by Sianne Suicide

Created on: December 30, 2006   Last Updated: April 01, 2007

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, describes pitch as:

"In music, the position of a tone in the musical scale."

Throughout different countries of the world, scales vary. The positioning and space between notes and tunings are different, meaning that some music and the notes within that music are perceived differently by the listeners around the world. For example, most western music uses equal temperament tuning. Where as other countries in the world use different scales, like the Arabic scale known as the Maqam. When people from western countries who are used to hearing the western scales hear music using scales different to what they're used to the music seems out of tune. This can make us feel very uncomfortable as it's not what we are used to hearing, and therefore find it very difficult to appreciate and call music. In a similar sense, atonal and serial music have the same effect. The music is written in our scales but not in the way we are used to. And can also make us feel very uncomfortable. The notes and progression of serial music is difficult to listen to, but when used against a film or picture can have an incredible effect on the mood of the viewer.

The music doesn't necessarily have to have a set tune which we can hum, or one we can sing to, in order for it to achieve its musical goal, to create an atmosphere. Music that has no sense of musical pitch or rhythm can also have the same effects. Music that is simply made up of noises, not necessarily pleasant to hear, can be used in a number of ways to arouse the senses of the people listening to it. When listening to some world music pieces, western listeners may hear some notes that they may very well have never heard before. It is simply away from our normal sense of pitch in music. Because the notes that we are hearing are not familiar to us we do tend to ignore them and simply not call it music, because it doesn't please our ears in the way Western music does.

Music that is away from pitch cannot, in my opinion, be cased down to a number of genres. Music that doesn't conform to our secure sense of pitch may very well be recognized and appreciated in other parts of the world. Composers who are trying to steer clear of using music with pitch and are just using noise are still to some extent generating pitch. The noises have some kind of tone to which the listener can say is high or low pitched. The noises may not be familiar but still create a note which the listener can hear.

Although the music that is created without a sense of pitch can almost all the time make the listener feel some sort of emotion. Whether the tempo is fast or slow, of the choice of noises are shrill or relaxing. The music still generates an emotion of some sort and can always be used for that purpose. Schoenburg's serial pieces are often used to unnerve the listener and music has been written over the last few years to conform to his 12 tone pattern to accompany films and performances to generate the feeling and use it to enhance what the viewer is seeing.

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