Why do same notes from different musical instruments sound different?

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Why do same notes from different musical instruments sound different?

In: Engineering

5 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Although the have the same note, they have sound different because of a thing called “timbre” which is the thing that makes each sound unique. Think of the human voice as an instrument. 2 people can sing the same note, but they will sound different because if the different timbre of their voices. Hope that makes sense

Anonymous 0 Comments

The difference in sound quality you hear from different sources is called [*timbre*](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbre) (pronounced “tam-ber”).

Anonymous 0 Comments

If you looked at the wave on an oscilloscope the shape of the wave would be different, the amplitude and frequency are the same.

Anonymous 0 Comments

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Its like making lemonade. Everyone has a different lemonade recipe that makes different tasting lemon-drinks, but most of us can still recognize that its lemonade. Every musical instrument has a different mixture of sounds that it makes when we play it, but in the end most of us hear the same note.

Here’s a little music theory: When we play a note on an instrument, we are trying to create a sound with a specific pitch. This target is called the fundamental tone (or first harmonic). But when we pluck a string or blow air through a chamber, we actually create a mixture of tones (called overtones or higher harmonics) that accompany the fundamental tone. Each instrument has a different mixture that it makes, causing the overall note we hear to sound different. We call this quality the sound’s timbre.

[Here’s a video graphing the tones of different instruments playing the same C3 note.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRAXK4QKJ1Q) See how even though the note played is the same, the overtones (number, size, shape of the peaks on the right) are different.

[Andrew Huang does some neat demos in his video about harmonics.](https://youtu.be/Wx_kugSemfY)

* [At 3:27](https://youtu.be/Wx_kugSemfY?t=208), he compares the tones from a clarinet against a guitar.
* [At 5:35](https://youtu.be/Wx_kugSemfY?t=336), he plays with overtones to create different synth sounds.