You know the sound you produce when you say "shhhhh" ? Well, does that have a pitch?!

My friend and I suddenly thought about it the other day, and at fisrt were thinking "No it doesn't have a pitch" because we couldn't find a difinitive note for it....but then were thought "Well yes it does, because everything have a pitch."

And now we're just confused!!! Any comments on this would be really appreciated!!!

Laura

What a great question! As singers, we're taught that vowel sounds and certain consonants (L, M, N and other "voiced" consonants) have pitch, but others (T, S, K and so forth) don't.

Well, try this as an experiment. Start with your "shhh" sound at one level. Can you make the pitch go up while you sustain it? Can you make it go down? I'll bet you can. And therefore, you're right, it DOES have a pitch.

"shhh" resembles what is known as "white noise" in physics. It is composed of many frequencies (or tones) and it cannot be attached to any particular note. This said, you can alter the "pitch" of your shhh by adding more lower (or higher) frecuencies, taking it farther from "white noise".

This is just an approximation to the physical concept, as actual white noise should cover the whole spectrum, which is not the case for the sound a human can produce.

^^^ Oooh wow, how intresting!!

Thank you for your comments :D

XxX