How does sound have “texture”? How does a piano sound different from a clarinet when they play the same tone?
In: Physics
When we say that a note is C, most people believe that it is just one frequency *f*. However, *f* is also accompanied by its multiples, *2f*, *3f*, *4f* and so on.
Of course, not all of them have equal loudness. So, for flute, *f* might be 20 times louder than *2f*, whereas for a clarinet, it might be that *f* is only 2 times louder than *2f*.
If we complete a set of these loudness weight compared to the ratio of base frequency *f*, we will get a set of infinite numbers like (1, 0.05 (1/20 for flute as in the example above), 0.009, 0.0001…). Number become almost zero for high frequencies. Different instruments have different sets, similar sounding instruments will have more similarity than completely different sounding instruments. (This is called timbre)
EDIT: Numbers are just for the sake of examples, I don’t know exact ones.
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