About the Course

Course: Introduction To Music Production at Coursera.org by Loudon Stearns Week One Assignment Lesson: Audio Basics - Frequency

About Me
My name is Maya. I am a piano teacher from Serbia. You can watch my intro video on Youtube. (duration: 32 sec.)

Maja Dakic-Brkovic

About Me

Frequency - Lesson Content

Definition Measuring Frequency vs. Pitch Human Hearing Range Frequency Response See Examples Listen to Examples

Definition of Frequency
Periodic vibration or the number of cycles per unit of time, audible to the average human Property of sound that most determines pitch

Measuring
For convenience, frequency is most often measured in cycles per second (cps) or the interchangeable Hertz (Hz) (60 cps = 60 Hz), named after the 19th C. physicist 1000 Hz is often referred to as 1 kHz (kilohertz) or simply '1k' in studio parlance

Frequency vs. Pitch

The perceived pitch of a sound is our ear/mind's subjective interpretation of its frequency Pitch - we hear low to high sounds Frequency - what equipments measure in cps (Hz) More Hz - higher sound Fewer Hz - lower sound

Human Hearing Range

Roughly: 20 to 20,000 Hz Greatly influenced by environmental factors The perception of higher range tends to decrease with age

Human Hearing Range

Below 20 Hz - felt rather than heard, assuming the amplitude of the vibration is great enough Above 20,000 Hz - sometimes sensed by young people High frequencies are the first to be affected by hearing loss due to age and/or prolonged exposure to extreme noise

Frequency Response
We don't hear equally across the entire hearing range He hear less as we go the lower and higher end of frequency range Human ears as well as audio equipments act as EQ (set of frequency filters)

See Examples

Low Frequency

Higher Frequency

* We can't hear these frequencies, since they are below 20 Hz.

Listen to Examples

Low Sound (Voice)

High Sound (Voice)

Personal Reflections

I wanted to make my lesson simple, clear and brief. Really like the thought: Brevity is respect for another's time. If there is anything I missed or could have explained better, I would like to hear your thoughts. :) Thanks. Since I wanted to add short audio examples to my google presentation, I had problems to find a simple service for sharing audio files. Finally, liked the Shoutomatic .

Feedback Welcome!
Thank you for taking your time to go through my presentation. Hope we learn more together. If you have any comment, please contact me: @maja_prolece or leave your voice message here.

Thank you!
Here I want to give a big thank to my dear husband, who always helps me about all possible things on and away of computer!