Mel Vs. Hertz

As frequency in Hertz increases, larger intervals are judged by listeners to produce equal increments.

**Figure 1:** Mel scale vs. Hertz scale.
$\scalebox{.6}{\includegraphics{eps/melvsHz.eps}}$

Above 500 Hz, 2 octaves in Hz comprise about 1 octaves in mels.

Keyboard warped to match ``equal'' steps on the mel scale shows narrower keys at low frequencies.

**Figure 2:** Warped keyboard depicting the mel scale.
$\scalebox{.5}{\includegraphics{eps/warpedkeyboard.eps}}$

``Music 175: Pitch II'' by Tamara Smyth, Department of Music, University of California, San Diego (UCSD).