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Like other musical words, the word "beat" can have a special meanings
in Music English. In this section, "beat" means "cycle," as in the old term "cycles per second,"
which was renamed "Hertz" in the early 1970s.
That is:
frequency =
cycles per second = Hertz
This first meaning we will discuss has to do with the physics of
sound. Sound is waves which move through a medium. Music is in the medium of the air. Sound may also pass through water, as
you know if you ever tried to talk to someone when you went swimming underwater. It sounds weird and that is something the
human ear is not used to. We know that whales communicate through the medium of water with "whale music." Other
sea creatures probably have no trouble discerning the meanings of various sounds that move through their watery world.
Malvina Reynolds, who wrote "Little Boxes," and "Love is Something if you Give it Away," even
wrote a song about this!! It's called "Place to Be." Here's the second verse:
"Everybody
has a place to go.
Everybody wants to be somewhere.
Lobsters live at the bottom of the sea,
While I'm at
the bottom of the air!"
The air actually moves when it is vibrated by something that starts it moving -- like
vibrations from vocal chords, a drum head, or a whistle of air blown into a tube -- like a flute, for example. A deep pitched
sound can set up waves three feet long, that wave through the room like waves in the ocean, if we would see them.
You can get a better idea of this concept if you think about how a big bass drum has a large drum head, and a bongo drum
has a small drum head. A small drum head membrane cannot possibly make the large, deep, sound waves necessary to produce a
"bass drum" sound. And vice versa -- the lighter "tap tap" ringing sound of the bongo drum cannot be made
by a large drum head. It's kind of like how a baby's voice could never be that of a basso male human, due to the smaller
size of the human baby's voice box. And a kitten's or puppy's small voice box doesn't sound like the voice
of a full grown animal.
Also, the bass notes, at the "bottom" of the piano are made from very thick,
long, strings, and the "top" notes are tiny and short. The long sound waves necessary for a bass note cannot be
produced by the short strings at the top.
The same is true for the guitar. The lowest pitched E on the guitar
is the thickest string. The tiniest diameter string is the high E of the guitar.
See the Guitar Scales diagram:
Guitar Scales
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