Music
While some instruments (trombone, theremin, etc.) can play a tone at any arbitrary frequency, other instruments (such as pianos) can only play a limited set of tones. The very popular "twelve-tone equal temperament" selects tones from the geometric sequence
where k is typically 440 Hz, though other standards have been used. However, other less common tuning systems have also been historically important as preferred audio frequencies.
Since 210≈103, 21/12≈103/120=101/40, and the resultant frequency spacing is very similar to the R40 series.
Read more about this topic: Preferred Number
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“The music of an unhappy people, of the children of disappointment; they tell of death and suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world, of misty wanderings and hidden ways.”
—W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt)
“But listen, up the road, something gulps, the church spire
Opens its eight bells out, skulls’ mouths which will not tire
To tell how there is no music or movement which secures
Escape from the weekday time. Which deadens and endures.”
—Louis MacNeice (1907–1963)
“Since a man must bring
To music what his mother spanked him for
When he was two ...”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)