Characteristics of Tone

PITCH

Pitch represents the perceived fundamental frequency of a sound.It is one of the major auditory attributes of musical tones along with duration, loudness, timbre, and sound source location.

Pitch allows the construction of melodies; pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower", and are quantified as frequencies (cycles per second, or hertz), corresponding very nearly to the repetition rate of sound waves. However, pitch is not an objective physical property, but a subjective psychophysical attribute of sound.

the staff or stave,is a set of five horizontal lines and four spaces, each of which represents a different musical pitch, or, in the case of a percussion staff, different percussion instruments. Appropriate music symbols, depending upon the intended effect, are placed on the staff according to their corresponding pitch or function. Musical notes are placed by pitch, percussion notes are placed by instrument, and rests and other symbols are placed by convention.

A clef is a musical symbol used to indicate the pitch of written notes.[1] Placed on one of the lines at the beginning of the staff, it indicates the name and pitch of the notes on that line. This line serves as a reference point by which the names of the notes on any other line or space of the staff may be determined.


DURATION

A note may be sustained for varying lengths of time. Duration is a property of tone becomes one of the bases of rhythm.


INTENSITY

Tones vary in their degree of loudness and softness. This quality in varying degree is called intensity, which is fundamental to musical rhythm as accent, providing the basis for a separate musical elements (dynamics).




In music, the term "dynamics" normally refers to the softness or loudness of a sound or note: e.g. pianissimo or fortissimo. Until recently, most dynamics in written form were done so in Italian, but recently are sometimes written or translated into English. Another sense of the word refers to any aspect of the execution of events in a given piece; either stylistic (staccato, legato etc.) or functional (velocity) are also known as dynamics. The term is also applied to the written or printed musical notation used to indicate dynamics.