— PURE SOUND — An Examination Of Pure Tones In Musical Instruments Objective: We are trying to look at the “perfect pitch”, or what pure sound looks like when Results: What did we find? viewed as sound waves. We are also looking at the overtones of the notes F and B♭ As we analyzed the data we collected from the program and we’re seeing how the sound waves of these notes compare to their overtones. All we found that the overtones were the frequencies about of this is done to try and see what the purest sound looks like when represented by a the fundamental note with the greatest amplitude. These visual sound wave. frequencies are indicated by the red arrows. Since we Background: Overtones are looking for the instrument that releases the purest The term overtone is used to refer to any resonant frequency above the fundamental sound, that instrument would be the one with the least frequency. The note played is the Fundamental or “Root” note and this note creates amount of overtones being created. That instrument would have the purest sound because it produces the a standing wave along the length of the string or the length of the instrument least frequencies. The Flute had the least overtones depending on the instrument. The overtones are standing waves that fit inside the and thus is the purest. length of the fundamental standing wave looking something like this: 9 Gordon’s Voice 8 Violin 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 overtone Flute Root Trumpet A trained ear can hear these different frequencies even when only the root note is being played. You will notice in the figure above that each overtone adds one half wave length, these shorter wavelengths resonate in the instrument at the same time. Methodology: What did we do? Relevance: Piano French Horn First, we determined that we would select several As we have discussed longitudinal instruments and collect recordings of them playing waves in class, it was interesting to on a concert F and B♭. We chose these pitches see this concept applied to music. It because they are commonly used for tuning is easy to predict where the instruments. The instruments we chose were overtones will be based on the Saxophone Guitar location where the wave and the Gordon’s voice, trumpet, piano, saxophone, violin, Buzz Sound flute, guitar, and french horn. Then we used a reflected wave intersect. program that could identify all of the frequencies being produced. Steven Boyce, Gordon Bowns, Erin Horton The Program used was Audio Function Analyzer EQ Rta.