We use the term “higher” to describe notes of smaller wavelengths, and this term seems strangely fitting in a way that I don’t quite understand. For example, when a band is playing heavy bass notes and then a singer comes in with treble notes, it seems like the vocal notes are actually physically *higher* (like, in the room or in my ears) than the bass notes.
Is this a real thing? Or am I just imagining it? Or is it just subconscious association with the words “high” and “low” which we use to describe these notes? Or maybe I’m just noticing that speakers and venues usually put the woofers on the bottom and the tweeters on the top?
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I’m surprised no one has mentioned music notation yet. Most of us have seen written music, whether or not we can read it, and we know intuitively that the notes that are higher on the staff are higher tones as well. Just like we assume A is first and Z is last, literacy shapes how we view things.
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