Why are some frequencies considered musical notes and some are not?

Question

Is there some inherent quality in the frequencies that make them notes, or is it just an arbitrary human construct?

In: Other

Answer 1

There are mathematical relationships between different notes (e.g. an octave is two frequencies whose relationship is 2:1) but for the precise frequencies themselves, its arbitrary.

In western music, “concert pitch” is defined such that the note A4 is 440 Hz but in the past other tunings were common, and in other musical traditions you’ll have different tunings and different ways of dividing up the notes.