Talk:Pitch (music)/Archive 3

Rename article
I propose that this article be renamed Pitch (sound) because it covers so much more than just musical pitches. It's about complex sounds, generally, and you also touch on speech.--Atlantictire (talk) 19:18, 3 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Complex sounds are used in music. So is speech. Hyacinth (talk) 02:05, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

The article Pitch (psychophysics) was merged in here a while back after a brief proposal with no discussion. It might make sense to consider splitting that back out if you want the general psychophysical aspects to be covered as well as all the musical aspects. Moving to pitch (sound) seems like a poor alternative. Dicklyon (talk) 02:36, 12 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't have a strong opinion about the article title but I oppose splitting the article. The current article is not long and it is difficult to draw a line between what is psychophysical and what is musical. If split, we'll eventually end up with a lot of overlap again. --Kvng (talk) 19:30, 14 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't have a strong opinion either way, but I'm sure that "a lot of overlap" is not a problem. Dicklyon (talk) 19:32, 14 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, maybe not a problem for readers but a burden for editors to maintain multiple descriptions of the same information. --Kvng (talk) 15:17, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Not sure about some information
I don't think the information contained within the first paragraph of the first section is very accurate. It is not the difference that gets coarser in low frequency, it's the ratio delta(f)/f. The progression of pitch percepion doesn't follow the linear constant of Weber's law because the human ear is more sensible for the frequencies of the human speech. See the following reference. It's a word document in French, but it's quite interesting.
 * (Added: - to clear for subsequent instance ~:74.60.29.141 (talk) 20:41, 7 January 2013 (UTC))

WikiProject Percussion
I have tagged this article as of interest to us mainly because of the section Pitch (music) and the two redirects Indefinite pitch and Indeterminate pitch that link to that section.

Although we do not have an importance scale for WikiProject Percussion, this is a key concept for the WikiProject, and one of the most commonly misunderstood. Andrewa (talk) 14:39, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Requested move: "Musical scale" → "Scale (music)"
I have initiated a formal RM action to move Musical scale to Scale (music). Contributions and comments would be very welcome; decisions of this kind could affect the choice of title for many music theory articles.

N oetica Tea? 00:12, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't see how the actual page title affects its use in other articles. Music theory articles can link to either title like this scale or this scale - makes no difference to the article.


 * WP:TITLE doesn't seem to have a strong opinion either way, although I think the principle of naturalness suggests retaining the current title. Tayste (edits) 01:19, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Please leave your comments at Talk:Musical_scale. Or not. --Kvng (talk) 22:25, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, yes I did see that, and it didn't really seem worth contributing to. Hehe, bike sheds.  Tayste (edits) 22:45, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Moved to here
The following is moved here [the talk page] from the 'Concert pitch' section, since the information "failed verification" (see internal note) - with tag date = September 2010. ~:74.60.29.141 (talk) 20:34, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

For example, Michael Praetorius proposed a standard of 465 Hz in the early 17th century.

That's interesting. I tracked it back to this edit by myself. I'm pretty sure I would not have made up a number, and that I must have gotten it from the book. Perhaps it went from being a full-view book to just snippets due to the date 1962 that Google thinks it has; looks like the right date for first translated edition, so maybe the translator asserts copyright. The snippets show lots of pages that mention Praetorious, and tuning, and such, but I'm not getting any hits on numbers like 465. It was tagged here by Jerome Kohl, but it's unclear whether he was actually able to look at a copy of the book, or just didn't like the lack of page number and the unlikeliness of the assertion. Anyway, I just ordered the 1962 translated vol. 2 off abebooks for $25, so should know in a week or so. I wouldn't be surprised if it's in a note by the translator, or something like that, a retrospective analysis of tuning that he used. Dicklyon (talk) 20:57, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I hope the effort is worth $25  ;)   Sorry about being nit-picky! ~E:74.60.29.141 (talk) 22:23, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Since my name has been mentioned, perhaps I might just observe that it was some years after Praetorius's publication that frequency definition of pitch was established—as my editorial comment indicates—which means he cannot have made a reference to 465Hz. This must be a modern interpretation of something Praetorius defines in very different terms. I recall reading somewhere (a very long time ago now, so I cannot recall where it was) a long-running debate over Praetorius's measurements of something—I think it was pendulums, and to do with metronomic tempos rather than pitch. In any case, the upshot was that confusion over things like Brunswick inches, doubtful measurements of woodblock prints due to the shrinkage of paper over time, and other factors render such interpretations more difficult than at first seems likely. In any event, the true source of the figure 465 will have to be someone other than Praetorius, while at the same time the interpreted passage from the Syntagma will need to be pinpointed. I look forward to seeing the resolution of this matter.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:28, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I forgot to answer one specific question of DickLyon's: As I said in my editorial comment, the Syntagma was published in three volumes plus a supplement of plates. I am able to look at a copy of this massive publication, but the lack of even a volume number (let alone a page reference) makes wading through 17th-century German in fraktur more than my poor eyeballs can handle. The most likely place for Praetorius to make such a statement is in volume 3 (about performance practice), rather than the far more popular vol. 2 (the one about musical instruments), so I hope you have not wasted your money.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:35, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, I got the volume two of Praetorius, English translation of 1949/1962, and don't see what I'm looking for there. However, book search with "Michael Praetorius" and "465", I do find some good stuff, in form of snippets; so there are more books to get. One says "We know from Micahel Praetorius (Syntagma musicum II [1618-19; reprint, Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1958]) and Daniel Speer (Grundrichtiger Unterriche [1687; reprint, 1974]) that the nominal pitch of the tenor trombone in the seventeenth century was A; Fischer's B-flat must there represent Chorton A, that is, a' = 465." Another says "A more-or-less standard universal pitch did exist in the centuries before Bach's birth. The pitches of original instruments in the 16th and early 17th centuries cannot be described as uniform, but they are remarkably consistent at one principle level, about a' = 465, called (among ..." and "did not change pitch. Michael Praetorius in 1618 wrote about ... The pitch levels of these new instruments, being based on Parisian ton d'opera and ton de chambre, were much lower than the traditional German instrumental pitch at a' 1 465."  So, need to get the books and see what they actually say.  But there is clearly some kind of support for attributing 465 to things that Praetorius documented.  Dicklyon (talk) 20:21, 19 January 2013 (UTC) Some can be read at Amazon about Chorton and 465 and Praetorius. Dicklyon (talk) 20:27, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

This way of specifying pitch should be explained somewhere on WP
In the article Types of trombone you find this way of specifying pitch: 12' F, 18' B♭, 9' B♭, etc. I suppose (this is just a guess) that this way of specifying pitch is akin to the organ foot system, as in 8' pipe, 16' pipe, etc. although in the case of organs the actual length applies only to the pipe giving the C whereas, the way it is used for organs, the designation applies in fact to all the pipes of the given octave even though their actual length is shorter than that of the C. In any case I'm sure other readers who are only slightly familiar with trombones will be puzzled, like me, by this system, so this more general system used for trombones (and other brass?) should be explained somewhere in WP. I'm adding this request to this talk page of Pitch (music) rather than that of Types of trombone just in case this system is used for other instruments but please place the explanation where you think it is the most useful and appropriate. Contact Basemetal here 18:43, 21 May 2013 (UTC)


 * This sounds like a notation issue. Maybe best added to Note. ~KvnG 17:32, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It's more about brass instruments than about notes. This book has an appendix on the "foot" notation.  This book gives them in cm, too.  Dicklyon (talk) 22:59, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Table?
There is a table at the end of the "Labeling pitches" section that I can't make any sense of. The headings are "Contra, Great, Small, One-lined, Two-lined, Three-lined". Not a single one of these terms is defined, or even mentioned, elsewhere in the article. The contents of the table are equally mysterious. I guess they're frequencies, but that's only a guess. Some text needs to be added to explain this table. Mnudelman (talk) 17:56, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, the numbers are frequencies in Hz. The headings are from the "German method" of octave nomenclature. (See "naming the octaves" on this page.) I have added some text above the table to explain this. Just plain Bill (talk) 22:32, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Another problem here is that the nomenclature is wrong. Octaves in the German nomenclature go from c to b. This means that the first pitches in the table (a to b) have wrong frequencies attached to their names (a' = 440Hz, but the table claims a'' = 440Hz). Source: am German musician and explanation of Helmholtz naming


 * Indeed octaves are named from C to B. Now corrected and added the contraoctave.&minus;Woodstone (talk) 08:34, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Why is the introduction confusing?
Why does it begin with a more psychological/scientific definition, as: "pitch is a perceptual property of sounds that allows their ordering on a frequency-related scale,[1] 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". This is somewhat tangled, I'd say. It should first read something like: 'Pitch is the distinction between higher and lower sounds within a melody [what is melody?]......... based on the perceptual properties of a spectrum of frequency', etc.

I appreciate any feedback. Dudanotak (talk) 09:03, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
 * To start with, pitch is not confined to melodies (the current phrase refers to melodies only as an example, but the sound of a single bell has pitch, too). It is not entirely accurate, either, to say it is a distinction between two or more sounds, since a single sound may possess the property of pitch without reference to any other.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:23, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
 * And "based on the perceptual properties of a spectrum of frequency" sounds like an attempt to explain, rather than define, pitch. Dicklyon (talk) 19:23, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
 * One opportunity for confusion is that English is one of many languages with pitch metaphorically mapped to "high" and "low" vertical location in space. I believe that's where the "sense associated with musical melodies" bit of attempted clarification comes from. (ISTR some languages using something like "fine" and "coarse" instead, but that's a story for another time.) Just plain Bill (talk) 20:41, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

English-language bias
The statement that pitches are designated by letters is only true in some languages, including English. Other languages may use other terminology, such as do-re-mi. In fact, this becomes clear if you click on translations of this article into languages such as French. 73.137.170.88 (talk) 22:39, 11 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Well, this is the English language Wikipedia; we do, therefore, use English terminology. Firejuggler86 (talk) 09:36, 14 April 2021 (UTC)