You Are Reading the First 6 FREE Chapters (470 pages)
Fundamental Frequency and Properties of Overtones/Harmonics
Whether you realize it or not, when you pluck the string, at the same time as the string vibrates at 261.6 Hz, the string also automatically divides itself in half. The two halves vibrate at exactly twice the frequency, 523.2 Hz. You can’t see this—the string vibrates way, way too fast for the naked eye to see. You observe only a blur.
This secondary high-speed vibration, at a frequency of 523.2 Hz, also produces a tone, of course. But that tone has a considerably higher pitch than Middle C. The secondary tone is called a harmonic or overtone.
A harmonic or overtone has two properties:
- It’s higher in pitch than the original (261.6 Hz) tone, and
- It’s way softer in volume than the original (261.6 Hz) tone.
Now, with overtones in the picture, the original tone needs a name to distinguish it from the overtones. That name is the fundamental. You can think of the fundamental as the primary tone, and the overtone as secondary, because it’s softer. The overtone is so soft that the much louder sound of the full-length string vibrating at 261.6 Hz, the fundamental, drowns out the overtone. (In a few situations—when playing an electric bass, for example—an overtone can sound louder than the fundamental. But that’s the exception to the rule.)