Talk:Pitch (music)

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Contents

[edit] Stub

Sorry for the cheesy stub, man. --Ed Poor

Hey, I'm just glad somebody finally started the article - I'd been meaning to do it for ages, but kept putting it off. I guess my "yuck" comment in the edit summary was largly an expression of my thoughts on having to finally face up to this subject! I'll expand this quite a bit when I can get to my books. I want to write about how pitch standards have changed over time - the A above middle C was only fixed at 440Hz in 1920 or something. Before then there are stories about orchestras constantly pushing up their pitch in order to sound louder and brighter than their rivals, and singers complaining about it because they had to keep singing higher and higher. It's quite an entertaining subject really. --Camembert

Yeah, personally I prefer A=435... --Ed Poor

[edit] Historical standards

I've added some stuff about historical pitch standards now, but it's only half the story, and I'm not sure about some of the ISO related dates - it needs a certain amount of checking, and probably rewriting. --Camembert

[edit] Orchestra tuning

From the article:

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 himself may not have used such a device to tune in the first place, there is still some variance in the exact pitch used.

- That's got to keep the pianist busy, then.

Well of course, when an orchestra is playing with a piano, they should tune to the piano (the same ought to be the case when fixed-pitch percussion like the glockenspiel or xylophone is used, but I know from experience that it isn't always). And even pianos are not consistently tuned to A=440 - I read somewhere that in Eastern Europe in particular, they tend to be more like A=444. I'll try to stick something like this in the article if nobody else does. --Camembert

____ A minor thought: The article is a good read if one has some familiarity with instruments and especially classical music (and performances). I think it might leave readers who are less familiar, but want to learn about pitch, a bit unsatisfied with the fairly technical discussion at the outset, which then leads into specific topics like orchestra tuning. While I don't mean to insult oboe-enthusiasts, the fact is that for most people it's an obscure instrument (a cool one, but obscure nonetheless), so the mention of its being used as a standard by which the other instruments set their pitch/tuning will probably raise as many questions as it answers. One can easily imagine a reader asking, "the oboe? Out of all the instruments, WHY the oboe?" My suggestion then would be to somehow at least a give brief account of how or why the oboeist has this honor. To the extent that there's something that sets the oboe apart pitchwise, whether it is merely tradition or the physical properties of the instrument, that discussion would be a natural part of the larger article on Pitch. C d h 15:06, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] String diameter

The statement, "Pitch can be adjusted by varying the diameter of the string" is true, but I think misleading. The fundamental physical property being adjusted when the diameter is adjusted is the string density (mass per unit length). Consider that the pitch can be adjusted while keeping the diameter the same by changing the type of material the string is made out of to one with a different density.

Thus, I suggest that density, not diameter, be identified along with length and tension as the variables that control string pitch.

-- Ben Denckla

The couldn't same then could be said of length? That what your actually changing is the unit length while the mass stays the same? Hmm, you could change the mass without changing the diameter, so that may indeed be the primary consideration. I don't know, I added "diameter" to the article but only to replace "thickness".Hyacinth 08:40, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Concert pitch

Concert pitch is not the same as pitch and I believe that it shouldn't redirect to here. Concert pitch refers to instruments that produce notes which sound the same as they are written such as the piano, as opposed to transposing instruments such as trumpets. NigelHorne 12:45, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Pure tone

"We can state that the note A above middle C played on any instrument gives the same pitch perception as the pure tone at 440Hz, which has exactly defined frequency."

Isn't part of what allows pitch identification the overtones of harmonic sounds. For sounds with inharmonic spectra, or no spectra, it is harder to perceive and correctly label the fundamental. Hyacinth 19:52, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Octave designation

Isn't A = 440 also called A4? Can we have a little discussion about the octave numbers? C#5, D3, etc. - Omegatron 02:33, Jul 22, 2004 (UTC)

Here is a little explanation: http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/appendix/octaveregisters/octaveregisters.html - Omegatron 03:20, Jul 24, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] diameter and tension

"Pitch can be adjusted by varying the diameter of the string. A thicker string will result in a lower pitch. A thinner string will result in a higher pitch.

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."

anyone know the mathematical relationship for these two? - Omegatron 03:26, Jul 24, 2004 (UTC)

found it myself. - Omegatron 16:24, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] World Wide Standard

I thought it is worth mentioning that not only Pianos but Entire Orchestras are starting to tune higher and higher in much of Europe. I am studying Voice in college and am finding that even many Conductors, mainly European in Origin, in places all over the world are starting to tune their orchestras up a little to give them a "brighter" sound. It should also be noted that as the "A" is rasied above 440, the distance between each note also increases, making tunning an ensamble a little bit easier. Infact, the only real downside of tunning up a little from 440 is that it is harder on the vocalists to reach higher and higher notes. ~Paul

There seems to be some confusion about the actual year of the first conference, 1936 or 1939? On the web are also messages about the involvement of German Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels.

This information is used by a movement to change the pitch to A=432Hz, C=256Hz etc. I can only find one source, the Schiller Institute, witch hasn't a real fine reputation, although their musical theory makes any sense. Does anybody know more about this subject? Peter —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.166.6.127 (talk) 11:16, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tuning

A444 is superb as a starting point- drop down two octaves and find A111.

Please Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. Thanks. Hyacinth 17:46, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] correction

In the line about atonalism I found this:

"for example, C# and Db are the same pitch while C4 and C5 are functionally the same"

Shouldn't it be "C4 and C5 are functionally different"? -Robin Wenger

See pitch class. Hyacinth 17:27, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wow

Excellent section on historical pitch standards. If the rest of the article reads like this (which I don't know as I haven't read it), then this could be a Featured Article. --P3d0 15:57, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

But this is all a bit euro-centric. Medieval Chinese cultures had state-defined reference pitches, the so-called "yeallow bells".

[edit] pitch shifter

pitch shifter / pitch shifting is missing right now in the article. --Abdull 10:08, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Helmholtz

The sentence "Readers should also refer to Helmholtz: 'On the sensation of tone'" appears twice in the same section, plus there is the issue that there is an actual reference at the end of the article. I am unsure of the best way to edit this section. Should one of the redundant sentences be kept, or should both be removed and a footnote added to the text, directing the reader to the reference material? --psu256 16:11, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

There should be a discussion (or link) about the Helmholtz music notation (c' indicates middle c, c indicates the octave below middle c, etc.) --Mage 03:02, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Diameter of string and pitch

I was not aware that the diameter of a string (independent of its mass per unit length) affected the pitch. Does anyone have any references to this new (to me) revelation?--Light current 02:05, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

rm from article pending references to this phenomenon:

[edit] Diameter

Pitch can be adjusted by varying the diameter of the string. A thicker string will result in a lower pitch. A thinner string will result in a higher pitch. The change in pitch is inversely proportional to the change in diameter:

f \propto {1 \over d}

--Light current 02:09, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

How about [1]? Surely you've noticed that lower-pitched strings, such as on the bass viol and low notes on the piano, have thicker strings than guitar or violin strings? Arguably, as in [2], it's the density per unit length, rather than the diameter per se, which affects the frequency. —Wahoofive (talk) 03:11, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

The reason that low pitch strings are thicker is purely to give them greater mass/unit length. The thickness of the string has no effect whatsoever on the frequency or pitch. Your first reference is wrong. I quote from 'A Textbook of Sound', by A.B.Wood D.Sc, F.Inst.P (British Admiralty Research Labs), Publ:Bell, 3rd Ed 1955 (No ISBN found):

frequency = [sqrt(T/m)]/2l

where T is tension, m is mass per unit length, and l is the length. Notice that thickness is not included in this (or any) equation relating to frequency of vibrating strings.--Light current 03:53, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Vibrating strings- do we need them here?

Do we need to keep this section on vibrating strings in the article. After all, no other sound production methods are included. I suggest its removed to somewhere else!/.

Possibly, but the vibrating string, in the form of a monochord, is the traditional way (in Western theory, at least) to explain pitch relationships. —Wahoofive (talk) 04:53, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Perception

Simliar to what I have said about color perception, wouldn't it be wrong to say:

In music, pitch is the perception of the frequency of a note.

as this seems more a definition of hearing than pitch?

It seems that pitch might be better described as the frequency of a note (or sound), and that ear's ability to perceive the frequency is how we hear pitch. You could not correctly say that if a note were not perceived it would have no pitch. Similarly the perception of a note does not give it its frequency. -134.250.72.125 05:06, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree, although there's no great consistency by music theorists on this terminology. I believe the pitch is the perception only; if no one hears it, there is no pitch. The frequency is, however, present if no one listens. Frequency is a scientific measurement, an objective measure, whereas pitch is a perceived meaning of a note. Two notes with frequency 440 and 441 are perceived as the same pitch, because pitch derives from the discriminating ability of the ear. Not all music theorists define the terms in this way, but this is a common way. —Wahoofive (talk) 06:27, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I think if one reads this article this issue is quickly cleared up. Hyacinth 08:28, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Obviously you didn't notice this edit, Hyacinth. —Wahoofive (talk) 23:51, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I have yet to figure out how one could edit an article without reading it, but that appears to be the case quite often, as it does here. Hyacinth 09:49, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone looked at the work by Diana Deutsch o the perception of musical pitch? There was an article in Scientific American on called "Paradoxes of Musical Pitch" in 1992 (267: 88-95). Here's a link to the WP article on her. Her website at UCSD is [[3]]. I'm not sure just how much of her work should be mentioned in this article under perception, or just a mention of it and links.

____ citing the distinction between frequency and pitch won't really solve the metaphysical question of the existence of the phenomena. In absence of any measuring devices, and anyone/thing to record what those devices register, the concept of a "frequency" might still make no sense. (Here one could think of a sci-fi scenario where every being capable of perceiving was wiped out in a holocaust. Would there still be "frequencies," or simply vibrations?). This is perhaps not something that the article would have to address, though I think that as it's written it does nicely convey the notion that much of music is perception, and with perception comes subjectivity. The general idea seems to be that pitch standards are attempts to overcome subjectivity, but can never eliminate it (and perhaps we wouldn't want it eliminated). That message seems to come through in the article. C d h 15:16, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Too much of the tree-falling-in-the-forest stuff would make this topic too metaphysical, what with être-en-soi and être-pour-soi and all that. How about we just say frequency is something measured by instruments whereas pitch is something experienced by a human ear? What happens when neither is present doesn't concern this article. —Wahoofive (talk) 21:29, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ogg files

I just listened to 439Hz.ogg and Sine_wave_440.ogg, and could swear that 439Hz.ogg was actually higher in tone than 440.ogg. In fact, I'd guess that (provided 440 was actually 440) that 439Hz.ogg was around 443 or 444hz. Is it possible that the person who did the encoding introduced some artifacts from the compression, or the source file was suspect to begin with?

Please sign your posts on talk pages per Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. Thanks! Hyacinth 21:58, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confusing introduction

I added Template:confusing to the one sentence introduction. I think it should explain what that means in a paragraph. Hyacinth 11:28, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, of course it should. I've taken a stab at it; while I expect what I wrote to be changed, I think it's a better starting point. If anyone reading this wants to edit it further, remember: be clear, don't weasel. +ILike2BeAnonymous 18:29, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confusing sentence

From the article:

"The note A above middle C played on any instrument is perceived to be of the same pitch as a pure tone of 440 Hz, but does not necessarily contain a partial having that frequency."

If "partial" is supposed to mean a harmonic, or overtone, then why would it? 440 Hz is the fundamental frequency isn't it? I don't understand what this sentence is trying to say. Matt 11:10, 10 December 2006 (UTC).

I agree it is confusing. Since no one has responded on this for almost a year I'll just remove the confusing part. Pfly 03:45, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Another confusing sentence

From the article:

"Pitch is the perceived fundamental frequency of a sound... The human auditory perception system may also have trouble distinguishing pitch differences between notes under certain circumstances."

This doesn't make sense. If pitch is to be defined as the perceived frequency (which I'm not sure I agree with), then if no pitch difference can be distinguished there is no pitch difference. Matt 11:18, 10 December 2006 (UTC).

You're right. It should be "...trouble distinguishing frequency differences...". Please change it. —Wahoofive (talk) 05:25, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Songs tuned above/below A440

Aren't there some songs that are lowered/raised by a quarter-tone for effect? E.g. Robbie Williams "She's The One" is raised/lowered by a quarter-tone, resulting in B half-flat (or something like that). Does this have to do with the recording itself, or done "in studio"?

85.228.202.42 22:31, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

If you were to find a verifiable source for this information, it would probably explain how it was done. —Wahoofive (talk) 23:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunatly I don't have any sources, except the song itself, although it's a cover, the original was done by World Party. However, the original is in B-flat, so Robin probably recorded it in B-flat, then it was raised a quarter-tone. Still speculations from my side, though.

[edit] Frequency of strings

The following section by 67.172.132.5 overwrote a good section of the article, but is not clear. It needs more editing before it adds value to the article: (Woodstone 19:54, 23 April 2007 (UTC))

The speed of a wave on a string can be described by two equations, c = {f \over \lambda} = \sqrt{T \over \mu } where c is the speed, f is the frequency, λ is the wavelength of the wave on the string, T is the tension in the string, and μ is the linear mass density of the string. (If the string is vibrating with it's first harmonic frequency, the wavlelength is twice the length of the string. ) Solving this for f gives f = {c \over \lambda} = {\sqrt{T} \over{\lambda \sqrt{\mu}}} This means that strings are selected based on their linear mass density μ, tuned to the appropriate tension T, and played by changing the wavelength λ by changing the length of the string.

[edit] dance of the bear

Please fix first paragraph, I think "dance of the bear" was added by accident. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.70.56.173 (talk) 19:50, 11 May 2007 (UTC).

[edit] vandalism

I removed a small amount in the 'concert pitch' section. Revoranii 14:49, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge proposal

I've proposed merging pitch (psychophysics) to here, since psychophysical pitch and musical pitch are both the same concept. Please support or oppose, with reasons.

  • Support – as nominator, of course. Dicklyon (talk) 06:12, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Support, and in the process I would like to see a clearer explanation emerge of the relationship between pitch and frequency. Pitch (psychophysics) leads with "Pitch is the property of a sound that allows the construction of melodies; pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower", and are quantified as frequencies (cycles per second, or hertz), corresponding very nearly to the repetition rate of sound waves. Pitch is not an objective physical property, but a subjective psychophysical attribute of sound." This is not a great start. First it says that pitch can be quantified as frequency (i.e. it's an objective physical quantity), and then it say it isn't an objective physical property. It seems to me that "pitch" may refer to either the perceived tone or the actual (fundamental?) frequency, depending on context. For example, in Pitch (music), especially the section "History of pitch standards in Western music", pitch measurements spoken of in terms of exact physical measurements. Yet elsewhere, pitch is described as a perception. It all seems a bit muddled, but unfortunately I'm not confident I understand it well enough to be any help in fixing it. Matt 01:36, 30 November 2007 (UTC). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.48.166 (talk)
It's both, sort of. It's perceptual, but it's quantified by comparison with the pitch of periodic sounds such as sinusoids and complex waveforms. In some contexts, like tuning meters, it's purely a physical thing. Dicklyon (talk) 07:20, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Great, in that case I think we should reword flat statements such as "Pitch is not an objective physical property." and "Pitch is the perceived fundamental frequency of a sound." so as to admit the second meaning also. Matt 11:45, 30 November 2007 (UTC). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.142.109.236 (talk)
Oh, and while we're here, I wonder if the section "Changing the pitch of a vibrating string" should be merged to Vibrating string (if there's any additional material to merge). Matt 01:42, 30 November 2007 (UTC). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.48.166 (talk)

I've changed my mind. The contents are rather disjoint, so might as well stay in separate articles, with cross-links. Dicklyon (talk) 22:34, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] are .ogg file accessible?

Why use exotic .ogg files which normal users have no clue how to open. Why not offer more accessible .mp3 files? Isn't Wikipedia about accessiblity?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rvanschaik (talk • contribs) 18:46, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I believe there are potential legal issue swith the use of the mp3 format. .ogg is open-source, so preferable for a free encyclopaedia. David Underdown (talk) 11:53, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of image of frequencies and equal-tempered scale

Image showing the relationship between notes of the diatonic scale and frequency (in Hz), starting with C1.
Image showing the relationship between notes of the diatonic scale and frequency (in Hz), starting with C1.

User:Dicklyon: I can hardly see what you consider to be the "cruftiness" of this image (or whatever it is you might have meant by "Tufte"). This article is concerning musical pitch, and discusses its relationship to the equal-tempered system and the frequency of A4 (440Hz) in particular. These are hard concepts for general readers to understand, and is conveyed nowhere else in the article using graphics. SharkD (talk) 07:44, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Let me stand up for his removal. Tufte refers to the great graphic design guru, Edward Tufte, who campaigns against graphics such as these which show basically nothing. (He classifies such images as "chartjunk".) The "curve" shown is completely uninteresting and adds nothing to the understanding of the subject under discussion here. +ILike2BeAnonymous (talk) 07:56, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm sure the image could "say" a lot more with a proper caption. SharkD (talk) 08:33, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Like what: that as the scale (note names) increases, frequency increases? That's just boneheadedly obvious. The image might be useful as a table, showing the pitches corresponding to named notes, but even that is of little interest here. +ILike2BeAnonymous (talk) 08:42, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
The image shows how the notes and their frequencies are related—e.g., that they're related logarithmically. It also shows the reference note, A4, in the context of other notes, reducing what might be construed as a bunch of gobbledygook—e.g, "valueless" numbers of hertz—into a meaningful series that form a sequence. It places several subjects discussed in the article (frequencies, hertz, logarithms, cents, notes, equal-tempered intervals, etc.) in the same context. SharkD (talk) 08:59, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
At least look up and read some of Tufte's work before wasting further effort defending this chartjunk. Dicklyon (talk) 17:37, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Bullshit; it shows an entirely uninteresting curve which basically says "as the note gets higher, the note gets higher". Imparts no useful information. +ILike2BeAnonymous (talk) 23:49, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Was confused, didn't know where to look, derived this myself out of desperation

Given that (1) A 440 ("A natural") is the international standard of pitch, (2) the experiential observation that the perceived western "octave" is a doubling of frequency, and (3) that (experientially) twelve pleasing-to-the-western-ear "notes" fit into an octave by the successive multiplications by some fixed factor (as opposed to division of the octave into 12 equal spacings), we hypothesize that the 12th power of some X yields the octave (doubling) factor "2". (Then we try out our hypothesis to see if it yields a truth). Anyway ...

X12 = 2
ln(X) = ln(2)/12
To get X raise both sides to e, i.e.
eln(X) = eln(2)/12 = 1.059463

So if we begin with A 440, we multiply 440 x 1.059463 to get 466.164 then multiply 466.164 x 1.059463 to get the next tone, etc. This yields the following table for one octave. (This is what I was after when I came to wikipedia -- the frequencies of the musical tones):

exp(ln(2)/12) = 1.0594630943593
Tone Tone Frequency
A natural A 440.000
A sharp B flat 466.164
B B, C flat 493.883
C (B sharp) B 523.251
C sharp D flat 554.365
D D 587.330
D sharp E flat 622.254
E E, F flat 659.255
F (E sharp) F 698.456
F sharp G flat 739.989
G G 783.991
G sharp A flat 830.609
A A 880.000

Gratifyingly, we see that middle C, as shown in the much-maligned graph above, is 261.62557 hz, i.e. one half of 523.251.

Bill Wvbailey (talk) 15:59, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

An easier way to get the number (1.059463) is just to take the twelfth root of two. Also, your table suffers from a significant figure problem, in that the starting note is 440Hz, not 440.000Hz, so all the decimals imply a precision which isn't really there. Anyway, human ears couldn't distinguish such precise frequencies, and human perception is at the heart of music. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:45, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Sorry you were confused, Bill; perhaps more cross-referencing is indicated. Here's the article and section you appear to have been looking for: Equal temperament#Twelve-tone equal temperament. Binksternet (talk) 16:57, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick responses. Yeah, I just kept the decimal points from the Excel spreadsheet. I was looking this up for a gizmo I'm building re the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child). I noticed that 1000 Hz (and 500 Hz, etc) sounded "flat", or "off" somehow. (I don't have perfect pitch, but I trained as a classical flutist many years ago). I thought I remembered that C was around 510-512 (appears my memory is faulty). It would seem that a trained sense of pitch must be good to a hertz or so. Certainly when we're tuning instruments we're working in the +/-1 hertz or even better precision (relying on the non-linearity of our ears to create the beats, as I remember...).

RE the link, yes, this is a good link. Maybe a bit complicated for a young person looking for the frequencies of the notes... As I came to this page as a newbie to the music articles of wikipedia (most of my editing has been re the history of mathematics and computation etc) maybe my confusion represents a fair indicator of what can happen when a "newbie arrives". Thanks again, Bill Wvbailey (talk) 18:32, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Your confusion is valid and revealing. I think we can beef up our "See also" sections with links to stuff that both is and is not represented in the body of the article. Normally, people don't fill the "See also" with links that are already available in the body. Binksternet (talk) 19:11, 3 April 2008 (UTC)