As you know, we have an innate sense of musicality and we can sense when certain tones are off key and wrong. Im curious to what degree can we sense it? Is there a limit of deviation from the correct pitch where we can’t recognize that the note is off pitch anymore and it starts sounding normal?
In: 6
There are two different kinds of “off key” notes.
The first is a “wrong note.” This is a note that is played outside of the expectations set by the music around it. Maybe it is outside of the key the music is in, or descends when the melody wants to ascend. A wrong note is quite easy to identify in a piece of music that you are familiar with but very difficult to confidently identify in music you aren’t familiar with. Even if it sounds jarring or odd, maybe that was the point. If someone plays the “wrong note” with enough confidence, who’s to say it’s wrong?
The second is “out of tune.” This is when the tone produced is *close* to the intended note but not quite there. The hallmark of a note that is out of tune is that it will create “waves” or “beeps” when played alongside the other notes it is meant to harmonize with. Music that is badly out of tune will sound “off” even to an untrained ear, but it might be confused for poor technique in some other aspect of the playing. It can take a relatively trained ear to really hear when something it out of tune, but if you can hear it, you can be pretty confident that the music is “wrong.” Musicians almost never play out of tune on purpose.
Latest Answers