Pitch

pitch, in music, position of a single sound in the complete range of sound. Sounds are higher or lower in pitch according to the frequency of vibration of the sound waves producing them. A high frequency (e.g., 880 hertz [Hz; cycles per second]) is perceived as a high pitch and a low frequency (e.g., 55 Hz) as a low pitch.

In Western music, standard pitches have long been used to facilitate tuning among various performing groups. Usually a′ above middle C (c′) is taken as a reference pitch. The current standard pitch of a′ = 440 Hz was adopted in 1939. For some eighty years previous, a′ had been set at 435 Hz. A confusing variety of pitches prevailed until the 19th century, when the continual rise in pitch made some international agreement a matter of practical necessity.

In the mid-17th century the Hotteterres, Parisian instrument makers, remodeled the entire woodwind family, using the Paris organ pitch of about a′ = 415, or a semitone below a′ = 440. This new, or Baroque, pitch, called Kammerton (“chamber pitch”) in Germany, was one tone below the old Renaissance woodwind pitch, or Chorton (“choir pitch”).

After about 1760 the conventional pitch rose, reaching a′ = 440 by about 1820. By the latter half of the 19th century, it had reached the “Old Philharmonic Pitch” of about a′ = 453. The inconvenience of this high pitch became apparent, for it strained singers’ voices and made wind instruments quickly out of date. An international commission met in Paris in 1858–59 and adopted a compromise pitch called diapason normal (known in the United States as “French pitch” or “international pitch”) at a′ = 435. England, in 1896, adopted the “New Philharmonic Pitch” at a′ = 439 and, in 1939, adopted the U.S. standard pitch of a′ = 440. In the mid-20th century, pitch again tended to creep upward as some European woodwind builders used the pitch a′ = 444.

When frequency numbers are not used for a particular pitch, say D or B, a system of lowercase and capital letters indicates the octave in which it occurs. The notes in the octave below middle C are indicated by lowercase letters from c to b, the notes of the second octave below middle C are shown as C, D,…B, and the notes of the next lower octave as C′, D′,…B′. Middle C is shown as c′ and the notes in the octave above middle C as d′, e′,…b′. The C above middle C is shown as c″ and the next higher C as c‴.

Absolute, or perfect, pitch is the ability to identify by ear any note at some standard pitch or to sing a specified note, say G♯, at will. Fully developed absolute pitch is rare. It appears early in childhood and is apparently an acute form of memory of sounds of a particular instrument, such as the home piano. Some musicians slowly acquire a degree of absolute pitch, if only for the familiar a′ = 440. In general, the ability of humans to process sounds associated with music is due to the development of brain areas that are specialized to be sensitive to pitch; other animals appear to lack this specialization in brain development.