 98.00, 196.00, 392.00, 783.99, 1,567.98, 3,135.96 and 6,271.93 Hz. One semitone up is 5.95 % more, one octave up is twice the frequency, one octave down half.

Note to frequency formula, and frequency to pitch

In twelve-tone equal temperament each semitone multiplies the frequency by the twelfth root of two, 1.059463. With n the MIDI number, f = 440 × 2^{(n − 69)/12} Hz. E5 is seven semitones above A4: 440 × 2^7/12 = 659.26 Hz. Middle C is nine below: 440 × 2^−9/12 = 261.63 Hz. Backwards, n = 69 + 12 × log₂(f / 440); round n to the nearest whole number for the note, and the distance to it times 100 is the cents off. 1,320 Hz gives 88.02: E6 (1,318.51 Hz), 2 cents sharp. 140 Hz gives 49.18: C♯3 (138.59 Hz), 18 cents sharp. To have a frequency named for you, type it into the tone generator; to name the note of a sound, let the pitch detector listen to it.

Piano note frequency chart

The piano's 88 keys run from A0 at 27.50 Hz to C8 at 4,186.01 Hz. Counting keys from the bottom, key k is 440 × 2^{(k − 49)/12} Hz: key 49 is A4, key 40 middle C. A real piano is tuned a little wide of these numbers on purpose. Its stiff strings have overtones that run sharp, so the tuner stretches the octaves to match them, by up to about 30 cents at the two ends (the Railsback curve, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1938).

Frequencies of the C major scale, octave by octave

The seven natural notes, the white keys, in the four octaves most music is played and sung in, in Hz:

E to F and B to C are one semitone apart, every other pair of neighbours two; so E4 to F4 is 19.60 Hz and F4 to G4 42.77 Hz.

Guitar, bass, strings and voice frequencies

Guitar and bass parts are written an octave above where they sound: the low E string is written E3 and sounds E2, 82.41 Hz. The 12th fret doubles a string's frequency; on the high E string the 22nd fret is D6 (1,174.66 Hz) and the 24th E6 (1,318.51 Hz). To tune to these numbers, the guitar, bass, ukulele, violin and cello tuners; where your own voice sits, the vocal range test.

Note frequency chart at 432 Hz

A4 = 440 Hz is the standard pitch, agreed in London in 1939 and set down as ISO 16 in 1955 and 1975. Many orchestras tune a little higher, to 442 or 443 Hz. At A4 = 432 every note is 1.8 % lower, 31.8 cents, about a third of a semitone: middle C becomes 256.87 Hz, the guitar's low E 80.91 Hz. The intervals between notes stay exactly the same; only the whole set moves. Played together, an A at 440 and one at 432 beat 8 times a second. C4 = 256 Hz, the “scientific pitch” that goes back to Joseph Sauveur in 1713, puts A4 at 430.54 Hz in equal temperament, not at 432. Claims that 432 is healthier or more natural are not borne out: the studies are few and small, and a randomized trial from 2025 gave 43 cancer patients a 15-minute session on a body monochord tuned to 432 Hz and one tuned to 443 Hz: both lowered the heart rate and eased stress, and of the heart and vessel measures only one, pulse wave velocity, differed significantly between the two (BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies 25:18, 2025). There was no session without sound to compare with. The history is on the 432 Hz tuner.

Hertz frequency chart: bass, mids and highs in notes

Sound engineers split the hearing range into bands. The edges are conventions, not a standard, and they shift a little from one EQ manual to the next; these are the usual ones, with the notes of this chart that fall in each.

A kick's and an 808's fundamental usually sit around 40 to 80 Hz, sub-bass into bass. Sung fundamentals run from about 80 to 1,050 Hz (E2 to C6), with harmonics far above: much of what makes a voice clear sits in the upper mids, well above the note it sings. To hear any of these frequencies, or sweep through a band, use the tone generator.

MIDI note frequency chart, for producers

The MIDI column is the number your DAW sends. MIDI runs from 0 (C−1, 8.18 Hz) to 127 (G9, 12,543.85 Hz); this chart shows 12 to 119. Middle C is 60 everywhere, but Ableton Live, Logic and Cubase label it C3 and FL Studio C5; the frequency is 261.63 Hz in all of them. If a sample sits between two notes, find its offset with the pitch detector, put the cents in the field above, and the whole table follows: the note to tune an 808 to, the frequency to type into a filter or an EQ. Copy Hz gives the number with a point and two decimals, the way plugin fields take it. The WAV loop is a sine at the row's frequency, four seconds, a whole number of cycles, to drop under a track as a tuning reference; for any other wave or a sweep, the tone generator.

Why the step is the twelfth root of two

Two notes sound smooth together when their frequencies stand in a simple ratio: 2:1 is an octave, 3:2 a fifth, 5:4 a major third. The chart shows it: 3 × 440 = 1,320 Hz is a pure fifth above A5, and the chart's E6 is 1,318.51 Hz. But twelve pure fifths overshoot seven octaves by 23.46 cents (the Pythagorean comma), so no twelve-note scale keeps every fifth pure in every key. Equal temperament spreads the error evenly: each fifth is 700 cents instead of 701.96, two cents narrow, each major third 400 cents instead of 386.31, 14 cents wide. In return every key sounds alike, and a song can start on any note. A hundred cents make a semitone, 1,200 an octave.

Harmonics, and what you hear on a phone

The chart gives each note's fundamental, the lowest frequency it vibrates at. An instrument also sounds the whole-number multiples, the harmonics: A2 on a guitar is 110 Hz plus 220, 330, 440, 550 Hz and up, and the balance between them is why a guitar and a piano on the same note sound different. The ear names the note by the fundamental even when it is weak or missing. A phone speaker gives little below a few hundred hertz, so the tone here always adds a little of the second and third harmonic, more below 130 Hz, and the low octaves stay audible; headphones play the fundamental itself. People hear roughly 20 Hz to 20 kHz, the top end falling with age: C0 at 16.35 Hz sits below that and is felt more than heard, while B8 at 7,902 Hz is well inside.

Why other charts differ in the last digit

• Rounding. D8 is 4,698.636 Hz: this chart rounds to 4,698.64, charts that cut the digits print 4,698.63.
• Wavelength. A chart that takes 345 m/s, the speed of sound at about 23 °C, gives A4 78.4 cm; at 20 °C it is 78.0 cm. The speed rises about 0.6 m/s per degree.
• Octave numbers. Some charts, Yamaha keyboards and several DAWs call middle C C3, and French charts call A4 la3. The frequencies are the same; only the label moves.
• Tuning. A chart at A4 = 432 or 442 Hz moves every number; one in just intonation moves every note but its reference.
• PDF. There is no PDF of this chart; a screenshot of the octaves you use keeps it on the phone offline, and Find in page jumps to any note.

Then make something of it

The note you tapped last goes into Brumm as a melody, inside a club track with a beat and a bass. No account, no upload: the note travels inside the link itself. Hum a whole line there, and it becomes an instrument.

Nothing leaves your phone: the tones are made in the browser. How the site counts visits.