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Pitch is a perceptual property that allows sounds to be ordered on a frequency-related scale, [1] or more commonly, pitch is the quality that makes it possible to judge sounds as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies. [2] Pitch is a major auditory attribute of musical tones, along with duration, loudness, and timbre ...
A jump from the lowest semitone to the highest semitone in one octave doubles the frequency (for example, the fifth A is 440 Hz and the sixth A is 880 Hz). The frequency of a pitch is derived by multiplying (ascending) or dividing (descending) the frequency of the previous pitch by the twelfth root of two (approximately 1.059463).
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 :
Traditionally in Western music, a musical tone is a steady periodic sound. A musical tone is characterized by its duration, pitch, intensity (or loudness), and timbre (or quality). [1] The notes used in music can be more complex than musical tones, as they may include aperiodic aspects, such as attack transients, vibrato, and envelope modulation.
The fundamental frequency, often referred to simply as the fundamental (abbreviated as f 0 or f 1), is defined as the lowest frequency of a periodic waveform. [1] In music, the fundamental is the musical pitch of a note that is perceived as the lowest partial present.
Concert pitch is the pitch reference to which a group of musical instruments are tuned for a performance. Concert pitch may vary from ensemble to ensemble, and has varied widely over time. The ISO defines international standard pitch as A440 , setting 440 Hz as the frequency of the A above middle C .
Scientific pitch notation is often used to specify the range of an instrument. It provides an unambiguous means of identifying a note in terms of textual notation rather than frequency, while at the same time avoiding the transposition conventions that are used in writing the music for instruments such as the clarinet and guitar.
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 ]