Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: Plucked strings



William Beaty wrote:

On Mon, 3 Jul 2000, David Abineri wrote:

Am I correct in explaining string instruments, to say that a string
actually vibrates in many modes simultaneously when bowed or plucked?
That is, is it producing its fundamental along with several harmonics
all at the same time?

Yes, but the phase of the various frequencies is important, with the

I don't know haw many of you have heard of Ohm's law - his *other*
law, that is, Ohm's law of acoustics. From "Science and Music" by
Sir James Jeans (1937):

"The timbre depends only on the relative energies of the various
harmonics and not on their phase-differences. Differences of phase
produce no effect on the ear. This is known as Ohm's law, having
been discovered by G. S. Ohm (1787-1854), the discoverer of the
still better known electrical law."

So James Jeans says you're wrong, Bill, but I confess that my own
experiments on this topic also indicated to me that phase affects
timbre. I made a set of tapes intended to demonstrate Ohm's law
and found them very unconvincing.

Leigh