It's clear now why the alphabet is in a high register (register meaning musically to higher pitches), because it's in the first tone. The fact that all the tones except one seem to be sharp notes is truly fascinating.

I can't believe that no one talks about this! The tones themselves seem like a natural thing to do in a language to me. Americans do it too. The emotional meaning of a word can change with the movement of pitch and tone. We can say the word "right" in many different ways to mean different things. Sarcasm for instance goes from a low pitch up and then down again. Tones themselves make sense to my ear. Why not use tones to mean different things? We do it too.

I analyzed my own voice saying the English alphabet and it is all approximately spoken at around a natural G. My own regular voice rarely hits a sharp note in English. The interesting thing is that the Mandarin teachers also speak English in natural tones. Maybe the better you get at a language the more you absorb the pitches of that language too. It makes me want to analyze Chinese speakers who are brand new to English to see if that is part of what makes the language sound more different or why they don't sound quite right in English yet? I know that in Spanish certain places the people speak generally louder than others. Why not have places in the world that speak mostly in sharps?

I don't think it's learning to write or learning pinyin itself or tones that would be the biggest challenge to me in Mandarin. It would be staying in those pitches for the vast majority of the time.

I'm going to think long and hard on this. I will have to decide how far out of my comfort zone I want to go for my next language.

I can't thank you enough Amy for the trouble you went through to help me.

Amy - How INCREDIBLY SWEET of you to do that for me!

Sorry I haven't been on my computer again until now to hear that you did that. Wow. You are a darling person. 

That was very useful and interesting! You also say the alphabet only in C sharp or D sharp in either fast or slow mode. How wild is that!? All the different tones seem to be sharp except the last one that falls into a natural note. 

It's like the Chinese language is spoken in such a radically different key structure than the western ear is used to. It seems from your example that it's not only the alphabet! It's all the tones except the lowest. 

Great audio Amy. I realize that you made it for Dorothy but it is reassuring that I can read some of your writing and understand even you speak at a normal speed. 

[ Continuation from the last response] 

The second example is assuming these were real Chinese character sounds since a sentence typically has different variations. I put in some random tone marks. So let's hear it.
b1 b3 p2 f4 f3 m1 m1 p3 b4 f1

Now, let's hear a real paragraph in Chinese. First, I am going to say everything in first tone (the tone used in the alphabet teaching). Followed by a correct way of saying it.

Example one:
I cannot do this example with a normal speed. So it is in a bit slower than usual.

Character: 你好。 我叫艾米。 我现在在上大学。 我喜欢学习语言。
Pinyin: Nǐ hǎo. Wǒ jiào ài mǐ. Wǒ xiàn zài zài shàng dà xué. Wǒ xǐ huan xué xí yǔ yán.
Translation: Hello. I am Amy. I am in college. I like learning languages.

The correct way to say it (I will do a slow speed and a natural speed)

Slow speed: [see audio clip: http://linbb.com/2d]

Natural speed: [see audio clip: http://linbb.com/2d]

Here is a pitch diagram that seems to best describe the concept here. First tone is high-pitch sound, so every one of the teachers is hitting the first tone mark.

http://linbb.com/2pi
Credit to LearnChineseEveryday.com

Oh yeah, looks like my mind didn't want me to fall asleep until I solve this (or at least attempt to solve it). I hope this helps. Good luck!

I hope this audio response will help you :D
Audio link: http://linbb.com/2d

Transcript: 

Hello Dorothy, this a really interesting question, so I really hope I can help you out. I won't be able to explain them in term of musical notes. But I hope by grouping the following examples together for you, you will be able to analyze the content on your own and figure out an answer.

Now, I would like to say that I don't know which voice classification my voice falls under. I tried to find it on YouTube but had no luck.

I have to say that even though I said let's get off the topic of tones, it looks like we will have to touch on tones in order to explain this question.

Let's take a quick look at the four tones. I am using numbers to label the tone marks. (1 means first tone, 2 means second tone and so on)

I want to use the first alphabet letter, which is b. So let's hear it.

b1 b2 b3 b4

Now, let's look at the first four letters of the alphabet. As May has mentioned, when teaching the alphabet, the teachers are using the first tone. So every alphabet is said in the first tone. Some even make the sound longer (probably to make it easier for beginner to pick up?) I will do an demonstration of the first four alphabets in slow mode (longer sound) and a normal mode (which is how it is said naturally).

Slow mode
b p m f

Normal mode
b p m f

Ok, so what about spoken Chinese? Let's use these four sounds in a sentence (this sentence is not real). I am going to show you two examples.

The first example is everything is in the first tone,
b b p f f m m p b f