Question on Note Names

1st one looks good to me.

Below is a link to more info.
 
http://www.pianofinders.c...WhatToCallTheKeys1.htm

C3 D3 E3 F3 G3 A3 B3 C4
 
While I agree that the classically and logically one might say A is the first note of the scale, modern music centers around the C scale. Check the PRV in Sonar. The octaves change at C. The same is true of any other libraries / programs I own.
 
 

"Scientific notation". Learn something new every day! Thanks for the question, David.
 
Yeh, I've always been a little uncomfortable with A0 following G0. Alphabetization is so deeply ingrained that we often do it without thinking.
 
But the piano holds a special place in musical history, being the only instrument (other than a pipe organ) that can play every note in the orchestra. Consequently, it's been the composer's choice since its invention, and despite rock star guitar players hogging all the attention it's piano players that ultimately rule. Who else is going to teach you your vocal harmonies? So if we say the universe orbits around middle C, that's how it is.
 

Soundwise
This is called Scientific Pitch. It is described in multitudes of resources, both online and printed. For a reference, check Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/...entific_pitch_notation

Interesting ... and a definitive answer (quoting directly from the article):
 
Octave number
The octave number increases by 1 upon an ascension from B to C (and not from G to A, as one might expect). Thus "A4" refers to the first A above C4 (middle C). As another example, in ascending the white keys on a keyboard, C4 immediately follows B3, as in the following sequence: "C3 D3 E3 F3 G3 A3 B3 C4 D4"
 
On the other hand, the Scientific Notation system denotes middle C as C4, which is probably the *least* used choice in virtual instrument/FX documentation.  Most of the time it's C3, but sometimes it's C5, which can be argued is correct since MIDI note 0 is also C0 in that system.

I also tried tuning on my own when my mother gave me her little spinet. I bought a cheap tuning kit, and, like you, Bitflipper, I just sank deeper and deeper. but then I went to piano tuning school. It took 4 months of daily work to finally get it. I finished the course one month early. Most people don't realize that most of the notes in a piano are comprised of three strings. The bass have two and the lowest notes just one. so even one note can be out of tune with itself! and some pianos are essentially untunable. They have false beats, so you think you have it when actually you don't. They can really be beasts. Then there's action regulations. Over a thousand separate adjustments. Now you you know why they charge so much.

Some might find this discussion of the difficulty of properly tuning pianos interesting (warning - technical paper):
 
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1203.5101v2.pdf
 

I read the whole article. Really interesting. Wish I could grasp the math! Anyway, it seems that ear-tuners, which is what I am, take into account the musicality of Western keyboard music, which is based on equal temperament, so that they instinctively know how to compensate for the errors caused by the underlying waveform conflicts, so that the result sounds "musical." My recollection is that these errors are caused by imperfections in the materials, in this case piano wire, an extremely hard and durable metal (which nevertheless does break. I've broken strings during tuning, and it's not a pleasant experience. I would cringe when stretching those upper notes). Our instructor, Robert Perkins (don't know if he's still in business, I went to his school in the 1980's) definitely had us trust our ears when in doubt. But some ears are better than others. These are the tuners who end up tuning the concert grands for the virtuosi of the performance world. Mastering this process involves internalizing the rates of beat patterns in the various intervals of the temperament octave. for example, one interval might involve beats going at 3 per 5 seconds, another one per five seconds, and so on. How do you memorize this? Well, one trick not involving electronic devises (to which he was vehemently opposed) is to use a metronome. you set it at a certain speed, and memorize that speed. sometimes you have to count every other tick. Then you match the rate the beats are going to that speed you have memorized. Sound difficult? It is. This is why it took me 4 months to finally get it. It's a Zen thing. It has to become part of you. but it's a great feeling when you know you can tune just about any piano with only your ear. (The other thing is tuning it so that it stays in tune a reasonable amount of time. This is called "setting the pins. Another thing that separates the best from the rest).

They are indeed. When I went to a piano concert, and the tuner went up at the break to make some adjustments, I could only look on with a sense of awe. I was good enough for most situations, but not that level. 
Another fine art of piano technology, and one I did not learn, is voicing. This involves stabbing the felt of the hammers (the things which actually strike the notes) with a tool that has these needles sticking out of it. This softens up the felt so a nice tone can be produced, in terms of loud/soft and dull/bright. This skill is by no means universal among piano technologists. 

Bitflipper, my understanding is that the human ear is the problem. It hears really high notes as flat, and really low notes as sharp. I don't do any stretching until I get up to the highest and lowest octaves. Although there is some fudging even in lower octaves. You're supposed to check the fourths and fifths by playing thirds. As you go up the keyboard, those thirds start to sound nasty, so you're supposed to alter them slightly. I never got into that too much. I was just your basic household tuner. Never made any money at it, but I do have a nice 100 year old Hazleton Baby Grand to show for it, which I reconditioned myself. And am thinking of selling now, as I never play it. Heck, I don't even tune it anymore.

michael diemer
Bitflipper, my understanding is that the human ear is the problem. It hears really high notes as flat, and really low notes as sharp. I don't do any stretching until I get up to the highest and lowest octaves.

 
Stretch tuning is used because since a string is not perfectly flexible, it's higher harmonics become increasingly sharp. This is why on a guitar wound strings are used for the low strings - it allows one to add mass to the string while still having good flexibility. More mass allows for the string to be tuned to a low pitch with tension similar to the higher strings. For a vibrating string, lower tension/longer length/more mass = lower pitch and vice versa for higher pitch. A piano uses rather long strings under high tension, so the strings can't be super skinny to be tuned to pitch.
 
So on an instrument like piano - with a very wide range and lots of high harmonics - the higher octave harmonics of a lower string go out of tune with the fundamentals of the same notes a few octaves higher.

All I know is C3 PO comes before R2 D2

As you were