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A pure tone's pressure waveform versus time looks like this; its frequency determines the x axis scale; its amplitude determines the y axis scale; and its phase determines the x origin. In psychoacoustics, a pure tone is a sound with a sinusoidal waveform; that is, a sine wave of constant frequency, phase-shift, and amplitude. [1]
Pitch contour may include multiple sounds utilizing many pitches, and can relate the frequency function at one point in time to the frequency function at a later point. It is fundamental to the linguistic concept of tone , where the pitch or change in pitch of a speech unit over time affects the semantic meaning of a sound.
Logarithmic plot of frequency in hertz versus pitch of a chromatic scale starting on middle C. Each subsequent note has a pitch equal to the frequency of the prior note's pitch multiplied by 12 √ 2. The base-2 logarithm of the above frequency–pitch relation conveniently results in a linear relationship with or :
Drawing both from music theoretical traditions and the field of psychoacoustics, its perception in large part consists of recognizing and processing consonance, a concept whose precise definition has varied throughout history, but is often associated with simple mathematical ratios between coincident pitch frequencies. In the physiological ...
Pitch is a major auditory attribute of musical tones, along with duration, loudness, and timbre. [3] Pitch may be quantified as a frequency, but pitch is not a purely objective physical property; it is a subjective psychoacoustical attribute of sound. Historically, the study of pitch and pitch perception has been a central problem in ...
The octave of any pitch refers to a frequency exactly twice that of the given pitch. Succeeding superoctaves are pitches found at frequencies four, eight, sixteen times, and so on, of the fundamental frequency. Pitches at frequencies of half, a quarter, an eighth and so on of the fundamental are called suboctaves.
Pitch is the lowness or highness of a tone, for example the difference between middle C and a higher C. The frequency of the sound waves producing a pitch can be measured precisely, but the perception of pitch is more complex because single notes from natural sources are usually a complex mix of many frequencies.
The fundamental frequency of the acoustic wave can be controlled by adjusting the muscles of the larynx, and listeners perceive this fundamental frequency as pitch. Languages use pitch manipulation to convey lexical information in tonal languages, and many languages use pitch to mark prosodic or pragmatic information.