![harmonic waves harmonic waves](https://s3mn.mnimgs.com/img/shared/ck-files/ck_57d43cdeba875.png)
So how can you produce a tone? Let's say you have a sound wave trap (for now, don't worry about what it looks like), and you keep sending more sound waves into it.
![harmonic waves harmonic waves](https://learnqa.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/images/16099758101581082201609975810.png)
A tone is a very regular set of waves, all the same size and same distance apart. That's why we can talk about the frequency and wavelength of tones.Ī noise is a jumble of sound waves. But to be a tone - a sound with a particular pitch - a group of sound waves has to be very regular, all exactly the same distance apart. Why are trapped waves useful for music? Any bunch of sound waves will produce some sort of noise.
![harmonic waves harmonic waves](https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/mlc-downloads/downloads/submissions/49533/versions/3/screenshot.jpg)
Musical instruments take advantage of this they produce pitches by trapping sound waves. In fact, you can "trap" waves by making them bounce back and forth between two or more surfaces. Normally, when something makes a wave, the wave travels outward, gradually spreading out and losing strength, like the waves moving away from a pebble dropped into a pond.īut when the wave encounters something, it can bounce (reflection) or be bent (refraction). Most sound waves, including the musical sounds that actually reach our ears, are not standing waves. So the properties of these standing waves, which are always produced in very specific groups, or series, have far-reaching effects on music theory. What kinds of sounds are these? They are tones caused by standing waves produced in or on the instrument. So the physics of music is the physics of the kinds of sounds these instruments can make. Musical tones are produced by musical instruments, or by the voice, which, from a physics perspective, is a very complex wind instrument.