Interesting responses. Fairly consistent. Thanks to all. I'm surprised its that simple. Oboe. Oboe. Oboe. OK, now I know how to spell it (never did hang around orchestras much). One further question before I go get a book on the topic. What part of the piano is the greatest influence on its sound? More specifically, to what degree is the soundboard responsible for the piano-like sound pianos make. Even bad pianos with even worse soundboards still sound quite a bit like a piano, maybe a bad piano, but still quite a bit like a piano (you can easily tell it is not a flute). Is it mostly the hammers and strings, or perhaps more likely, it is the hammers, strings, soundboard, rim, etc. - everything combined. This may seem like a dumb question, but one response indicated that it seemed that a saxophone (thanks spell checker) sound was largely caused by the mouthpiece rather than the rest of the horn. Is there any chance the soundboard may well play a big role in helping us hear the piano wires (by acting as a transducer), but not actually have a whole lot to do with the "piano sound". I'll try and stop asking questions............. if someone can answer the above! :-) Terry Farrell ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Smith" <dsmith941@hotmail.com> To: <pianotech@ptg.org> Sent: Friday, August 02, 2002 9:59 AM Subject: Re: Musical Soundwaves > 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 > > > > > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com > >
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