More about the physics

So I have some time today after actually a long time, and not too much to do, so I thought I would write something more in detail. I thought I must apologize, but the question is to whom? :-)

Actually I had started this blog a long time back, but today as I continue it, I have to say something quite important. Today is the day, I finally decided after consulting my guide that I will be doing my MSc. research in MUSIC!!! Its almost like a dream come true to me!!!

So as I had mentioned earlier, a musical note is essentially a periodic sound and it contains something called harmonics which may sound like some mumbo-jumbo. So in todays post I would like to explain what this harmonics is all about.

So, most people can find that a song sounds different from the other because it has a different tune. And from heresay from some musicians, we know that these tunes are made of sime discrete components called notes.

Now each note has different pitch (Many musicians may disagree with this statement because, the pitch that they refere to is the reference note of the whole/part of the composition. I shal explain that too later). As explained earlier, pitch is somewhat related to the frequency of the vibrations. However, the percieved pitch may be different from the fundamantal frequency.

I shall explain this a little more in detail. A sine wave is one of the simplest forms of periodic waves in many wave (more so mathematically). For those who do not know what a sine wave is, imagine the cross-section of the surface of water when a pebble is dropped into it. Now if we add another sine wave with a different frequency and possibly a different amplitude, we get a more complicated
waveform, which is nevertheless periodic.

Thus we can make more and more complicated periodic waveforms by adding sine waves to each other. Now if the subsequent sine waves that are added have frequencies which are multiples of the first wave, then the first wave is called the fundamental frequency.

Another way of looking at it is, the fundamental frequency is the Greatest Common Divisor (GCD) of all the frequency components that are present in any periodic waveform. Actually this definition is more accurate, because it may be possible that no component with the frequency equal to the GCD may actually be present in the waveform. And again the other frequency components will be some
(integral) multiples of the fundamental frequency, which are called 'Harmonics'.

Actually, the pitch is often comfused with the fundamental frequency because, it usually is the same. But studies have found that it may not always be the same. Thus pitch is an extremely perceptual phenomenon. Many researchers have tried to quantify it, but without heartening success.

I hope to study this phenomenon too during the course of my research and hope to provide some answers atleast to myself and to this blog.

More later, I am actually feeling sleepy. Its 2 in the night.