Piano string harmonics and chords

[cjheaford]

dude...GOT to get that piano tuned. It is futile to demonstrate harmonics when the 3-string unisons for each note are so badly out of tune. it even confused your scope!

[DrDaveBilliards]

@cjheaford

I call it "character." The piano has lots of "character." :)

[albedoshader]

Man, the E (5 times the original frequency) is badly out of tune.

[BankruptMonopoly]

autoscale ftw

[Gameboygenius]

That's obviously a HP 'scope from the looks of it, but which model exactly?

[DrDaveBilliards]

@Gameboygenius

HP 54602A Oscilloscope

[Gameboygenius]

@DrDaveBilliards I have (access to) a HP 54600A. Would you mind telling me how to access the spectrum analyzer, so I can check if "my" scope has it, the next time I have a chance to play with it.

BTW, speaking of spectral analysis, check view > spectral view in Audition for a bit of fun.

[DrDaveBilliards]

@Gameboygenius

If I remember right, it's under the "Math" or "Special Functions" menu under "FFT." Maybe you can find a manual online to see if your model supports this (and to find out how to access it).

Good luck.

[debunker1905]

"..and the reason why it sounds good is because the Fourier Series says it should.."

hah.

[DrDaveBilliards]

I know that's a geeky sentence.

Here's another geeky interpretation:

"Our brains just like hearing integer multiples of frequencies"

Is that any better (or worse)? :)

Dr. Dave

[Amishman35]

What you see on that scope is the bane of sampling keyboard manufacturers everywhere. In the days of the Amiga and Fairlight CMI, to get a higher note on the keyboard, it would play a recording of a low note on a piano at a higher sampling rate, but as you can see, the frequency distribution is different, and for a very long time (into the 2000s), electronic (sampling) keyboards didn't sound too much like a real piano.

[moneylipstick]

it is true that octaves in music are twice the frequency but is he implying that octaves are not always twice the frequency in other wavelength/spectrums??? like color?

[DrDaveBilliards]

Music octaves are 2X multiples. I'm not aware of this term being used elsewhere (e.g., with color).

Dr. Dave

[moneylipstick]

right i think it would be the same then just not the same term exactly. i've been working with modulating the color wavelengths into the sound spectrum and it is about 1.5 octaves versus sound being around 7.5, thx

[pyromohanzed]

"The entire visible spectrum exists in less than an octave's bandwidth"

[DrDaveBilliards]

Thanks for the info. That is certainly interesting. Does that mean our ears are better than our eyes????

[pyromohanzed]

Well I am trying to work on that sort of thing right now. But what i think is that colours are not the most important part of our vision sense. When you say better, you most likely mean more versatility in encoding/decoding information. Am i wrong? When it comes to information, you can go beyond colours : shadows, textures, patterns, symbols :--> throuhg these our eyes are "better" or just as good as our ears, but not when it comes to single colours, for now at least!

[DrDaveBilliards]

I wasn't really implying anything. I agree that our vision capabilities are much more powerful than our auditory capabilities. I also agree that the frequency range differences are not really important ... although, still interesting.

[carbiduis]

look at the electromagnetic wave spectrum it is one continuous band...if you double the frequency of a colors waves, you'll just move higher up in the spectrum, approaching different types of waves i.e., gamma rays, x-rays, infrared, microwaves, blacklight etc.

[paranoidjones]

@moneylipstick

octaves are a musical term based on the 7 tone Major scale ( the 8th being the vibration of the original tone at 2x the energy level) which is based on the overtone series of the Fundamental or Tonic chosen ( ie C in C Major) and the overtones of the overtones... a sonic phenomena that I'm sure does NOT correlate to how scientists etc. organize the light spectrum. Hope that helps.