what makes the pitch of a guitar? If you use a rubber band there’s also different pitches but they don’t have frets

Question

what makes the pitch of a guitar? If you use a rubber band there’s also different pitches but they don’t have frets

In: Physics

Answer 1

Sounds is basically just vibrations in the air. When you strum the string of a guitar, just like if you hit a rubber band, it vibrates and those vibrations travel through the air until they reach you as sound.

Tightening the string with the tuning knobs changes how easily a string can vibrate when you hit it, and so does pressing your finger into the string at certain points. Strings of different thicknesses will also vibrate differently.

The frets themselves don’t really have much to do with it, those are mostly just to mark where to press on the string to get it vibrate a certain way.