Pitch is not uniquely tied to a single physical frequency

Evidence

Pitch is defined by the American National Standards Institute as ‘that auditory attribute of sound according to which sounds can be ordered on a scale from low to high’ (ANSI-S1.1, 2013). Pitch is perceived from many types of sounds, such as sinusoids, vocals, instrument sounds, and noisy sounds (Fastl and Zwicker, 2007; Hartmann, 1996). However, the definition is problematic in the sense that not all sounds have clear pitch, and some of them have more than one pitch. However, in the context of the basic properties of hearing, it is meaningful to restrict the discussion to relatively simple sounds producing a single, more or less salient pitch. The nearest counterpart of pitch in the physical world is the frequency of repetition of a signal portion, even though pitch depends on some other parameters as well. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1075

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gives the ANSI standard definition of pitch and clarifies its loose relation to physical repetition frequency.