Frequency & Pitch

This lesson is part of the Fundamentals of Sound & Music module.

Objectives

• Students will be familiar with waveform diagrams.
• Student will be able to derive a harmonic series given a fundamental pitch.
• Student will be able to define the difference between a sinusoidal and complex wave.
• Student will be able to identify whether a sound is harmonic or not on a spectrogram, frequency graph and oscilloscope.
• Students will understand how frequency relates to the aural concept of pitch.
• Students will understand how frequencies of multiple waveforms interact.
• Students will understand the difference between absolute and relative pitch.

Resources

Readings

• Smack My Pitch Up: Pure Tones & Complex Sounds
• Project Studio Handbook: Phase and Harmonics
• Project Studio Handbook: Complex Sounds
• Smack My Pitch Up: Beats and Harmonics

Class Activities

• Discussion and definition of frequency, pitch, amplitude, dynamics and waveform diagrams.
• Investigation of variables using waveform diagrams.
• Demonstration of the combination of two sounds, and the visualization of the process as waveform diagrams.
• Use of an oscilloscope and spectrogram to analyze and compare different sounds.

Assignments

• Drawing waveform diagrams.