Usage
Scientific pitch notation is often used to specify the range of an instrument. It provides an unambiguous means of identifying a note in terms of musical notation rather than frequency, while at the same time avoiding the transposition conventions that are used in writing the music for instruments such as the clarinet and guitar.
The conventional octave naming system — where for example C0 is written as ′′C, or CCC in Helmholtz pitch notation, or referred to as subcontra C, and C4 is written as c′ or one-lined C — applies to the written notes that may or may not be transposed. For example, a d′ played on a B♭ trumpet is actually a C4 in scientific pitch notation.
Although pitch notation is intended to describe audible sounds, it can also be used to specify the frequency of non-audible phenomena. For example, when the Chandra X-ray Observatory observed the waves of pressure fronts propagating away from a black hole, the one oscillation every 10 million years was described by NASA as corresponding to the B♭ fifty-seven octaves below middle C (or B♭−53).
Read more about this topic: Scientific Pitch Notation
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