What determines the sound quality of a musical instrument?
The primary contributers to the quality or timbre of the sound of a musical instrument are harmonic content, attack and decay, and vibrato. For sustained tones, the most important of these is the harmonic content, the number and relative intensity of the upper harmonics present in the sound.
What are overtones used for?
The term overtone is used to refer to any resonant frequency above the fundamental frequency. The note played is the Fundamental or “Root” note and this note creates a standing wave along the length of the string or the length of the instrument depending on the instrument.
What is the effect produced when a musical instrument vibrates?
All musical instruments create sound by causing matter to vibrate. The vibrations start sound waves moving through the air. Most musical instruments use resonance to amplify the sound waves and make the sounds louder. Resonance occurs when an object vibrates in response to sound waves of a certain frequency.
What is significant about the fundamental harmonic?
The reason a fundamental is also considered a harmonic is because it is 1 times itself. The fundamental is the frequency at which the entire wave vibrates. Overtones are other sinusoidal components present at frequencies above the fundamental.
What affects sound quality?
The sound quality of a reproduction or recording depends on a number of factors, including the equipment used to make it, processing and mastering done to the recording, the equipment used to reproduce it, as well as the listening environment used to reproduce it.
How are overtones created?
Overtone, in acoustics, tone sounding above the fundamental tone when a string or air column vibrates as a whole, producing the fundamental, or first harmonic. If it vibrates in sections, it produces overtones, or harmonics.
Why are different types of overtones used in different instruments?
The same happens when the piano key is played, and the differences in physical properties of these instruments lend to different combinations and relative strengths of overtones, creating the different timbre or sound quality that allows you to distinguish between the two instruments.
How does quality affect a musical instrument’s quality?
In turn, the relationship between a quality musical instrument and its sound and tone quality should also be linear: the better the instrument, the better the sound quality that it can produce. It would also be reasonable to expect a linear relationship between build quality in an instrument and its price.
Why do different notes sound different in an instrument?
The main factor that causes different sounds in an instrument is the harmonic frequencies and overtones that an instrument outputs on notes, with other factors such as material affecting this factor. A vibrating string does not produce a single frequency, but a mixture of fundamental frequencies and overtones.
When do overtones and harmonics occur in a sound wave?
These may happen at harmonics only, or at specific harmonics only or at other values entirely. Consider the example of standing sound waves in an open pipe (or the vibrating string): In this case, harmonics and overtones are the same. With a closed pipe, however, overtones only occur at odd harmonics.