What is Pitch: Definition and 116 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. cepheid

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    What causes the feedback (a noise increasing in intensity and pitch) sometimes heard when people speak through microphones? I'm sure I have enough background to understand an explanation, I've just never thought about it before.
  2. T

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  3. Loren Booda

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    Does the decrease in atmospheric pressure with increasing altitude affect frequency of sound, such as that of a mountaineer's voice?
  4. C

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  5. N

    Rising pitch in moving coffee?

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  6. B

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  7. P

    Musical question regarding concert pitch/philosophical pitch

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  8. S

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  9. D

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  10. D

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  11. S

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  12. D

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  13. P

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    The big event of the softball season, the Women's College World Series, begins Thursday. One aspect I find interesting is that many of the dominant pitchers are very tall. Many of you are probably familiar with the underhand delivery of fastpitch softball, which implicates angular motion. The...
  14. G

    Screw Gauge Pitch: Length of Main Scale Division?

    In a screw gauge, the pitch is defined as the distance traveled in one rotation. Is it also equal to the length of one main scale division? If the length of one main scale division is not given, then can we take it to be equal to the pitch? Or do we take it as equal to some other default value.
  15. B

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  16. S

    Workshop- Measuring tooth thickness and pitch of a spur gear

    Hi all! I would like to know how, in workshop practice, one would measure the tooth thickness and pitch of a spur gear?
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