Numbers in music and sound

This is a list for numbers that have to do with sound or music.

Compositions

Number	Significance
0	Number of notes in John Cage’s 4’33’’
4	Notes in the opening theme of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 5th Symphony
9	Symphonies composed by Ludwig van Beethoven
12	Movements in Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons
24	Caprices written by Niccolò Paganini
68	Number of works Amadeus Wolfgang Mozart wrote that can be considered symphonies
100+	Symphonies composed by Franz Joseph Haydn
500+	Verses in Chris Butler’s song The Devil Glitch
639	Length in years of ORGAN2/ASLAP by John Cage as is being performed in Halberstadt
810	Number of semiquaver notes in Flight of the Bumblebee
840	Number of times theme in Erik Satie’s Vexations is repeated
48,212	Length of P C III’s The Rise and Fall of Bossanova in seconds
2,927,162	Notes in Sir Spork’s black MIDI cover of Edvard Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King

Ensembles and multiple instruments

Number of instruments	Significance
1	Number of people for a performance to be a solo
2	Minimum number of people required to play a duet
4	Number of instruments/performers in a string quartet
5	Number of instruments/performers in a string quintet
106	Musicians in the New York Philharmonic
512	Number of surviving Stradovarius violins
8,688	Participants in largest gospel choir on October 12, 2015
21,262	Participants in largest gospel choir on May 22, 2016
121,440	Participants in the largest recorded choir

Frequencies

Frequency, in cycles per second (Hertz, Hz)	Significance
~1.6175 fHz or ~1.6175 x 10-15 Hz	~Bb-54, lowest discovered soundwave in the universe
~2.95 mHz or ~0.0295 Hz	Eb-10, the note whose partial overtone series inspired the tuning for in Le Monte Young’s The Well-Tuned Piano
0.189 Hz	~G-7, a note Tim Storms is said to have hit (albeit under a very questionable criteria)
1 - 20 Hz	Range of elephant rumbles
8.17 Hz	C-1, the pitch of the 64’ stop in the The Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ
16.35 Hz	C0, the lowest note on both an Imperial Bösendorfer and a hyperbass flute
17.32 Hz	C#0/Db0, the lowest open string on a contrabass guitar
18-19 Hz	~D0, resonant frequency of the human eyeball
~20 Hz	Lower threshold of human hearing
23 Hz	F#0/Gb0, lowest calls from the Dwarf Cassowaries
24.5 Hz	G0, J.D. Sumner's lowest recorded note at an Elvis concert in 1976
27.5 Hz	A0, the lowest note on most grand pianos
30.87 Hz	B0, lowest open stringed note on a 5-stringed double bass
32.7 Hz	C1, lowest possible note on a cello using sub-harmonics and Mikhail Zlatopolsky’s lowest note in Mikhail Zlatopolsky & The Don Kosaken Choir’s Prayer for the Dead
38.89 Hz	D#1/Eb1, the lowest bass notes in DJ Snake and Lil Jon’s -- Turn Down for What
41.2 Hz	E1, lowest open stringed note on a 4-stringed double bass
43.65 Hz	F1, Barry White’s lowest note in Love Is The Icon
52 Hz	~G#1/Ab1, the frequency of the vocalizations of a solitary whale that has been consistently heard through the years - nicknamed "the world's loneliest whale"
55 Hz	A1, the lowest note in Johnny Cash’s “Ain’t Gonna Hobo No More”
58.27 Hz	Bb1, the lowest note of the 5th movement of Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil
65.41 Hz	C2, lowest open stringed note on a cello
82.41 Hz	E2, lowest and first open string on a six-string guitar
98 Hz	G2, lowest possible note on a violin using sub-harmonics
130.81 Hz	C3, lowest open stringed note on a viola
196 Hz	G3, lowest open stringed note on a violin
261.626 Hz	C4, and the lowest note playable on a bass ocarina
421 Hz - 578 Hz	Range of mean frequency buzzes of female mosquitos
440 Hz	A4 or A440 is a musical tuning standard by which musical instruments are often tuned
531 Hz - 832 Hz	Range of mean frequency buzzes of male mosquito
659.25 Hz	E5, the highest note in A-ha’s Take On Me and highest open string on a 4-stringed violin
932.33 Hz	A#5/Bb5, the pitch of the opening scream in Slayer’s Angel of Death and the highest note in Bohemian Rhapsody
1,000 Hz or 1 kHz	B5~C6, a frequency most commonly used to censor swears in televised shows
1,150 Hz	~D6, a tone that has been mystifying residents of Forest Grove, Oregon
4,186 Hz	C8, the highest note on a grand piano
5,423 Hz	E8, currently the highest note sung by a male
7,040 Hz	A8, currently the highest recorded whistle by a human
8,000 - 10,000 Hz	Song range of the Blackpoll Warbler
8,371 Hz	C9, highest note on many pipe organs
15,734 Hz	Frequency of the flyback transformer in NTSC analog TV monitors
~20,000 Hz or 20 kHz	Upper threshold of human hearing
2.5 MHz - 15 MHz or 2,500,000 Hz - 15,000,000 Hz	Frequency of medical ultrasound transducers
~ 1 THz - 10 THz or ~1,000,000,000,000 Hz - ~10,000,000,000,000 Hz	Trumpet notes in Tom Johnson’s Celestial Music for Imaginary Trumpets
2.1037 x 1037 Hz	Absolute upper bound for producable frequencies within the universe

Instrument components

Number	Significance
2	Keyboards in 2-manual harpsichords
26	Sets of strings in a typical Qanun
47	Number of strings in a concert grand pedal harp
78	Total number of strings in an average Qanun
88	Number of keys in grand concert piano
97	Number of keys in an Imperial Bösendorfer
108	Number of keys in a Stuart & Sons grand piano
164	Keys in a Steinway & Sons 2-manuel piano
33,112	Pipes in the Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall organ

Polyrhythms

Polyrhythm	Occurrence
1:4	Charles Valentin Alkan’s “Le Chemin de Fer”
2:3	Claude Debussy’s Arabesque No.1 and opening of Philip Glass’ Glassworks
3:4	Fake Empire by The National

Volume

Volume, in decibels (dB)	What
-20.6 dB	Microsoft’s anechoic chamber in Redmond, Washington
0 dB	Lower limit of hearing for humans
120 dB - 140 dB	Jet engine
172 dB	Eruption of Krakatoa from 100 miles away
220 dB	Saturn V rocketship taking off
1,470 dB	SCP-498 if allowed to sound alarm for an hour

See also

• Numbers in engineering
• Numbers in linguistics