Instrument Frequency Range
Where each instrument sits in the audible spectrum · fundamental pitch, on a logarithmic scale · tap a bar to hear its lowest and highest note
How to play
- Tap any bar to select that instrument. You will hear its lowest note, then its highest, and the readout gives both note names, both frequencies in hertz, and how many octaves it covers.
- The scale along the top is logarithmic, not linear, and that matters: each labelled gridline is one octave, and every octave is a doubling of frequency. C4 is 262 Hz, C5 is 523 Hz, C6 is 1047 Hz. Drawn this way, equal musical intervals take equal horizontal space, which is why the bars line up the way your ear hears them rather than the way a ruler would measure them.
- The dashed line is A4 = 440 Hz, the international tuning reference. Almost every instrument here crosses it — that is roughly the middle of human hearing and of most music.
- Family filters the list. Notice how the double bass, bass guitar and tuba all bottom out around 40 Hz, while the piccolo alone reaches above 4 kHz.
- Sweep the range glides from the bottom of the selected instrument to the top, so you can hear the span rather than just read it.
- These are fundamental frequencies — the pitch you perceive. Every instrument also produces harmonics far above its top note, and those overtones are what make a violin sound like a violin and not a flute. A cello's highest fundamental is about 1 kHz, but its harmonics reach well past 10 kHz.
- Ranges are the typical ones a competent player uses. Extremes vary with the instrument, the player and the repertoire — a soloist may go higher, and some instruments have extensions that reach lower.
- Keyboard — Tab to any bar and press Enter or Space to select and hear it.
This is an interactive visual guide to the range of frequencys that orchestral instruments covers.
To use it, you click on the bars representing each instrument with your mouse, or if you want to select quickly, you can use your keyboard to move focus and press Enter or Space. The widget illustrates which area in the spectrum of sound each instrument cover and how large a range they has.
How to Use This Guide
Tap on one of the bars of color, and it shows you which instrument you have chosen and what it sounds like at its extremes. Immediately you’ll hear the lowest and then the highest note available on that instrument. It also show up in the readout section. There, you can see the name of the note and its frequency in hertz per second. You can also see how many octave it covers. So not only do you get to hear what the range sounds like but you can see it too.
Filter the view by families of instruments using the family filter buttons. Selecting them will show you only brass, woodwind, string, keyboard or just voice instrument at a time. It’s great for comparing similar instruments like where do the bassoon and the cello sits? They have overlap in their low registers.
Whenever you select an instrument it will stay highlighted in teal so you are never lost.
If you are interested, there is also an opportunity to explore the pitch span using the audio controls. Pressing on ‘Hear low and high’, you can listen to each extreme note separately. If you press on ‘Sweep the range‘ you will notice that it play a rapid slide across the entire range of the instrument. This gives you an idea of how far apart the highest and lowest pitches are.
Use the master volume slider to adjust how loud the tones plays back. For example, you might be in a quiet space or be more focused on following along with the visual data. The volume will adjust in real time as you slide the bar up and down, even when audio is still playing.
To move between instrument bars, you can hit the Tab key until your focus is on the instrument bar you want. Then hit Space or Enter to play back that instrument and select it. The keyboard navigation is fully compatible with the family filters. If you don’t want to use a mouse, this will be totaly accessible for you.
To view all of it, click the Fullscreen button and the chart will take up your whole screen. If you’re sharing this data on a big screen presentation, or just want to focus without any distractions, then that’s a good option for viewing it. Click the button again to exit out of full-screen mode, or hit the Escape key on your keyboard.
A4 is marked by a dotted line at 440 Hz, the point of reference for the pitch tuning of Western music. Most instruments passes through this middle point. You’ll also notice that certain instruments linger on either side such as the piccolo or tuba while others such as the harp and piano reaches well past it in both directions.
An alternative method would be to compare instruments from the same family and consider their relative ranges. For example, you may find that even though they are used in a contrasting manner, the bass guitar and the double-bass both covers exactly the same range of frequencies. Alternatively, you can hear how two instruments such as a flute and an oboe has similar upper ranges but different lower ones with consequently distinctive functions in an ensemble.
The sweep feature is also great because it allows you to see, and more importantly hear the scale of the various ranges. A quick sweep through a full 7 octaves on the piano sounds very different than a sweep through the tenor voice range. The sound adds to what you see in terms of bar length and can give an idea as to why these instruments might be selected for certain textures in music.
Remember these are the basic pitches for each instrument. What you hear from each one include other harmonics extending far beyond the highest bar indicated above. This is why a violin can produce a note lower than the piano’s upper range and still be heard.
If you’re feeling a bit rusty with the concept of the logarithmic scale, click the ‘How to play’ button and open the Help panel which will explain the theory behind it in more detail. You’ll learn about why each note occupies the same amount of horizontal space for an equal musical interval. And you’ll see that the bars represent what you hear, not just actual vibrations themselves.
Try playing with the instrument selection and listen to them at both ends of the scale. This will soon give you a feel for the placement of each voice within the sound. Tap on the bars, and the audio will bring your frequency data to life.