PITCH, cualidad del sonido de la altura. Presentación para 2º ESO bilingüe música/inglés

2. What is pitch?
• In music the pitch of a sound
means how high or low a note is.
• Musical pitches are relative, any
note is higher or lower than
another.
• It is the degree of relative
highness or lowness of a sound

3. Frequency affects PITCH
• It is measured in
a unit called Hertz and is
determined by the sound’s
frequency of vibration.
▫ The greater the frequency the
higher pitched the sound will be.
▫ A note that is vibrating at 256 Hz
will be caused by sound
waves that vibrate at 256 times
a second. This will be Middle C on
the piano.

4. Pitch Notation
• Staff
• Cleff
• Notes

5. Vocal Pitch
• It mostly depends on the length
and thickness of the vocal
cords.
▫ Women tend to have higher voices
than men because they have shorter
vocal cords.
▫ Men tend to have lower voices than
women because their vocal cords are
longer and thicker.

6. Vocal Pitch
• The pitch of someone's voice can also be affected by
emotions, and moods.
▫ For example, being frightened or excited can make the
pitch higher because the muscles around the larynx
unconsciously contract.

7. Definite pitched Instruments
• A definite pitched instrument produces sounds at
fixed frequencies.
▫ Example: when you press Middle C on the Keyboard
of a piano the same tone occurs every time.

8. Definite pitched Instruments
• Other indefinite pitched
instrument have no specific
separation between notes.
▫ Example: the slide of
trombones allows to play an
infinite numbers of tones
between Middle C and C sharp.

9. Definite pitched Instruments
• As it occurred with vocal cords:
▫ The shorter the strings or the air tunnels of the
instruments, the higher pitch these instruments will play at.
▫ The longer the strings or the air tunnels of the instrument,
the lower pitch these instruments will play at.

10. Indefinite Pitch Instruments
• Not all musical instruments give notes of a particular pitch. Many
percussion instruments like drums, triangles and cymbals are
instruments used for rhythms.
▫ This class of percussion instruments are named: unpitched
percussion instruments

11. Specific Vocabulary
• Pitch: altura
• Frequency: frecuencia
• Vibration: vibración
• Hertz: hercios
• High: agudo
• Low: grave
• Definite pitch: altura determinada
• Indefinite pitch: altura indeterminada
• String: cuerda

12. Useful structures
• High pitch, very high pitch:
• The violin plays at a high pitch, the violin is very high pitched and the viola is medium-high pitched…
• Which is higher in pitch the violin or the viola? = Which is higher pitched the violin or the viola?
• The violin is the highest in pitch string instrument
• The violin is higher pitched than the viola
• The viola is not as high pitched as the violin
• Low pitch, very low pitch:
• The double bass plays at a low pitch, the double bass is low pitched and the cello is
medium-low pitched…
• Which is lower in pitch the violin or the viola? = Which is lower pitched the violin or the
viola?
• The double bass is the lowest in pitch string instrument
• The double bass is lower pitched than the cello
• The cello is not as low pitched as the double bass