What is pitch?

1. 0

   Charlton Burtonposted 13 years ago

   What is pitch?

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2. 74

   SidKempposted 13 years ago

   Pitch, in sound or music, is the frequency of the sound,which moves in waves. Scientifically, this is measured as wavelength (The distance between peaks in the sound wave) or frequency (how quickly the sound waves hit your ear). Frequency is the inverse of pitch, as sound moves at a steady speed of about 722 miles per hour. A short wavelength, high frequency, is a high pitch. A long wavelength and low frequency is a low pitch. The terms "low" and "high" are arbitrary. Some other cultures call low sounds "wide," and high sounds "narrow."
   
   Most sounds are complex waves. A pitch fork is a very clean wave, giving mostly just one pitch, and that is why it is used to tune other instruments. Each instrument has a different combination of the main pitch and overtones. That is why the same note played on different instruments (or sung by different voices) sounds different.
   
   A pitch in baseball or softball is a ball thrown from the center of the diamond by the pitcher towards the batter.

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   Several Composersposted 13 years ago

   Pitch, in sound, is the property of a musical tone that determines its position in a musical scale. Pitch is determined mainly by the frequency of the sound waves, or number of vibrations per second of the source producing the sound. A high frequency corresponds to a high pitch and a low frequency to a low pitch.
   
   Pitch actually depends on the changes of pressure produced within the ear caused by the sound waves. It was once thought that pitch was determined only by the frequency of the sound waves emitted by the source. However, it has since been found that at the extremes of the audible range the pitch also varies with the intensity of the sound emitted by the source. The pitch of low-frequency sounds becomes lower as the intensity increases, and the pitch of high-frequency sounds becomes higher as the intensity increases. These facts are taken into account in the design of high-fidelity sound-reproduction systems.
   
   In music a standard of pitch is used in tuning instruments. At one time several different standards were used, but now the accepted standard is the philharmonic pitch, which places the note A above middle C at a frequency of 440 vibrations per second.

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