FACTOID # 29: 73.3% of America's gross operating surplus in motion picture and sound recording industries comes from California.

 Home Encyclopedia Statistics States A-Z Flags Maps FAQ About

 WHAT'S NEW

SEARCH ALL

Search encyclopedia, statistics and forums:

(* = Graphable)

Encyclopedia > Pitch (music)
 This article includes inline links to audio files. If you have trouble playing the files, see Wikipedia Media help.

The note A above middle C played on a piano is perceived to be of the same pitch as a pure tone of 440 Hz. However, a slight change in frequency need not lead to a perceived change in pitch. The just noticeable difference (the threshold at which a change in pitch is perceived) is about five cents (that is, about five hundredths of a semitone), but varies over the range of hearing and is more precise when the two pitches are played simultaneously. Like other human stimuli, the perception of pitch also can be explained by the Weber-Fechner law. Pure tone is a single frequency tone with no harmonic content (no overtones). ... In psychophysics, a just noticeable difference, customarily abbreviated with lowercase letters as jnd, is the smallest difference in a specified modality of sensory input that is detectable by a human being or other animal. ... This page is a candidate to be copied to Wiktionary. ... The cent is a logarithmic unit of measure used for musical intervals. ... A semitone (also known in the USA as a half step) is a musical interval. ... Simultaneity is the property of two events happening at the same time in at least ONE Reference frame. ... The Weber - Fechner law attempts to describe the relationship between the physical magnitudes of stimuli and human perception of the intensity of stimuli. ...

Pitch may depend on the amplitude of the sound, especially at low frequencies. For instance, a low bass note will sound lower in pitch if it is louder. Like other senses, the relative perception of pitch can be fooled, resulting in "audio illusions". There are several of these, such as the tritone paradox, but most notably the Shepard scale, where a continuous or discrete sequence of specially formed tones can be made to sound as if the sequence continues ascending or descending forever. An auditory illusion is an illusion of hearing (sense), the sound equivalent of an optical illusion: the listener hears either sounds which are not present in the stimulus, or impossible sounds. ... The Deutsch tritone paradox is an auditory illusion created by Diana Deutsch (creator of a number of auditory illusions) to test the Shepard scale if proximity information was removed. ... A Shepard tone is a sound consisting of a superposition of tones separated by octaves. ...

A special type of pitch often occurs in free nature when the sound of a sound source reaches the ear of an observer directly and also after being reflected against a sound-reflecting surface. This phenomenon is called Repetition Pitch, because the addition of a true repetition of the original sound to itself is the basic prerequisite. A sensation of pitch (psychophysics) often occurs in free nature when the sound of a sound source reaches the ear of an observer directly and also after being reflected against a sound-reflecting surface. ...

## Standardized pitch (A440)

The A above middle C is nowadays set at 440 Hz (often written as "A = 440 Hz" or sometimes "A440"), although this has not always been the case (see "History of pitch standards in Western music"). In Western music, the expression middle C refers to the note C or Do located exactly between the two staves of the grand staff, quoted as C4 in note-octave notation (also known as scientific pitch notation). ... Image File history File links Sine_wave_440. ... A440 is the 440 Hz tone that serves as the standard for musical pitch. ...

## Concert pitch

Since some instruments in an orchestra use different key signatures (because of transposition), "concert pitch" describes a particular pitch in absolute terms, regardless of notation. In music transposition refers to the process of moving a collection of notes (pitches) up or down in pitch by a constant interval. ...

## Labeling pitches

Pitches are often labeled using scientific pitch notation or some combination of a letter and a number representing a fundamental frequency. For example, one might refer to the A above middle C as "A4" or "A440." However, there are two problems with this practice. First, in standard Western equal-temperament, the notion of pitch is insensitive to spelling: the description "G4 double sharp" refers to the same pitch as "A4." Second, human pitch perception is logarithmic with respect to fundamental frequency: the perceived distance between the pitches "A220" and "A440" is the same as the perceived distance between the pitches "A440" and "A880." This article or section may be confusing for some readers, and should be edited to be clearer or more simplified. ... Vibration and standing waves in a string, The fundamental and the first 6 overtones The fundamental tone, often referred to simply as the fundamental and abbreviated fo, is the lowest frequency in a harmonic series. ...

To avoid these problems, music theorists sometimes represent pitches using a numerical scale based on the logarithm of fundamental frequency. For example, one can adopt the widely used MIDI standard to map fundamental frequency f to a real number p as follows

$p = 69 + 12timeslog_2 { left(frac {f}{440; mbox{Hz}} right) }$

This creates a linear pitch space in which octaves have size 12, semitones (the distance between adjacent keys on the piano keyboard) have size 1, and A440 is assigned the number 69. Distance in this space corresponds to musical distance as measured in psychological experiments and understood by musicians. The system is flexible enough to include "microtones" not found on standard piano keyboards. For example, the pitch halfway between C (60) and C♯ (61) can be labeled 60.5. In music pitch space is the modeling of pitch relationships, represented through mathematical models, most often multidimensional, describing how near or far pitches are from each other. ...

## Varying pitch

Pitches may be described in various ways, including high or low, as discrete or indiscrete, pitch that changes with time (chirping) and the manner in which this change with time occurs: gliding; portamento; or vibrato, and as determinate or indeterminate. Musically the frequency of specific pitches is not as important as their relationships to other frequencies — the difference between two pitches can be expressed by a ratio or measured in cents. People with a sense of these relationships are said to have relative pitch while people who have a sense of the actual frequencies independent of other pitches are said to have "absolute pitch", or "perfect pitch". This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Glissando (plural: glissandi) is a musical term that refers to either a continuous sliding from one pitch to another (a true glissando), or an incidental scale played while moving from one melodic note to another (an effective glissando). ... Portamento is a musical term currently used to mean pitch bending or sliding, and in 16th century polyphonic writing refers to a type of musical ornamentation. ... Vibrato is a musical effect where the pitch or frequency of a note or sound is quickly and repeatedly raised and lowered over a small distance for the duration of that note or sound. ... This article is about the mathematical concept. ... The cent is a logarithmic unit of measure used for musical intervals. ... The term relative pitch may denote: the distance of a musical note from a set point of reference, e. ... Absolute pitch (AP), widely referred to as perfect pitch, is the ability of a person to identify or sing a musical note without the benefit of a known reference. ...

## Scales

The relative pitches of individual notes in a scale may be determined by one of a number of tuning systems. In the west, the twelve-note chromatic scale is the most common method of organization, with equal temperament now the most widely used method of tuning that scale. In it, the pitch ratio between any two successive notes of the scale is exactly the twelfth root of two (or about 1.05946). In well-tempered systems (as used in the time of Johann Sebastian Bach, for example), different methods of musical tuning were used. Almost all of these systems have one interval in common, the octave, where the pitch of one note is double the frequency of another. For example, if the A above middle C is 440 Hz, the A an octave above that will be 880 Hz . In music, a scale is a set of musical notes that provides material for part or all of a musical work. ... In music, there are two common meanings for tuning: Tuning practice, the act of tuning an instrument or voice. ... The chromatic scale is a scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone or half step apart. ... An equal temperament is a musical temperament â€” that is, a system of tuning intended to approximate some form of just intonation â€” in which an interval, usually the octave, is divided into a series of equal steps (equal frequency ratios). ... Well temperament (also circular or circulating temperament) is a type of tempered tuning described in twentieth-century music theory. ... â€œBachâ€ redirects here. ... In music, there are two common meanings for tuning: Tuning practice, the act of tuning an instrument or voice. ... In music theory, the term interval describes the difference in pitch between two notes. ... For other uses, see Octave (disambiguation). ... Image File history File links 880Hz. ...

## Other musical meanings of pitch

In atonal, twelve tone, or musical set theory a "pitch" is a specific frequency while a pitch class is all the octaves of a frequency. Pitches are named with integers because of octave and enharmonic equivalency (for example, C and D are the same pitch, while C4 and C5 are functionally the same, one octave apart). Atonality in a general sense describes music that departs from the system of tonal hierarchies that are said to characterized the sound of classical European music from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. ... Twelve-tone technique is a system of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg. ... Musical set theory is an atonal or post-tonal method of musical analysis and composition which is based on explaining and proving musical phenomena, taken as sets and subsets, using mathematical rules and notation and using that information to gain insight to compositions or their creation. ... In music and music theory a pitch class contains all notes that have the same name; for example, all Es, no matter which octave they are in, are in the same pitch class. ... The integers are commonly denoted by the above symbol. ...

Discrete pitches, rather than continuously variable pitches, are virtually universal, with exceptions including "tumbling strains" (Sachs & Kunst, 1962) and "indeterminate-pitch chants" (Malm, 1967). Gliding pitches are used in most cultures, but are related to the discrete pitches they reference or embellish. (Burns, 1999) Shout-and-fall or tumbling strain is a modal frame very common in Afro-American-derived styles and are featured in songs such as Shake, Rattle and Roll and My Generation. Gesturally, it suggests affective outpouring, self-offering of the body, emptying and relaxation. The frame may be thought of...

## History of pitch standards in Western music

Historically, various standards have been used to fix the pitch of notes at certain frequencies[1]. Various systems of musical tuning have also been used to determine the relative frequency of notes in a scale. In music, there are two common meanings for tuning: Tuning practice, the act of tuning an instrument or voice. ...

### Pre-19th Century

Until the 19th century there was no concerted effort to standardize musical pitch, and the levels across Europe varied widely. Pitches did not just vary from place to place, or over time—pitch levels could vary even within the same city. The pitch used for an English cathedral organ in the 17th century for example, could be as much as five semitones lower than that used for a domestic keyboard instrument in the same city. Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century &#8212; 19th century &#8212; 20th century &#8212; more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... (16th century - 17th century - 18th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 17th century was that century which lasted from 1601-1700. ... Piano, a well-known instance of keyboard instruments A keyboard instrument is any musical instrument played using a musical keyboard. ...

Even within one church, the pitch used could vary over time because of the way organs were tuned. Generally, the end of an organ pipe would be hammered inwards to a cone, or flared outwards, to raise or lower the pitch. When the pipe ends became frayed by this constant process they were all trimmed down, thus raising the overall pitch of the organ. Organ in Katharinenkirche, Frankfurt am Main, Germany The organ is a keyboard instrument played using one or more manuals and a pedalboard. ...

Some idea of the variance in pitches can be gained by examining old pitchpipes, organ pipes and other sources. For example, an English pitchpipe from 1720 plays the A above middle C at 380 Hz , while the organs played by Johann Sebastian Bach in Hamburg, Leipzig and Weimar were pitched at A = 480 Hz , a difference of around four semitones. In other words, the A produced by the 1720 pitchpipe would have been at the same frequency as the F on one of Bach's organs. A pitchpipe is a small device which may be described as a musical instrument, although it is not actually used to play music as such. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... Image File history File links 380Hz. ... Organ in Katharinenkirche, Frankfurt am Main, Germany The organ is a keyboard instrument played using one or more manuals and a pedalboard. ... â€œBachâ€ redirects here. ... This article is about the city in Germany. ... Leipzig ( ; Sorbian/Lusatian: Lipsk from the Sorbian word for Tilia) is, with a population of over 506,000, the largest city in the federal state of Saxony, Germany. ... For the locality in Texas called Weimar see Weimar, Texas, there is also Weimar bei Kassel and Weimar in Marburg-Biedenkopf. ... Image File history File links 480Hz. ... A semitone (also known in the USA as a half step) is a musical interval. ...

From the early 18th century, pitch could be also controlled with the use of tuning forks (invented in 1711), although again there was variation. For example, a tuning fork associated with Handel, dating from 1740, is pitched at A = 422.5 Hz , while a later one from 1780 is pitched at A = 409 Hz , almost a semitone lower. Nonetheless, there was a tendency towards the end of the 18th century for the frequency of the A above middle C to be in the range of 400 to 450 Hz . A tuning fork is a simple metal two-pronged fork with the tines formed from a U-shaped bar of elastic material (usually steel). ... HANDEL was the code-name for the UKs National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. ... Image File history File links 422-5Hz. ... Image File history File links 409Hz. ... (17th century - 18th century - 19th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800. ... Image File history File links 400Hz. ... Image File history File links 450Hz. ...

The frequencies quoted here are based on modern measurements and would not have been precisely known to musicians of the day. Although Mersenne had made a rough determination of sound frequencies as early as the 1600s, such measurements did not become scientifically accurate until the 19th century, beginning with the work of German physicist Johann Scheibler in the 1830s. The unit hertz (Hz), replacing cycles per second (cps), was not introduced until the twentieth century. For the primes named after Marin Mersenne, see Mersenne prime. ... This article is about the SI unit of frequency. ...

### Pitch inflation

During historical periods when instrumental music rose in prominence (relative to the voice), there was a continuous tendency for pitch levels to rise. This "pitch inflation" seemed largely due to instrumentalists competing with each other, each attempting to produce a brighter, more "brilliant", sound than that of their rivals. This tendency was also prevalent with wind instrument manufacturers, who crafted their instruments to generally play at a higher pitch than those made by the same craftsmen years earlier.

It should be noted too that pitch inflation is a problem only where musical compositions are fixed by notation. The combination of numerous wind instruments and notated music has therefore restricted pitch inflation almost entirely to the Western tradition.[citation needed]

On at least two occasions, pitch inflation has become so severe that reform became needed. At the beginning of the 17th century, Michael Praetorius reported in his encyclopedic Syntagma musicum that pitch levels had become so high that singers were experiencing severe throat strain and lutenists and viol players were complaining of snapped strings. The standard voice ranges he cites show that the pitch level of his time, at least in the part of Germany where he lived, was at least a minor third higher than today's. Solutions to this problem were sporadic and local, but generally involved the establishment of separate standards for voice and organ ("Chorton") and for chamber ensembles ("Kammerton"). Where the two were combined, as for example in a cantata, the singers and instrumentalists might perform from music written in different keys. This system kept pitch inflation at bay for some two centuries. (16th century - 17th century - 18th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 17th century was that century which lasted from 1601-1700. ... Michael Praetorius. ... A cantata (Italian, sung) is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment and generally containing more than one movement. ...

The advent of the orchestra as an independent (as opposed to accompanying) ensemble brought pitch inflation to the fore again. The rise in pitch at this time can be seen reflected in tuning forks. An 1815 tuning fork from the Dresden opera house gives A = 423.2 Hz , while one of eleven years later from the same opera house gives A = 435 Hz . At La Scala in Milan, the A above middle C rose as high as 451 Hz . For the song titled Orchestra, see The Servant (band). ... Dresden (etymologically from Old Sorbian DreÅ¾Äany, meaning people of the riverside forest) is the capital city of the German Federal Free State of Saxony. ... For other uses, see Opera (disambiguation). ... Image File history File links 423-2Hz. ... Image File history File links 435Hz. ... The Teatro alla Scala in Milan, by night. ... Type Anti-tank Nationality Joint France/Germany Era Cold War, modern Launch platform Individual, Vehicle Target Vehicle, Fortification History Builder MBDA, Bharat Dynamics (under license) Date of design 70s Production period since 1972 Service duration since 1972 Operators 41 countries Variants MILAN 1, MILAN 2, MILAN 2T, MILAN 3, MILAN... Image File history File links 451Hz. ...

### 19th and 20th century standards

The most vocal opponents of the upward tendency in pitch were singers, who complained that it was putting a strain on their voices. Largely due to their protests, the French government passed a law on February 16, 1859 which set the A above middle C at 435 Hz. This was the first attempt to standardize pitch on such a scale, and was known as the diapason normal. It became quite a popular pitch standard outside of France as well, and has also been known at various times as French pitch, continental pitch or international pitch (the last of these not to be confused with the 1939 "international standard pitch" described below). is the 47th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1859 (MDCCCLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ...

The diapason normal resulted in middle C being tuned at approximately 258.65 Hz . An alternative pitch standard known as philosophical or scientific pitch, which fixed middle C at exactly 256 Hz (that is, 28 Hz), and resulted in the A above it being tuned to approximately 430.54 Hz , gained some popularity due to its mathematical convenience (the frequencies of all the Cs being a power of two). This never received the same official recognition as A = 435 Hz, however, and was not as widely used. In Western music, the expression middle C refers to the note C or Do located exactly between the two staves of the grand staff, quoted as C4 in note-octave notation (also known as scientific pitch notation). ... Image File history File links 258-65Hz. ... Image File history File links 256Hz. ... Image File history File links 430-54Hz. ... In mathematics, a power of two is any of the nonnegative integer powers of the number two; in other words, two times itself a certain number of times. ...

In 1939, an international conference recommended that the A above middle C be tuned to 440 Hz, now known as concert pitch. This standard was taken up by the International Organization for Standardization in 1955 (and was reaffirmed by them in 1975) as ISO 16. The difference between this and the diapason normal is due to confusion over which temperature the French standard should be measured at. The initial standard was A = 439 Hz , but this was superseded by A = 440 Hz after complaints that 439 Hz was difficult to reproduce in a laboratory owing to 439 being a prime number.[4] â€œISOâ€ redirects here. ... Image File history File links 439Hz. ... In mathematics, a prime number (or a prime) is a natural number which has exactly two distinct natural number divisors: 1 and itself. ...

Despite such confusion, A = 440 Hz is arguably the most common tuning used around the world. Many, though certainly not all, prominent orchestras in the United States and United Kingdom adhere to this standard as concert pitch. In other countries, however, higher pitches have become the norm: A = 442 Hz is common in certain American and continental European orchestras, while A = 445 Hz is heard in Germany, Austria, and China.[citation needed] Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands and, at times, peninsulas. ...

In practice, as orchestras still tune to a note given out by the oboe, rather than to an electronic tuning device (which would be more reliable), and as the oboist may not have used such a device to tune in the first place, there is still some variance in the exact pitch used. Solo instruments such as the piano (which an orchestra may tune to if they are playing together) are also not universally tuned to A = 440 Hz. Overall, it is thought that the general trend since the middle of the 20th century has been for standard pitch to rise, though it has been rising far more slowly than it has in the past. The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901&#8211;2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900&#8211;1999...

Many modern ensembles which specialize in the performance of Baroque music have agreed on a standard of A=415Hz, about a semitone lower than A-440. Baroque music describes an era and a set of styles of European classical music which were in widespread use between approximately 1600 and 1750. ...

## Changing the pitch of a vibrating string

There are three ways to change the pitch of a vibrating string. String instruments are tuned by varying the strings' tension because adjusting length or mass per unit length is impractical. A vibration in a string is a wave. ... A string instrument (or stringed instrument) is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. ...

### Length

Pitch can be adjusted by varying the length of the string. A longer string will result in a lower pitch, while a shorter string will result in a higher pitch. The frequency is inversely proportional to the length: For other uses of this word, see Length (disambiguation). ...

$f propto frac{1}{l}$

A string twice as long will produce a tone of half the frequency (one octave lower).

### Tension

Pitch can be adjusted by varying the tension of the string. A string with less tension (looser) will result in a lower pitch, while a string with greater tension (tighter) will result in a higher pitch. The frequency is proportional to the square root of the tension: Tension is a reaction force applied by a stretched string (rope or a similar object) on the objects which stretch it. ...

$f propto sqrt{T}$

### Density

The pitch of a string can also be varied by changing the density of the string. The frequency is inversely proportional to the square root of the density: For other uses, see Density (disambiguation). ...

$f propto {1 over sqrt{rho}}$

Pitch accent is a kind of accent system employed in many languages around the world. ... In music pitch space is the modeling of pitch relationships, represented through mathematical models, most often multidimensional, describing how near or far pitches are from each other. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with pitch shift. ... This article or section may be confusing for some readers, and should be edited to be clearer or more simplified. ... A pitch detection algorithm (PDA) is an algorithm designed to estimate the pitch or fundamental frequency of a quasiperiodic or virtually periodic signal, usually a digital recording of speech or a musical note or tone. ... Auto-Tune 4 Auto-Tune is a proprietary audio processor created by Antares Audio Technologies for correcting pitch in vocal and instrumental performances. ... This is a virtual piano with 88 keys tuned to A440, showing the frequencies, in cycles per second (Hz), of each note (i. ... Eight-foot pitch is a term common to the organ and the harpsichord. ... For other uses, see Frequency (disambiguation). ...

## References

1. ^ Pitch, temperament and timbre. Dolmetsch Online.
2. ^ J. Sims Reeves, The Life of Sims Reeves, written by himself (Simpkin Marshall, London 1888), 242-252.
3. ^ H.J. Wood, My Life of Music (Gollancz, London 1938) Chapters XIV and XV.
4. ^ Lynn Cavanagh. A brief history of the establishment of international standard pitch a=440 hertz (PDF).

Results from FactBites:

 MUSIC - Music for Sale, Music Code, Launch Music - Shopping, Services and Information at MUSICIWORLD.COM (0 words) Music is a form of art and entertainment or other human activity that involves organized and audible sounds and silence. It is expressed in terms of pitch (which includes melody and harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo and meter), and the quality of sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, and texture). Music may be used for artistic or aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, or ceremonial purposes.
 The Irrelevance of Absolute Pitch to Music Science (1182 words) Music has the property that the musical quality of an item of music is essentially unchanged under a pitch translation, which means adding a fixed interval to all the notes in the music. I use the expression "pitch translation invariance" to describe this property of music, to emphasise the fact that it is an abstract mathematical symmetry, one of five or maybe six that apply to different components of music perception. Relative pitch perception seems to involve a similar "frame of reference", where the set of pitch values in a melody provide a background against which individual pitch values are located by the perceptual machinery.
More results at FactBites »

Share your thoughts, questions and commentary here