====== Musical pitch perception ======

>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 can be determined only in sounds that have a frequency that is clear and stable enough to distinguish from noise."\\ \\ Source [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_(music)#Perception_of_pitch|Wikipedia]]

Musicians can readily spot a difference of just 1Hz in mid-range musical tones, and accurate pitch perception is thought to be crucial for speech perception - as well as musical appreciation.

The neural mechanisms which allow humans to determine pitch so accurately are as yet undiscovered.

What //is// known is that the sensory hairs in the cochlea respond to specific frequencies by induced vibration.

In the mid-range region, around the musical note 'A' (440Hz) the most sensitive discrimination tends to have an accuracy of about 1Hz. In the extreme upper and lower frequencies, the accuracy is much less.

Various theories have been proposed and tested ( see [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_(music)#Theories_of_pitch_perception|Wikipedia]]) but none gives a complete explanation for all observed capacities.

Computational modelling has provided new insights into the biological mechanisms that may underlie pitch perception, and modern brain imaging techniques have suggested possible cortical locations for pitch mechanisms. Nevertheless, a complete model describing all aspects of pitch perception is still lacking.

=== The Missing Fundamental Illusion ===

>__How the brain estimates the pitch of a complex sound remains unsolved.__ Complex sounds are composed of more than one tone. When two tones occur together, a third lower pitched tone is often heard. This is referred to as the “missing fundamental illusion” because the perceived pitch is a frequency (fundamental) for which there is no actual source vibration. This phenomenon exemplifies a larger variety of problems related to how pitch is extracted from complex tones, music and speech, and thus has been extensively used to test theories of pitch perception."\\ \\ Source : [[https://pubs.aip.org/aip/cha/article-abstract/13/4/1226/134414/How-we-hear-what-is-not-there-A-neural-mechanism|Chaos 13, 1226–1230]]

=== Absolute pitch ===

//Absolute pitch// (widely referred to as //perfect pitch//) is an unexplained auditory phenomenon characterized by the ability of a person to identify or re-create a given musical note without the benefit of a technical reference tone. Early studies found that only around 1 in 10,000 people can do this. More recent studies, however, are showing that the skill of reproducing (or recognising) a piece of music at the correct pitch (though without the ability to actually name the note or key) is far more common that previously thought - perhaps in the region of 20-40% of the population.

// See:// [[https://web.archive.org/web/20070816070421/http://psyche.ge.niigata-u.ac.jp/Psyche/Miyazaki/Papers/Miyazaki2004.pdf|How  well do we understand absolute pitch?]] //Acoust. Sci. & Tech.// 25, 6 (2004)

//Note:// Several species of birds have calls that are accurately pitched to certain musical notes. And have remained so even after many generations (e.g. Chickadees). The implication being that the birds, like humans, must somehow have built-in absolute pitch discrimination.

Further info :[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_pitch|Wikipedia]]

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Also see : [[content:psychology:general:rhythm_perception]] and [[content:psychology:general:musical_appreciation]]