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Traditionally in Western music, a musical tone is a steady periodic sound. A musical tone is characterized by its duration, pitch, intensity (or loudness), and timbre (or quality). [1] The notes used in music can be more complex than musical tones, as they may include aperiodic aspects, such as attack transients, vibrato, and envelope modulation.
For example, the sound of a piano is produced by striking strings, and the sound of a violin is produced by bowing. All musical sounds have their fundamental frequency and overtones. Fundamental frequency is the lowest frequency in harmonic series. In a periodic signal, the fundamental frequency is the inverse of the period length.
In most pitched musical instruments, the fundamental (first harmonic) is accompanied by other, higher-frequency harmonics. Thus shorter-wavelength, higher-frequency waves occur with varying prominence and give each instrument its characteristic tone quality. The fact that a string is fixed at each end means that the longest allowed wavelength ...
HF's position in the electromagnetic spectrum.. High frequency (HF) is the ITU designation [1] for the band of radio waves with frequency between 3 and 30 megahertz (MHz). It is also known as the decameter band or decameter wave as its wavelengths range from one to ten decameters (ten to one hundred meters).
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.
In atonal, twelve tone, or musical set theory, a "pitch" is a specific frequency while a pitch class is all the octaves of a frequency. In many analytic discussions of atonal and post-tonal music, pitches are named with integers because of octave and enharmonic equivalency (for example, in a serial system, C ♯ and D ♭ are considered the ...
Examples of exceptions include the circular drum – a timpani whose first overtone is about 1.6 times its fundamental resonance frequency, [5] gongs and cymbals, and brass instruments. The human vocal tract is able to produce highly variable amplitudes of the overtones, called formants, which define different vowels. [6]
In general, frequency components of a sound determine its "color", its timbre. When speaking about the frequency (in singular) of a sound, it means the property that most determines its pitch. [6] Higher pitches have higher frequency, and lower pitches are lower frequency. The frequencies an ear can hear are limited to a specific range of ...