If “Bob” was singing an F-sharp, and “Lisa” was also singing an F-sharp, shouldn’t they sound the same? After all, they’re singing at the same pitch, and the same note, are they not?
In: Biology
They’re not singing the same waveform (the pattern of pressure squiggles that makes up their sound).
The “note” is the primary frequency, the dominant one. If they’re both singing F-sharp (at the same octave) then they have the same primary frequency, otherwise they’d be out of tune.
But sound is far more than one frequency…outside very specialized instruments, like a tuning fork, there will be multiple harmonic and subharmonics and other frequencies, all with different amplitudes (strengths). The unique mix is why different instruments and different voices don’t sound the same when singing the same note.
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