Timeline for If all harmonics are generated by plucking, how does a guitar string produce a pure frequency sound?
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14 events
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| May 26, 2021 at 21:07 | comment | added | benrg | This answer is completely wrong. The waveform is not periodic (because the harmonic frequencies are not exact integer multiples of the base frequency) and periodicity of a wave form has nothing to do with its perception as a single tone. The ear doesn't work that way, at all. | |
| Mar 4, 2019 at 17:14 | comment | added | Barmar | "you humans"? Was this answer generated by a robot? | |
| Mar 4, 2019 at 16:21 | comment | added | Cort Ammon | I feel like all the comments point out a warning that may be needed in the post: If you're interested in the physics answer, it's short, sweet, and involves superposition. If you're interested in how instruments are tuned, you can engage in a multiple-year apprenticeship to learn how one type of instrument is turned. If you're really interested, you can devote your life to studying how to tune one individual Stradivarius violin (each one of them has its own distinct personality that must come through) | |
| Mar 4, 2019 at 11:34 | comment | added | Hagen von Eitzen | One could also note that there is a wide spectrum (pun not intended) from quite pure-sounding to almost noise-like instruments that still can be tuned (e.g., drums), but their overtones (aka. eigenfrequencies) are not integer multiples of the fundamental | |
| Mar 3, 2019 at 14:12 | comment | added | Vincent Fraticelli | As indicated, it is a complicated subject. On a first approach, you can consider that adjusting the tension just fix the frequency of the fundamental: the pitch of the sound. The way you pluck the string, the fixation of the string to the guitar, the fixation to the soundboard .....fix the proportion of harmonics which is related to the timbre of the note. | |
| Mar 3, 2019 at 13:53 | comment | added | Solidification | @VincentFraticelli When you say "... you adjust the tension of the rope to get the right note", you mean to fix the fundamental and overtones. So different sounds come from different string because they have different fundamentals and overtones. Am I getting it right? | |
| Mar 3, 2019 at 13:49 | comment | added | Nelson | Tuning a piano is not merely calculations. Also, the nature of a piano does not mean that you tune every note to a precise frequency. You really only tune A to 440. The rest of the piano you tune to the "maximum allowed", that is, maximum that the harmonics allow you to tune to until it sounds "out of tune". Piano tuners are trained to hear exactly what that is and can count the pulses between overlapping base note, 1st harmonic, and 2nd harmonic. | |
| Mar 3, 2019 at 11:22 | comment | added | Vincent Fraticelli | Basically, for a guitar, the different strings have a different linear density. Then you adjust the tension of the rope to get the right note. The basic formula is $f=\frac{1}{2L}\sqrt{\frac{T}{\lambda }}$ In reality, things are of course more complicated. Because of the stiffness of the string, the modes are not strictly harmonic. A physicist alone could not tune a piano! | |
| Mar 3, 2019 at 11:18 | vote | accept | Solidification | ||
| Mar 3, 2019 at 10:25 | comment | added | John Rennie | @mithusengupta123 the string linear density also changes. The high strings are thinner than the low strings. Also the position of the string relative to the guitar body will matter because a lot of the sound comes from vibrations induced in the guitar body. | |
| Mar 3, 2019 at 10:23 | comment | added | Solidification | OK. I think that the only parameter than can change from one string to another is the tension T because the length L is same for all strings. That can change the fundamental and overtones from one string to another. Not very sure though | |
| Mar 3, 2019 at 10:13 | comment | added | John Rennie | @mithusengupta123 That's probably better asked on the Music SE. The details of what overtones are produced will be a complicated function of lots of factors like the string density and it's position wrt the body of the guitar. Predicting the frequency spectrum from first principles using physics is impossibly hard. I guess some form of numerical finite element calculation would be needed. | |
| Mar 3, 2019 at 10:06 | comment | added | Solidification | I think I may ask a related question here. What it means to tune a detuned guitar and why do different strings make different sounds? | |
| Mar 3, 2019 at 9:21 | history | answered | John Rennie | CC BY-SA 4.0 |