What is Pitch: Definition and 115 Discussions

Pitch is a perceptual property of sounds that allows their ordering on a frequency-related scale,
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.
Pitch can be determined only in sounds that have a frequency that is clear and stable enough to distinguish from noise.
Pitch is a major auditory attribute of musical tones, along with duration, loudness, and timbre.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 psychoacoustics, and has been instrumental in forming and testing theories of sound representation, processing, and perception in the auditory system.

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  1. M

    Helix Angle or Pitch Angle for this Solenoid carring Current?

    I honestly have such a dumb question- it says “a pitch angle” but cannot find that in relation to a helix. It is not defined in the textbook. Looking on google I found a helix angle, but is that different than the pitch angle? Can anyone draw me a picture of where the pitch angle is? I assumed...
  2. M

    Variable pitch spring calculations

    Hi, does anyone know how to calculate the current spring constant of a variable pitch spring when under compression. Since some of its coils get inactive when compressed the stiffness is increasing and consequently “k” is changing as well, is there an equation I can use to calculate the new...
  3. I

    Why do wind turbines pitch their blades?

    Hi all. I'm new to this forum and to wind turbine technology in general, and I watched one of these one-minute videos explaining why wind turbines pitch their blades but it doesn not make sense to me. Why don't you just get a bigger generator? You'd get more energy for the same blades, same...
  4. K

    How will the pitch of a string change when I stretch it? (sound)

    I was trying to search but found no results. Is there a way to calculate how frequency will change if I stretch a string by certain amount (0.14 mm in my case)? I found out I can measure its frequency once stretched, but no results as of how to estimate new frequency ahead of the time. I know a...
  5. S

    Guide to Aircraft Coordinates: Roll, Pitch & Heading

    Hi, I’ve read a set of coordinate elements: „roll, pitch and heading“ for aircrafts. What’s the difference to „roll, pitch and yaw“? Senmeis
  6. chuckspnz

    Deliberate riseball (dimple) from a baseball pitch

    Is it possible to pitch a ball as a fastball (e.g. like in baseball) and have the ball rise to a near vertical and then fall back down to the ground. The ball would obviously have an altered design/features to cause it to lift/rise, but just wondering whether that sounds like something that...
  7. Jess1980

    Pitch axis location of aerodynamic profiles of wind turbine blades

    Summary:: How is the pitch axis location of an aerodynamic profile decided? Hi, I drew a wind turbine blade in a CAD software. I used information on the pitch axis location I had on the various aerodynamic profiles I used to draw the blade. I understand that it allowed me to align the various...
  8. WrathofAtlantis

    Could wing height position (through changing pitch) affect propeller airflow?

    I am talking about low wing single engine WWII fighter types. In particular, I am interested in accelerated propeller airflow through the transition/curvature of the prop slipstream spiral distribution around the wing, from being partly below, towards mainly above the wing. This as the wing's...
  9. S

    Yaw, pitch and roll vs. azimuth and elevation

    Hi, Yaw, pitch and roll are used to describe the movement of planes or ships. Azimuth and elevation are used to describe the pointing direction of a dish antenna. Can they be used exchangeably? I think two angles are enough for planes and ships, why 3? Owen
  10. john-b

    Resonance of an Air Column

    Homework Statement [/B] When a stream of air is directed over the end of a 40 cm long piece of plastic pipe, open at both ends, a sound is produced. (a) Explain why this occurs (b) If the bottom end of the pipe is covered, what will happen to the pitch of the sound? Explain Homework Equations...
  11. George Jones

    Early Morning Mystery: Pitch Black at 9:45am in BC

    It is 9:45 am in my city in British Columbia, and it is pitch black. All the streetlights are on!
  12. E

    Sound Loudness vs Pitch Misconception

    Hello everybody. I am involved in a project aiming to address Physics Misconceptions regarding Sound through the creation of virtual musical instruments. One of the major student misconceptions I have found in bibliography is the fact that students perceive sound pitch and loudness as being the...
  13. jfizzix

    Does pitch perception shift up while growing up?

    I think this question boils down to whether the parts of the inner ear grow from say age 6 to age 26. My thought is that if the parts of the inner inner ear do grow a little, then their response to what was a shorter wavelength of sound in the past will be the same as to what is a longer...
  14. K

    Pitch and amplitude of sound wave Vs its volume

    Hi. If I know the pitch and amplitude of a sound wave, will I be able to calculate its volume. I can understand volume of devices vary betwerb brands and other categories. For the sake of discussion, let's assume volume to be a consistent unit or if db is the right unit, let's take that.
  15. A

    Is it possible to change the pitch of a voice?

    Yes, this is kind of a weird question to make, but I haven't found anyone discussing it so I decided to ask it myself. The question: Is it possible to change the pitch of a voice up two tones (for example), in order to create a harmonizer that has no electronics involved? The idea and where it...
  16. M

    B Do drums/strings have a pitch bend when they are struck?

    I am a musician trying to develop some physical modelling synthesizers (synthesizers modelling natural instruments). In particular, drums and guitar. It is my impression from playing drums and guitar that when you strike a drum head or guitar string very aggressively, there is a natural "pitch...
  17. teroenza

    Concerting 0.1" pitch header pins to 0.150"

    I made a mistake on a PCB I designed, and have a set of through holes that are spaced 0.150" apart, when the component I want to put into it has a pin-pin spacing of 0.1". Does anyone know of a simple adapter that could go between these two sizes? I'm looking to avoid the time consuming task of...
  18. M

    Observed speed of pitch different than catcher's view?

    I was reading Walter Isaacson's biography of Einstein recently, and I thought of moving walkways in airports. Let's say we have a pitcher and a catcher on the moving walkway 80 feet apart, and the pitcher throws the ball to the catcher, and the time that it takes to travel from the pitcher to...
  19. S

    Angle of pitch and heel for a boat snagged on the side wall

    Hi everyone, this is a real world problem following the sinking of a narrowboat in 2014. The boat caught on the side of the lock as the water level dropped, and the resultant combination of pitch and heel resulted in the boat taking on water at the stern and sinking - luckily with no loss of...
  20. B

    Why sound produced by rapids varies in pitch based on height

    The other day I was at a river listening to some rapids. The sound produced by the rapids appeared to vary in pitch depending on how high up I was (squatting down to the ground and standing up produced about a fifth in the variation of the pitch); and I can't think why it should be? Many Thanks
  21. kenok1216

    Engineering How to find short pitch and pole pairs of motors

    Homework Statement Homework Equations p=nsf δ=mϒ Kd=[sin(δ/2)]/msin(γ/2) Kp=cosε/2 e.m.f=4.44TφfKdKp The Attempt at a Solution i do not know why pole pair =2 and it is short 2 pitch. how can i find pole pair and short pitch from its original developed diagram? i know that Phase spread=60(we...
  22. 9

    Finding roll, pitch and yaw angles

    Homework Statement I have three angles that relate the sensory body frame to the Earth centered Earth fixed frame: roll_ecef, pitch_ecef, yaw_ecef I have the longitude and latitude. Find the roll, pitch and yaw angles that relate the sensor body frame to the local North East Down frame...
  23. J

    Concerning the Airfoil of Variable Pitch propellers

    Hello, I am not an expert in aerospace engineering, merely a hobbyist so bear with my ignorance. lately I have been thinking of creating my own propeller and variable pitch system using a CNC machine as a longer term goal. This desire arose due to the fact that there are no commercially...
  24. B

    Design a coil with a variable pitch but a constant length?

    I believe what I am attempting to do is not possible but here goes. I want to design a fixed overall length coil which I can manually adjust the pitch on. Optimally one would be able to grab the coil and by twisting it in place would be able to change it's pitch by changing its diameter but not...
  25. B

    Calculating baseball pitch speed

    My brothers and I want to calculate our pitch speed. We have a simplified formula: M = (D/T) x (3,600/5,280). This will obviously have a large margin of error, but we'll try our best to accommodate. I need to know how to calculate air resistance into the equation. Thanks!
  26. N

    Gear and gearbox design - circular pitch

    Hi everyone! Just joined the fórum after a lot of hours searching the web and Reading some books...I have one question, didn't found na answer to it...but let's give it a try ;) How can you determine the optimal circular pitch and in consequence the optimal diametral pitch of a gear (increasing...
  27. hypnoticdesign

    Temperature and Pitch question

    So I've been researching into this a lot lately as I want to learn just exactly what pitch is coming from my speakers but I'm getting confused. If pitch changes with temperature/speed of sound and 1hz is always the speed of sound. Then when using a midi instrument or electronical instrument...
  28. J

    Is propeller pitch more related to RPM than aircraft speed?

    I'm reading about propellers and trying to get some of the basics, and some things are confusing to me. Namely, a quadcopter has a 12x6 prop, with a 6-pitch. That means in every rotation it should move 6 inches forward(up), but it doesn't do that at all since it's in hover mode. Wouldn't that...
  29. W

    Calculate the Pitch of a projectile with moving destination

    Hi all. I am not quite sure if this is the right forum to place this question but for me there are several forums that would fit with my situation :D I am making a game where I have to throw/shoot a projectile through a 3 dimensional space which has to land on a specific object. There are...
  30. Mickey Tee

    Changing pitch in frequency ratio?

    Homework Statement Homework Equations v=fΛ v=√(T/μ) The Attempt at a Solution I know I'm supposed to make an attempt, but I can make heads nor tails of this. Are they changed in a constant ratioo? Does the tension come into play? The answer given is 0.16m
  31. H

    Yaw Pitch & Roll to spherical Theta & Phi

    hi guys, can someone please tell me how to find Theta and Phi from Yaw Pitch and Roll? I use my smartphone orientation sensor on a project and i need to calculate the smartphone's normal vector projection.
  32. gracy

    Understanding the Difference Between Pitch & Volume

    difference between pitch and volume?if a sound is high pitched ,doesn't it mean that sound is loud?I don't think so because loudness is related with amplitude and pitch has to do with frequency,right?BUT please someone explain how can we say whether a sound is high pitched or loud just by...
  33. L

    What are the Forces Behind the Color-Changing Switch Pitch Toy?

    Hello, I've come across this toy called a "Switch Pitch" designed by Chuck Hoberman. It's a ball that when tossed into the air (with some amount of rotation), inverts and changes colour. Made of plastic, it's connected with numerous sockets and plates. It's quite hard to describe with words...
  34. T

    Wind turbine: Optimum pitch angle changes at different wind speeds

    Homework Statement As part of a school project, I'm investigating the optimum blade pitch angle for a simple 6-blade wind turbine, powered by the air flow from a desk fan. I have taken power output measurements using angles in 5° intervals from 0° to 30° and found the optimum to be 20° in 5...
  35. B

    Pitch Shifting with changing the temp/speed

    so I have a white, brown, and pink noise generators and i want to shift the pitch up by one octave (12 semitones) from middle C, I need to sample 2 time as fast as I play the sounds correct ? so in the c# code for my white noise generator I have it playing at 44100 Hz( the standard) but I...
  36. Z

    Can Analog Electronics Achieve Real Time Pitch Lowering?

    I want to project a circuit that lower the pitch of a sound input by half and plays it closer to real time as possible. I thought about converting the input to digital and then to analogical, with a slower clock. But I wonder if i could do it using only analogical electronics.
  37. J

    Radius and Pitch of an electron's spiral trajectory

    Homework Statement The uniform 45.6 mT magnetic field in the picture below points in the positive z-direction. An electron enters the region of magnetic field with a speed of 5.29E+6 m/s and at an angle of θ = 30.1° above the xy-plane. Find the radius r and the pitch p of the electron's spiral...
  38. B

    Finding the Pitch of a Log Spiral: Solving the Equation and Graphing the Results

    Homework Statement This is not homework, I'd like to know if it is possible to find the pitch a log spiral knowing that at every round (2π) r grows by 535.5 times. For the little I know the equation should be just r = e2π = 535.5 Supposing it starts at r=1cm and goes clockwise, I have...
  39. A

    Geometry: why yaw, pitch, roll in that order?

    It is basically a question in computer graphics but I guess math sub-forum will suit this question. While rotating a point, why we first apply yaw, then pitch and then roll in that order? Of course if we change the order, final rotation changes but why this specific order works? Some proof or...
  40. S

    Calculation of velocity during pitch up

    Hi I need to calculate the velocity of an airplane after it executes quarter loop (starts horizontally, pitches up and ends vertically). Because I also need to know the velocity at several intermittent points I wrote an incremental equation (below). But this is only correct (if it is correct...
  41. O

    Calculating Rivet Pitch for Plate with 2500 N Load and 0.8 mm Thickness

    Hi guys! I have assignments and we are trying to get to reasonable value for more than 2 days and still nothing... Okay.. problem is: https://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/705x238q90/191/6qqd.png [Broken] picture of the plate: https://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/412x395q90/835/7u81.png...
  42. N

    Calculated Pitch, Yaw, Roll of vectors in a plane

    Hello, I'm sorry if this is a dumb question but I am extremely confused and could use some guidance. So consider a cartesian coordinate system with a plane which passes through the origin, and there are vectors of known X,Y,Z components which lie within this plane. The plane(and vectors) are...
  43. Masquerade178

    Chinese boy who could see in pitch black

    Stumbled upon these recently. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2095309/Someones-eating-carrots-Chinas-cat-eye-boy-dark.html http://www.whydontyoutrythis.com/2013/08/chinese-boy-with-ability-to-see-in-pitch-black-stuns-medics.html I so always wanted the ability to see in the dark! I...
  44. S

    How to Estimate Optimal Propeller Pitch?

    All, Turning to the experts with a boat problem I'm trying to solve. Specifically, I'm in the process of changing the gear reduction of the transmission on my boat and will need to get a new set of propellers with a different pitch. The old set up worked just ok... I tested different...
  45. lisab

    News Pitch Drop Experiment: Finally Captured on Camera!

    It happened! FINALLY the moment we have all been waiting for! http://www.nature.com/news/world-s-slowest-moving-drop-caught-on-camera-at-last-1.13418 OK so it wasn't the famous pitch drip experiment, but still.
  46. T

    How to remove sprung mass pitch motion due to input surface?

    Hello All, I have measured acceleration data from the sprung mass of vehicle, traveling at (almost) constant speed. There are sufficient accelerometers, to allow the sprung mass angular acceleration, in pitch, to be extracted. I have detailed profile data describing the excitation surface...
  47. G

    Relationship between pitch and string length

    Is the relationship between the length of a guitar string and the frequency of the pitch it produces a linear relationship? e.g. If the frequency of the pitch of a string is 60 Hz and I halve the length, should it produce a pitch with a frequency of 120 Hz? This is assuming all other...
  48. Z

    Combine two pitch, yaw, roll rotations

    Firstly, I apologise if this is the wrong section, but as far as I could tell this was the most relevant. I have a pair of triplets (p1, y1, r1) and (p2, y2, r2). Each one describes a set of roll, yaw, and pitch rotations in that order, by the angles given by each component in respective order...
  49. S

    How does air pressure affect pitch?

    Homework Statement I thought that only the length that the sound travels affects the pitch. However, in low pressures/breathing helium the distance traveled by the gas is the same so how is pitch affected? Homework Equations none The Attempt at a Solution this is what i found from...
  50. B

    Pitch and Freqeuncy Question (Urgen Help Needed)

    Homework Statement Question 1: A violin is tuned indoors to play the proper frequencies. A musician then uses the violin to play outdoors where the temperature is considerably colder. Wil the violin play too sharp (high) or too flat (low)? Ignore temperature effects on length and densityThe...
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