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The Railsback curve shows how a piano tuned to compensate for inharmonicity deviates from theoretically correct equal-tempered tuning. The Railsback curve, first measured in the 1930s by O.L. Railsback, a US college physics teacher, expresses the difference between inharmonicity-aware stretched piano tuning, and theoretically correct equal-tempered tuning in which the frequencies of successive ...
The fourth harmonic vibrates at four times the frequency of the fundamental and sounds a perfect fourth above the third harmonic (two octaves above the fundamental). Double the harmonic number means double the frequency (which sounds an octave higher). An illustration in musical notation of the harmonic series (on C) up to the 20th harmonic.
Likewise, if a string tuned to 220 Hz (with a harmonic at 440 Hz) is played together with a string tuned at 442 Hz, the same 2 Hz beat is heard. [4] Because pianos typically have multiple strings for each piano key, these strings must be tuned to the same frequency to eliminate beats.
In most musical instruments, the tone-generating component (a string or resonant column of air) vibrates at many frequencies simultaneously: a fundamental frequency that is usually perceived as the pitch of the note, and harmonics or overtones that are multiples of the fundamental frequency and whose wavelengths therefore divide the tone-generating region into simple fractional segments (1/2 ...
However, when a string is struck or plucked, as with a piano string that is struck by its hammer, a violin string played pizzicato, or a guitar string that is plucked by a finger or plectrum, the string will exhibit inharmonicity. The inharmonicity of a string depends on its physical characteristics, such as tension, stiffness, and length. For ...
This list of frequencies is for a theoretically ideal piano. On an actual piano, the ratio between semitones is slightly larger, especially at the high and low ends, where string stiffness causes inharmonicity, i.e., the tendency for the harmonic makeup of each note to run sharp.
Vibration, standing waves in a string. The fundamental and the first 5 overtones in the harmonic series. A vibration in a string is a wave. Resonance causes a vibrating string to produce a sound with constant frequency, i.e. constant pitch. If the length or tension of the string is correctly adjusted, the sound produced is a musical tone.
For example, higher "harmonics" of piano notes are not true harmonics but are "overtones" and can be very sharp, i.e. a higher frequency than given by a pure harmonic series. This is especially true of instruments other than strings, brass, or woodwinds. Examples of these "other" instruments are xylophones, drums, bells, chimes, etc.; not all ...