VPMA93H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1-2: Brass Instrument, String Vibration, Percussion Instrument
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Lecture 1 reading: openstax article on timbre: http://cnx. org/contents/5612e514-585d-4327- abdf-d1a6aad41d6c@20/harmonic_series. The pitch depends on the main frequency of the sound; the higher the frequency, and shorter the wavelength of the sound waves, the higher the pitch is. When someone plays or sings a note, only a very particular set of frequencies is heard. Each note that comes out of the instrument is a smooth mixture of many different pitches which are called harmonics. They are blended together so well that you do not hear them as separate notes at all. Instead, the harmonics give the note its color. When a string vibrates, the main pitch you hear is from the vibration of the whole string back and forth. But the string also vibrates in halves, in thirds, fourths, and so on. Each of these fractions also produces a harmonic. The second harmonic has half the wavelength and twice the frequency of the first and so on.
