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Relative pitch is the ability of a person to identify or re-create a given musical note by comparing it to a reference note and identifying the interval between those two notes. For example, if the notes Do and Fa are played on a piano, a person with relative pitch would be able to identify the second note from the first note given that they know that the first note is Do without looking.
Relative pitch implies some or all of the following abilities: [1]
This last criterion, which applies not only to singers but also to instrumentalists who rely on their own skill to determine the precise pitch of the notes played (wind instruments, fretless string instruments like violin or viola, etc.), is an essential skill for musicians in order to play successfully with others. An example, is the different concert pitches used by orchestras playing music from different styles (a baroque orchestra using period instruments might decide to use a higher-tuned pitch).
Compound intervals (intervals greater than an octave) can be more difficult to detect than simple intervals (intervals less than an octave).[ citation needed ]
Interval recognition is used to identify chords, and can be applied to accurately tune an instrument with respect to a given reference tone, even when the tone is not in concert pitch.[ citation needed ]
Unlike absolute pitch (sometimes called "perfect pitch"), relative pitch is quite common among musicians, especially musicians who are used to playing "by ear", and a precise relative pitch is a constant characteristic among good musicians.
Unlike perfect pitch, relative pitch can be developed through ear training. [2] Computer-aided ear training is becoming a popular tool for musicians and music students, and various software is available for improving relative pitch.[ citation needed ]
Some music teachers teach their students relative pitch by having them associate each possible interval with the first two notes of a popular song. Another method of developing relative pitch is playing melodies by ear on a musical instrument, especially one that, unlike a piano or other keyboard or fretted instrument, requires a specific manual or blown adjustment for each particular tone.
Indian musicians learn relative pitch by singing intervals over a drone, which Mathieu (1997) described in terms of occidental just intonation terminology. [3] [ page needed ] Many Western ear training classes used solfège to teach students relative pitch, while others use numerical sight-singing.
A harmonic series is the sequence of harmonics, musical tones, or pure tones whose frequency is an integer multiple of a fundamental frequency.
In music, there are two common meanings for tuning:
A musical note is an isolatable sound used as an atomic building block for creating music. This discretization facilitates performance, comprehension, and analysis. Notes may be visually communicated by writing them in musical notation.
In music, an octave or perfect octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems". The interval between the first and second harmonics of the harmonic series is an octave.
In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds together in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harmonic objects such as chords, textures and tonalities are identified, defined, and categorized in the development of these theories. Harmony is broadly understood to involve both a "vertical" dimension (frequency-space) and a "horizontal" dimension (time-space), and often overlaps with related musical concepts such as melody, timbre, and form.
In music theory, a scale is any set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency or pitch. A scale ordered by increasing pitch is an ascending scale, and a scale ordered by decreasing pitch is a descending scale.
Absolute pitch (AP), often called perfect pitch, is the ability to identify or re-create a given musical note without the benefit of a reference tone. AP may be demonstrated using linguistic labelling, associating mental imagery with the note, or sensorimotor responses. For example, an AP possessor can accurately reproduce a heard tone on a musical instrument without "hunting" for the correct pitch.
Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. The Oxford Companion to Music describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory": The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation ; the second is learning scholars' views on music from antiquity to the present; the third is a sub-topic of musicology that "seeks to define processes and general principles in music". The musicological approach to theory differs from music analysis "in that it takes as its starting-point not the individual work or performance but the fundamental materials from which it is built."
In music, timbre, also known as tone color or tone quality, is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voices and musical instruments. It also enables listeners to distinguish different instruments in the same category.
Pitch is a perceptual property of sounds that allows their ordering on a frequency-related scale, 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. Pitch is a major auditory attribute of musical tones, along with duration, loudness, and timbre.
The cent is a logarithmic unit of measure used for musical intervals. Twelve-tone equal temperament divides the octave into 12 semitones of 100 cents each. Typically, cents are used to express small intervals, to check intonation, or to compare the sizes of comparable intervals in different tuning systems. For humans, a single cent is too small to be perceived between successive notes.
Ear training is a music theory study in which musicians learn aural skills to identify pitches, intervals, melody, chords, rhythms, solfeges, and other basic elements of music, solely by hearing. Someone who can identify pitch accurately without context is said to have "perfect pitch". The application of this skill is somewhat analogous to taking dictation in written/spoken language. As a process, ear training is in essence the inverse of sight-reading, the latter being analogous to reading a written text aloud without prior opportunity to review the material. Ear training is typically a component of formal musical training and is a fundamental, essential skill required in music schools.
The tanpura is a long-necked, plucked, four-stringed instrument originating in India, found in various forms in Indian music. Visually, the tanpura resembles a simplified sitar or similar lute-like instrument, and is likewise crafted out of a gourd or pumpkin.
Piano tuning is the act of adjusting the tension of the strings of an acoustic piano so that the musical intervals between strings are in tune. The meaning of the term 'in tune', in the context of piano tuning, is not simply a particular fixed set of pitches. Fine piano tuning requires an assessment of the vibration interaction among notes, which is different for every piano, thus in practice requiring slightly different pitches from any theoretical standard. Pianos are usually tuned to a modified version of the system called equal temperament.
In music, an electronic tuner is a device that detects and displays the pitch of musical notes played on a musical instrument. "Pitch" is the perceived fundamental frequency of a musical note, which is typically measured in Hertz. Simple tuners indicate—typically with an analog needle or dial, LEDs, or an LCD screen—whether a pitch is lower, higher, or equal to the desired pitch. Since the early 2010s, software applications can turn a smartphone, tablet, or personal computer into a tuner. More complex and expensive tuners indicate pitch more precisely. Tuners vary in size from units that fit in a pocket to 19" rack-mount units. Instrument technicians and piano tuners typically use more expensive, accurate tuners.
In music, tonal memory or "aural recall" is the ability to remember a specific tone after it has been heard. Tonal memory assists with staying in tune and may be developed through ear training. Extensive tonal memory may be recognized as an indication of potential compositional ability.
Svara is a word that connotes simultaneously a breath, a vowel, the sound of a musical note corresponding to its name, and the successive steps of the octave or saptaka. More comprehensively, it is the ancient Indian concept about the complete dimension of musical pitch. Most of the time a svara is identified as both musical note and tone, but a tone is a precise substitute for sur, related to tunefulness. Traditionally, Indians have just seven svaras/notes with short names, e.g. saa, re/ri, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni which Indian musicians collectively designate as saptak or saptaka. It is one of the reasons why svara is considered a symbolic expression for the number seven.
In musical tuning, a temperament is a tuning system that slightly compromises the pure intervals of just intonation to meet other requirements. Most modern Western musical instruments are tuned in the equal temperament system. Tempering is the process of altering the size of an interval by making it narrower or wider than pure. "Any plan that describes the adjustments to the sizes of some or all of the twelve fifth intervals in the circle of fifths so that they accommodate pure octaves and produce certain sizes of major thirds is called a temperament." Temperament is especially important for keyboard instruments, which typically allow a player to play only the pitches assigned to the various keys, and lack any way to alter pitch of a note in performance. Historically, the use of just intonation, Pythagorean tuning and meantone temperament meant that such instruments could sound "in tune" in one key, or some keys, but would then have more dissonance in other keys.
In music theory, an inversion is a type of change to intervals, chords, voices, and melodies. In each of these cases, "inversion" has a distinct but related meaning. The concept of inversion also plays an important role in musical set theory.
In traditional Arabic music, maqam is the system of melodic modes, which is mainly melodic. The word maqam in Arabic means place, location or position. The Arabic maqam is a melody type. It is "a technique of improvisation" that defines the pitches, patterns, and development of a piece of music and is "unique to Arabian art music". There are 72 heptatonic tone rows or scales of maqamat. These are constructed from augmented, major, neutral, and minor seconds. Each maqam is built on a scale, and carries a tradition that defines its habitual phrases, important notes, melodic development and modulation. Both compositions and improvisations in traditional Arabic music are based on the maqam system. Maqamat can be realized with either vocal or instrumental music, and do not include a rhythmic component.