Musicians refer to the notes they play as “pitch” or “pitches”. Incidentally, this leads us into another brief point. The physics of sound is another game altogether.) For now, let’s just worry about frequency! Now the actual makeup and sonic elements that go into constructing different sounds is beyond our scope here In other words why does bird song sound the way it does, or why does a clap of thunder sound the way it does?Īt this point we’re talking about harmonics, overtones, relation and proportion to each other, and a whole other group of sonic recipes. (6th fret low E string) See the pattern?Īny sound can have the same pitch or frequency of another unrelated sound. How about a jackhammer that has a frequency of 116.54Hz? That would be A#2 on a piano or the same note on guitar. What about the E2 key on a piano? 82.41Hz. For instance, our low E guitar string is 82.41Hz. The next logical point or conclusion one need come to is this: Obviously with the near infinite sounds present in our world, there are bound to be an enormous amount of these sounds that overlap with each other frequency-wise that is. ALL sounds have a frequency number identifying the exact number of cycles per second. The full range of standard 88 key piano? From its lowest note (A0) all the way to its highest (C8) 27.50Hz – 4186.01Hz. When plucked, its sound waves complete 82.41 cycles in one second. Hertz.Ī low E string on a guitar vibrates at 82.41Hz. This unit is named after German physicist Heinrich R. Once again, 1 cycle per 1 second equals 1 Hertz. So, what is this Hertz business? Hertz is the unit of measurement used to identify frequency. Anyway, one complete cycle that travels in one second is 1 Hertz (abbr. Sound…any sound actually, travels through the air in said waves. (Side note: Sound above and below the human hearing range can still have an effect on the human body… but that’s another discussion altogether!) Any higher, or faster, again, the human ear cannot hear it. The highest frequency the human ear can hear is 20,000Hz (or abbreviated ’20kHz’, which is 20,000 cycles per second. Any lower, or slower, the ear simply cannot hear it. The lowest frequency sound a human can hear is 20Hz, or 20 cycles per second. Now, here’s a little talk about the human hearing range. For our purposes, we will be using musical sound waves as our staple. The actual dictionary definition is this: the number of complete oscillations per second of energy (as sound or electromagnetic radiation) in the form of waves. Your basics will be covered.įrequency, in its most pragmatic definition, is the exact number of times the waves of a particular sound move through the air per second. To the audio professional just starting on the journey we will leave nothing to assumption. Specifically, we will focus on music/recording engineers, producers, and so forth.Ī lot of the beginning material will undoubtedly be familiar to seasoned professionals. The practice of ear training is not relegated solely to musicians, but to anyone working in the “audio” field. What is the definition of frequency? That leads to why exactly do you need recognition skills? That ultimately leads to the overarching theme of this discussion how do you train your ears to recognize the individual sonic fingerprints of each sound? Or, to be more precise what exact mechanisms, or exercises do you need to develop and practice? Can you identify the frequency of a kick drum? How about a snare drum? A woman’s voice? A man’s? How about an F#2 played on a piano? As an audio professional (audio recording/mixing engineer, music producer, mastering engineer, etc.) you should be able to identify these frequencies.
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