Pitch

One of the types of objects in Praat. For tutorial information, see Intro 4. Pitch analysis.

A Pitch object represents periodicity candidates as a function of time. It does not mind whether this periodicity refers to acoustics, perception, or vocal-cord vibration. It is sampled into a number of frames centred around equally spaced times.

## Pitch commands

Creation:

  • Sound: To Pitch (filtered autocorrelation)...: for intonation and vocal-fold vibration
  • Sound: To Pitch (raw cross-correlation)...: for voice analysis
  • Sound: To Pitch (raw autocorrelation)...: for raw periodicity
  • Sound: To Pitch (filtered cross-correlation)...

Drawing:

  • Pitch: Draw...

Viewing and editing:

  • PitchEditor

Synthesis:

  • Pitch: To PointProcess: create points in voiced intervals.
  • Sound & Pitch: To PointProcess (cc): near locations of high amplitude.
  • Sound & Pitch: To PointProcess (peaks)...: near locations of high amplitude.

Conversion:

  • Pitch: To PitchTier: time-stamp voiced intervals.
  • Pitch & PointProcess: To PitchTier...: interpolate values at specified times.

## Inside a Pitch object

With Inspect, you will see the following attributes:

xmin
  start time, in seconds.
xmax
  end time, in seconds.
nx
  the number of frames (≥ 1).
dx
  time step = frame length = frame duration, in seconds.
x1
  the time associated with the first frame, in seconds. This will usually be in the range [xmin, xmax]. The time associated with the last frame (i.e., x1 + (nx – 1) dx)) will also usually be in that range.
ceiling
  a frequency above which a candidate is considered voiceless.
framei, i = 1 ... nx
  the frames (see below).

## Attributes of a pitch frame

Each frame contains the following attributes:

nCandidates
  the number of candidates in this frame (at least one: the “unvoiced” candidate).
candidatej, j = 1 ... nCandidates
  the information about each candidate (see below).

## Attributes of each candidate

Each candidate contains the following attributes:

frequency
  the candidate's frequency in Hz (for a voiced candidate), or 0 (for an unvoiced candidate).
strength
  the degree of periodicity of this candidate (between 0 and 1).

## Interpretation

The current pitch contour is determined by the path through all first candidates. If the first candidate of a certain frame has a frequency of 0, or a frequency above ceiling, this frame is considered voiceless.

### Links to this page

- FAQ: Pitch analysis
- Formulas 8. Attributes of objects
- Get frame number from time...
- Get number of frames
- Get time from frame number...
- Get time step
- Intro 4.5. The Pitch object
- pitch analysis by filtered autocorrelation
- pitch analysis by filtered cross-correlation
- Pitch: Interpolate
- Pitch: Smooth...
- PitchTier: Get mean (curve)...
- PitchTier: Get standard deviation (points)...
- PitchTier: To Pitch...
- Play
- Sound & Pitch: Change gender...
- Sound & Pitch: Change speaker...
- Sound & Pitch: To Spectrogram...
- Sound: To Pitch (ac)...
- Sound: To Pitch (cc)...
- Sound: To Pitch (filtered ac)...
- Sound: To Pitch (filtered cc)...
- Sound: To Pitch (raw ac)...
- Sound: To Pitch (raw cc)...
- Sound: To Pitch (shs)...
- Sound: To Pitch...
- time domain
- What was new in 3.6?
- What was new in 3.7?