Sounds of Music C

[Birdmusic]

Is it possible that calculus will be in this event? Neither my partner nor I have taken precalc yet (not offered at our school for our grade level), but we both know basic trig functions and basic logarithms.

[TheSquaad]

Is it possible that calculus will be in this event? Neither my partner nor I have taken precalc yet (not offered at our school for our grade level), but we both know basic trig functions and basic logarithms.

If I recall correctly, MIT had one instance of minor calculus (a single trig function). Considering that MIT is MIT and they often go overboard in difficulty, I wouldn’t worry about calculus too much.

[UTF-8 U+6211 U+662F]

Is it possible that calculus will be in this event? Neither my partner nor I have taken precalc yet (not offered at our school for our grade level), but we both know basic trig functions and basic logarithms.

If I recall correctly, MIT had one instance of minor calculus (a single trig function). Considering that MIT is MIT and they often go overboard in difficulty, I wouldn’t worry about calculus too much.

Don't worry about calculus.

[chrism]

The rules state that: "The pitch measurement will be the average value during the 5 seconds.". To me that means that the average will be taken from the entirety of the 5 seconds, and not what looks like the average fundamental.

My bad I thought you were asking from a competitors point of view. If you’re just trying to calibrate your own build then doing the crop thing works. From a proctors point of view I don’t think there’s anything they can really do short of taking the average over a time less than 5 seconds, which is clearly against the rules. No app will just magically not record 0 or strange overtones - it’ll be up to students to build a device that does its best to avoid this by sustaining the note for the entire 5 seconds without having to repeat it while keeping it at a volume that the app will register it at consistently.

It's more of a dear of inconsistency between different tournaments. Do you change the instrument to not have 0Hz as part of the average or do you find a fix to the problem and have all tournaments be the same. To me, having 0Hz as part of the average doesn't seem fair because it also depends on how well an Es's microphone pics up the frequency. There are just a lot of factors that should be figured out and be mentioned officially from Science Olympiad.

The rule clarification on 10/11 changing "best" to "average" opened up a whole host of issues. First, it is not specified how the average is calculated, i.e. how frequently should the app be set to take a reading?, should 0 Hz be included as part of the data set?

Second, the official event supervisor guide on soinc.org, refers to 2 suggested apps, the Accord Chromatic tuner (android only) and Google Science Journal. From our team's experience, the accord tuner only picks up sounds made by the instrument, not background noise or silence between "attacks" on the instrument in calculating the average. Google Science Journal picks up all background noise and silence, and in doing so, distorts the average to a point that it is possible for the same instrument to get a perfect pitch score with the Accord chromatic tuner, and a pitch score of 0 with Google Science Journal. For example, with Google Science Journal measuring 10x per second and a C4 note (262 Hz) that plays for 4.8 s with .2 s of silence, this would lead to a cents difference of 67 and a pitch score of 0.

It seems unlikely that the switch from "best" to "average" was made to over-emphasize the playing of sound over the entire 5 s interval, although that seems to be a major issue now.

Has anyone been to any invitationals and can speak of how the average was calculated and what app was used?

[TheSquaad]

My bad I thought you were asking from a competitors point of view. If you’re just trying to calibrate your own build then doing the crop thing works. From a proctors point of view I don’t think there’s anything they can really do short of taking the average over a time less than 5 seconds, which is clearly against the rules. No app will just magically not record 0 or strange overtones - it’ll be up to students to build a device that does its best to avoid this by sustaining the note for the entire 5 seconds without having to repeat it while keeping it at a volume that the app will register it at consistently.

It's more of a dear of inconsistency between different tournaments. Do you change the instrument to not have 0Hz as part of the average or do you find a fix to the problem and have all tournaments be the same. To me, having 0Hz as part of the average doesn't seem fair because it also depends on how well an Es's microphone pics up the frequency. There are just a lot of factors that should be figured out and be mentioned officially from Science Olympiad.

The rule clarification on 10/11 changing "best" to "average" opened up a whole host of issues. First, it is not specified how the average is calculated, i.e. how frequently should the app be set to take a reading?, should 0 Hz be included as part of the data set?

Second, the official event supervisor guide on soinc.org, refers to 2 suggested apps, the Accord Chromatic tuner (android only) and Google Science Journal. From our team's experience, the accord tuner only picks up sounds made by the instrument, not background noise or silence between "attacks" on the instrument in calculating the average. Google Science Journal picks up all background noise and silence, and in doing so, distorts the average to a point that it is possible for the same instrument to get a perfect pitch score with the Accord chromatic tuner, and a pitch score of 0 with Google Science Journal. For example, with Google Science Journal measuring 10x per second and a C4 note (262 Hz) that plays for 4.8 s with .2 s of silence, this would lead to a cents difference of 67 and a pitch score of 0.

It seems unlikely that the switch from "best" to "average" was made to over-emphasize the playing of sound over the entire 5 s interval, although that seems to be a major issue now.

Has anyone been to any invitationals and can speak of how the average was calculated and what app was used?

MIT used Sci Journal. I’d just prepare for the worst and use that as your tuning app.

I feel like this issue would be way less pronounced if they changed “average” to “mode.” I’m guessing they originally changed it from “best” to make sure the instrument is primarily hitting the desired pitch, and “mode” fixes that while also not having background noise or overtones screw the readings up.

[eagerlearner102]

Do any of you have suggestions about the binder? This is my first year doing a binder event, so how do I make sure my binder has everything I need without printing every single thing?
The UNSW website is pretty long.

[markuswso17]

Do any of you have suggestions about the binder? This is my first year doing a binder event, so how do I make sure my binder has everything I need without printing every single thing?
The UNSW website is pretty long.

I'd suggest printing everything you could where need to know as long as it's still organized into different sections and doesn't just repeat the same thing. After some time using the massive binder, you can start to take stuff out just because a lot will eventually be memorized. Then for the last binder you make, type as much of it as you can (in your own words) so that you memorize even more and have it make sense for you.

[UTF-8 U+6211 U+662F]

It's more of a dear of inconsistency between different tournaments. Do you change the instrument to not have 0Hz as part of the average or do you find a fix to the problem and have all tournaments be the same. To me, having 0Hz as part of the average doesn't seem fair because it also depends on how well an Es's microphone pics up the frequency. There are just a lot of factors that should be figured out and be mentioned officially from Science Olympiad.

The rule clarification on 10/11 changing "best" to "average" opened up a whole host of issues. First, it is not specified how the average is calculated, i.e. how frequently should the app be set to take a reading?, should 0 Hz be included as part of the data set?

Second, the official event supervisor guide on soinc.org, refers to 2 suggested apps, the Accord Chromatic tuner (android only) and Google Science Journal. From our team's experience, the accord tuner only picks up sounds made by the instrument, not background noise or silence between "attacks" on the instrument in calculating the average. Google Science Journal picks up all background noise and silence, and in doing so, distorts the average to a point that it is possible for the same instrument to get a perfect pitch score with the Accord chromatic tuner, and a pitch score of 0 with Google Science Journal. For example, with Google Science Journal measuring 10x per second and a C4 note (262 Hz) that plays for 4.8 s with .2 s of silence, this would lead to a cents difference of 67 and a pitch score of 0.

It seems unlikely that the switch from "best" to "average" was made to over-emphasize the playing of sound over the entire 5 s interval, although that seems to be a major issue now.

Has anyone been to any invitationals and can speak of how the average was calculated and what app was used?

MIT used Sci Journal. I’d just prepare for the worst and use that as your tuning app.

I feel like this issue would be way less pronounced if they changed “average” to “mode.” I’m guessing they originally changed it from “best” to make sure the instrument is primarily hitting the desired pitch, and “mode” fixes that while also not having background noise or overtones screw the readings up.

You can't really use mode with continuous data because you'll have to round it so that there are pitches with the same frequency, which might not be preferable.

[TheMysteriousMapMan]

Hi all,

Any idea what formulae, specifically, we should know, in addition to the conceptual information, for the test portion? I have a habit of making my binders good with concepts, but no so great in some of the math details.

Thanks for the help, in advance!

[Raleway]

Two cents (literally two things):

I feel like the average is quite possibly the WORST way to judge the pitch of an instrument. If the player starts off flat (or very flat) but is able to correct the pitch, it doesn't matter. The average is not a resistant measure of the center. Median would be better, but still, not great. Why not stick with the best? It's perfectly fine as it is and gives the player an opportunity to recover.

Building on that, I strongly believe those with perfect pitch have a strong inherent advantage over those without perfect pitch. It's my very strong opinion (and recommendation), that each note (obviously from the tuner) be played for about 3 seconds prior to the player actually playing the note. It levels the playing field better and gives those that aren't blessed with perfect pitch (like me) a more fair chance at getting a better pitch score.

TLDR:
1. Taking the average is terrible or any measure in that sense; the best is still the best
2. Play the in tune pitch before each note to mitigate the advantage of perfect pitch