Musical Mathematical Terminology

The Savart

Felix Savart (1791 - 1841) improved upon the ideas of Daniel Bernoulli (1700 - 1782) and Ernst Florens Fredrich Chlandni (1756 - 1827) and developed a logarithmic interval term called the savart. There are 303.03 Savarts in one octave, or doubling of the frequency.

This scheme works well when discussing musical notes because it is completely ratiometric and works the same from low frequencies through high frequencies.

The Cent

Later, Alexander John Ellis (1814 - 1890) developed another similar concept, the cent. In Alexander's scheme, the octave would be broken down into 1200 cents, making each equal tempered half tone equal to exactly 100 cents.

this leads to:

You can see how this mathematical relationship is useful, since one standard, equal tempered half-tone is 100 Cents.

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