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WhatIsPitchinMusic?Definition,Lesson&Quiz|Study.com

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What Is Pitch in Music? - Denition, Lesson & Quiz

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music.html)
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Instructor: Alisha Nypaver

Alisha is a college music educator specializing in historic and world music studies.

This lesson will explore the concept of musical pitch, which is generally thought of as the
'highness' or 'lowness' of a sound. Together with amplitude, duration, and tone color,
pitch is one of the four basic elements of all musical sounds.
We also recommend watching Binary Form in Music: Denition, Examples & Quiz
(/academy/lesson/binary-form-in-music-denition-examples-quiz.html) and The
Redeemers: Denition, Lesson & Quiz (/academy/lesson/the-redeemers.html)

What Is Pitch?
Pitch is the quality that allows us to classify a sound as relatively 'high' or 'low.' Pitch is
determined by the frequency of sound wave vibrations. However, frequency is a precise
scientic unit of measurement; while pitch, although dened by its frequency, also has a
subjective component which takes into account the relative placement of the frequency
within the context of an established tuning system and in relation to other frequencies.
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Frequency
Sound is created by vibrations. If you strum a string on a guitar, the motion of your hand
against the string will set the string in motion, causing it to vibrate. This vibration creates
a musical sound which, if uninterrupted, will continue until the vibration of the string
eventually stops and the sound fades away. If, however, you strum the guitar and
immediately put your hand on the string to stop its vibration, the sound also stops
immediately. That sound that you hear is traveling through the air in regular waves,
generated by the movement of the vibrating object (in this case, the guitar string).
The uctuation of these waves, called oscillations, can be measured by the number of
wave cycles per second. It is this measurement that is referred to as the frequency of the
sound. Frequency is quantied using a unit of measurement known as hertz
(abbreviated Hz), which denes the number of repeating cycles per second. For example,
if an event happens once per second, it will have a hertz number of 1. Therefore, the
faster the oscillations of the sound waves, the higher the hertz number, and the higher
the pitch.
In general, smaller vibrating objects
produce higher pitches, and bigger
vibrating objects produce lower pitches.

Denite Pitch: Tones

A denite pitch is a musical sound that
has a steady and measurable frequency
and can be assigned a hertz number. The
sound waves of denite pitches move in a

Oscillation patterns of sound waves. The faster the sound wave

travels, the closer together the peaks of each wave are and the
higher the pitch. In this example, red represents the lowestpitched sound waves and purple represents the highest-pitched
sound waves.

repetitive and evenly-paced pattern with a

constant distance between the peaks and valleys of each wave.
Hertz numbers are useful because they
provide the basis for a universal tuning
system. Using hertz numbers as a
measurement, a note on a piano in China
and a note on a piano in Chicago can both
Regular oscillation pattern of a denite pitch sound wave

be tuned to precisely the same frequency.

Before scientists were able to measure

sound waves, the tuning of musical instruments varied widely from one region to the
next. Instruments were mainly tuned to each other, not to an absolute standard.
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Today, the universal tuning standard for most musical instruments is a denite pitch
with a hertz number of 440. This means that the vibrations of that pitch are oscillating at
440 cycles per second, or 440 Hz. In music, denite pitches such as this are called tones.
Tones form the basis of most musical scale systems. Although there are thousands of
frequencies in the audible sound spectrum, many musical notation systems, including
the western system, use denite pitches that are determined based on a musical ratio
called the octave.
An octave is the distance between two tones, one of which has a hertz number that is
double the frequency of the other. For example, if we take 440 Hz and double the
frequency, we get a tone with a hertz number of 880. This 2:1 ratio denes the octave.
The second tone, which is the octave of the rst tone, is created by faster vibrations and
generates a higher pitch than the one vibrating at 440 cycles per second. The two tones
in an octave sound very similar. In fact, when they are played at the same time, they
blend together, which can make it dicult for an untrained musician to recognize them
as two distinct tones rather than the same pitch, despite the fact that one is vibrating
twice as fast.
Western music theorists have divided the octave into twelve denite pitches of relatively
equal distance. Letter names from A-G are assigned to seven of these pitches for
notation purposes with notes that are an octave apart sharing the same letter name to
indicate the special relationship between their frequencies. The remaining ve pitches
are dened by modifying the letter names of pitches A - G by adding the word 'sharp' to
indicate a higher pitch (written as a # sign) and 'at' to indicate a lower pitch (written as
'b'). This system results in some overlap, with certain pitches being the raised form of
one pitch and the lowered form of another. For instance, the pitch that lies between D
and E can be written as 'D-sharp' or 'E-at.'
When these pitches are written on a sheet
of music, they are arranged on a musical
sta, which is a series of lines and spaces
that indicate to performers which pitch
should be played. The keyboard note letter
names and corresponding hertz numbers
shown above can be seen in notated form
on the sta below. In general, the higher a
note is positioned on the page, the higher
the corresponding pitch.

Piano keyboard showing the letter names of the 12 tones in the

octave and hertz numbers of the corresponding frequencies.

Notice how the hertz number of the A farthest to the right is

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double that of the A farthest to the left.

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