The Effect Of Various Frequencies Of Notes On The Perception Of Pitch Of Both Musically And Non-Musically Trained Students

One of the most important components is a musical performance is the tuning of the pitch. A live performance experience could be significantly downgraded if a performer is out of tune. This study was done to determine the range where most people believed a note was in tune, and whether that differed between musicians and non-musicians. It was hypothesized that participants would generally recognize a flat note before a sharp note, and that musicians would be faster at recognizing out of tune pitches. In the experiment, an oscillator app was used to produce the frequencies required to generate the pitches of the note, and students were required to answer when they thought a note was out of tune. This process was repeated for all 12 notes of the octave. t-Tests were used to compare results between flat and sharp notes as well as the results between the musicians and non-musicians. The hypothesis was partially supported as musicians were better at recognizing out of tune pitches compared to non-musicians, but there was not a statistically significant difference between when both groups could hear a flat note and a sharp note. In conclusion, musicians were better at recognizing out of tune pitches but there was not a significant difference in recognizing sharp and flat notes with both groups.