So if an A is 440hz, why does a piano playing an A sound different than a violin, a guitar, or someone’s voice making that same A 440 note? It’s obvious that the pitch is the same on each instrument but each instrument has a distinct sound. I’ve never heard an A on a piano and thought, is that a piano or a cello. Why can we distinguish between instruments?
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The overtone patterns that different instruments produce are an important part of the picture. Clarinets and Oboes have very similar sound production, but sound distinctly different because Clarinets are “missing” half of the prominent overtones compared to an oboe.
But the way that the sound changes over time is also very important component. When you pluck a guitar string, the snapping back produces a bunch of random fluctuations, which we interpret as unpitched noise (but only for a few milliseconds). But as the string vibrates, the vibration acts as a filter that dampens overtones, so as the sound decays, it not only gets quieter, but trends closer to a pure sine wave.
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