“What is pitch?”

Today we consider a more practical question in relation to our voice & identity: what is pitch, and how does it pertain to our vocal expression?

This might seem like a trivial question, but like anything on AskModi, we invite you to consider some different perspectives.

The pitch of our voices plays a huge role in how we are audibly perceived. Some have even observed that qualities of certain pitches have been racialized & stigmatized. Understanding pitch and the role it plays in our perception of ourselves requires an investigation of how we use pitch to perceive others.

Textbooks define pitch as the perceived highness or lowness of a sound or frequency. Pitch can be identified using frequencies or musical pitches (e.g. 220Hz–which would translate to the musical pitch of A3). We control the pitch of our voices using our vocal folds and various other muscles of the larynx; the number of times the vocal folds come into contact with one another as they vibrate determines the frequency of the voice.

So what’s all that got to do with any of us? Some might define a dichotomy in pitch (i.e. “Female” pitch vs. “Male” pitch), but the truth is that we are capable of producing a wide range of pitches–regardless of sex or gender. Despite this fact, the world we live in insists on ascribing a gendered binary to voice, speech, and pitch. Because of this, vocal perception within & around the LGBTQIA+ community has long been intertwined with our quest for connection & survival.

Pitch is so much more than the frequencies we produce with our vocal folds. Pitch has the power to resonate with our true being while opening the possibility to resonate with another. Our bodies intake a variety of pitches–from the air being displaced to cars honking, to the way our lovers say goodbye, these collections of pitches can be used as an aid to help us find our place in the cacophonous mix if we teach ourselves the tools to understand them.

Pitch describes one principal of the many qualities that make up the voice. In our speech, we also have articulation, affectation, and other inherited linguistic quirks from the immediate community that surrounds us. We adopt these without discrimination; it is not until others begin to misunderstand us that we might consider any intentional alteration.

Pitch alteration in speech happens every day–usually subconsciously. For many of us, we would not speak to young schoolchildren in the same manner we might speak to a close friend we’ve known for decades. It can be observed that when some people speak to a young child for the first time, their usual tactic is to raise their voice in pitch, lower the volume of their voice, and even perhaps find easier language with less aggressive articulation to project a feeling of safety and comfort. Then, of course, there is the way many of us might alter our voices for the sake of “professionalism”---whatever that means—which usually means speaking with strong articulation, a lower tone of voice, and less pitch deviation than we might find in our everyday conversation.

There is nothing wrong with manipulating the tone and pitch of your voice; a deeper understanding of our voice and how it functions might help us find ways to better express ourselves.

As humans, we discovered long ago that pitches and vibrations can cause and elicit different sensations in the body. Many meditative and spiritual practices incorporate the use of certain pitches for healing purposes. When an opera singer produces pitch, the way they use their bodies to produce their pitch creates a variety of other tones above that fundamental pitch–which is today described as an overtone series. This is all to say pitch, vibration, frequencies–they hold great power.

There are some psychologists that theorize we are born with the ability to identify tones and pitches, though it is a skill that must be practiced to be retained or rediscovered. What we are not born with is full familiarity and control of our voices–as we grow, we learn and adapt to our surrounding pitches, rhythms, and languages–and our voices change well throughout our lives. With some practice, study, and maybe even a little help from our coaches at Modulation Institute, it is possible to understand, master, and manipulate pitch to express ourselves more authentically.

Thanks for joining us today after some time away; we hope you found something new to talk about. Feel free to leave a comment below, or tell us what you wish to know.

Stay tuned for future updates; until then, stay curious.

- Modi