Today’s topic is a simple solution to a complicated problem. The complicated problem is how to estimate “pitch range” in recordings of human speakers. As for the simple solution — wait and see.

You might think that the many differences between the perceptual variable of pitch and the physical variable of fundamental frequency (“f0“) arise because perception is complicated and physics is simple. But if so, you’d be mostly wrong. The biggest problem is that physical f0 is a complex and often fundamentally incoherent concept. And even in the areas where f0 is well defined, f0 estimation (usually called “pitch tracking“) is prone to errors.