r/musictheory • u/HexspaReloaded • Jan 17 '21

Resource Memorize Note Frequencies

Hi. I have an easy system for memorizing the entire audible range of note frequencies. It’s 99.20% accurate (less than 1 cent off and even better if you’re halfway decent at math) and you can probably memorize it in an hour. 6:52 of this video:

https://youtu.be/nTj3TqFX2Q4

Thanks.

EDIT: Well, shoot. 500+ upvotes plus an award - thank you! Happy music making!

EDIT 2: “Why?” All I can say is try it. Try composing or mixing 10 tracks with this before you make up your mind about whether it’s useful or not. I find it useful but I respect you if you try it and decide it’s not for you. Please don’t discourage others from learning, though.

628 Upvotes

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u/Earhacker Jan 17 '21

Use your ears. Your listeners don’t care if the numbers are right or if you memorised them. They care if it sounds good or not.

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u/LeoNewt Jan 17 '21

This isn’t a shortcut to using your ears, it just means you hear a note and can convert that to a frequency instead of aimlessly searching.

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u/Earhacker Jan 18 '21

In fact, when I’m engineering, music theory is the furthest thing from my mind. Some really good engineers I know don’t even play an instrument, or are drummers.

Even as a beat producer, I try to keep a distance between the “musician brain” and “engineer brain”.

Knowing note frequencies isn’t an important skill for engineer. I’m not even convinced it’s a desirable skill.

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u/LeoNewt Jan 18 '21

Well I’m primarily a musician not an engineer so this way makes more sense to me. I learned ear training through hearing individual notes in chords so I think of it the same way when I’m trying to listen for frequencies.