Where does pitch collide?

The perceptual attribute by which a listener orders sounds from low to high, closely related to the fundamental frequency of a sound but not the same thing. In hearing science, reviewed by Oxenham, pitch is defined by what it does: it is the attribute whose variation carries melody, and a sound has a given pitch if a listener matches it to a pure tone of some frequency. The referent is a sensation in the listener, not a property of the air. Frequency is the physical rate of vibration, counted in hertz; pitch is the percept that rate usually evokes, and the two come apart. A tone with no energy at its fundamental can still be heard at that missing pitch, a pitch can shift a little as loudness changes, and equal musical steps are ratios in hertz, not equal differences. The unit is a perceptual scale, mels or the note names of music, never hertz.[1][2]

Unit

A perceived position on a low-to-high scale (mels or musical notes)

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Pitch-matching to a pure tone, or judgments of melodic interval, scaled in mels against physical frequency

A brief persuasive presentation in which a founder makes the case for an idea to investors or customers, hoping to be funded or bought. In entrepreneurship research, Clark studied how the oral pitch shapes business angels' first screening decisions and found that presentation skill, separate from the venture's underlying merit, moved whether investors chose to proceed. The referent is a communicative act by a person to an audience, and what is judged is its persuasiveness and the decision it produces, not any physical quantity. The elevator pitch and the sales pitch are the same construct in shorter or wider form. This meaning shares only the spelling with the perceived height of a sound; it names a rhetorical performance, and its outcome is money committed, not a note heard.[3]

Unit

A persuasive spoken presentation of a venture

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Ratings by investors of a live presentation's persuasiveness, and the decision to proceed past initial screening

The nose-up or nose-down rotation of an aircraft about its lateral axis, one of the three attitude angles alongside roll and yaw. In flight dynamics, set out in texts such as Cook's Flight Dynamics Principles, pitch is the angular displacement about the axis that runs wingtip to wingtip, controlled chiefly by the elevator, and the pitch rate is how fast that angle changes. The referent is the orientation of a rigid body in space, and the quantity is an angle in degrees together with its rate in degrees per second. It borrows nothing from the acoustic meaning but the word: this pitch is a geometry of attitude, measured against the horizon by an attitude indicator or inertial sensors, and it only means anything paired with the roll and yaw axes that complete the description.[4]

Unit

Angular rotation about the lateral (pitch) axis, in degrees

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

The pitch angle and pitch rate about the lateral axis, read from an attitude indicator or inertial sensors