What are pitch and frequency?
Frequency is the rate at which the source produces sound waves, i.e. complete cycles of high and low pressure regions. In other words, frequency is the number of times per second that a vibrating body completes one cycle of motion. The unit for frequency is the hertz (Hz = 1 cycle per second. Low pitched or bass sounds have low frequencies. High-pitched or treble sounds have high frequencies. A healthy, young person can hear sounds with frequencies from roughly 20 to 20,000 Hz. The upper frequency limit decrease with age, and so the older a person gets, the less well they can hear high notes. Also, the male hearing range decreases more quickly than the female, and so women can generally hear higher pitch notes than men of similar age. The sound of human speech is mainly in the range 300 to 3,000 Hz.
