Musical Soundwaves

[David Smith]

Terry, although I am a rookie's rookie as a piano technician, I do have 
education and experience in acoustics and engineering, so here is my shot at 
your querry.

When different instruments or voices produce the same fundamental tone, they 
all differ in many other ways which our ears interpret for us.  For example, 
differences in attack (beginning of the sound), release ending of the 
sound), frequency content (overtones, etc included in the sound in different 
proportions), degree of inharmonicity, vibrato, phasing as it reaches the 
two ears, and probably on and on.

Having spent many years workng with frequency and fourier analysers in a 
previous life, I noticed that many things can sound indistinguishable from 
each other, if you filter out the attack and just listen at a filtered 
fundamental frequency.  It is all the other "small" things that make all the 
difference.

Hope this helps without offending due to my simplistic thoughts.  Somewhere 
in my moldering boxes of books is a rigorous explanation which I would be 
happy to dig out if no one else fills that need.

Dave Smith


>From: "Farrell" <mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com>
>Reply-To: pianotech@ptg.org
>To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
>Subject: Musical Soundwaves
>Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 09:10:24 -0400
>
>Why does a flute sound like a flute? Why does an obo sound like an obo? Why 
>does a guitar sound like a guitar? And last, but certainly not least, why 
>does a piano sound like a piano?
>
>Does anyone have a simplistic explanation for what is the cause of unique 
>sounds/tones among various instruments? If you play A4 at a pitch of 440 Hz 
>on any instument, you will hear the pitch of 400 Hz. But they will all 
>sound different. So I guess they all do something different to the 
>soundwave that reaches your ear. What is that difference? How does a 
>speaker reproduce these differences of they only move in and out?
>
>Thanks for any thoughts.
>
>Terry Farrell
>
>
>




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