source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 3 Jan 1997 21:19:49 -0800 Subject: integral overtones From: Gary Morrison <71670.2576@compuserve.com> > Perhaps a string player on this list would like to comment: has anyone ever > encountered a ''nice uniform string''? Dan's point is certainly valuable, and very amusingly put, but I think personally that there's only so much validity to it. I spent several years working on a program that decomposes musical tones into envelopes of harmonics or near-harmonics. Based upon that experience, I really think it's fair to say that all of the common string and wind instruments have partials at frequencies sufficiently close to harmonics that, for the vast majority of musical purposes, they can be considered practically harmonic. You will find a fair number of subharmonics in those tones, by the way. Dan's point about very short notes is definitely an important caveat to that. But those have to be very short notes indeed. Of course bells, timpani, xylophones, and of course snare drums, for example, are an entirely different question altogether. The piano is definitely on the hairy edge, but still falls on the harmonic side. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 4 Jan 1997 06:55 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA00997; Sat, 4 Jan 1997 06:58:35 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA00995 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id VAA04711; Fri, 3 Jan 1997 21:58:33 -0800 Date: Fri, 3 Jan 1997 21:58:33 -0800 Message-Id: <32CDEFF9.6CD@ix.netcom.com> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu