Klarinet Archive - Posting 000378.txt from 2001/02

From: Bilwright@-----.net (William Wright)
Subj: Re: [kl] Overtones
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 10:15:11 -0500

<><> Donna Higgins wrote:
I was reading an article recently about exercises to improve embouchure.
The method involved producing overtones. What exactly is an "overtone"
in this context?

Without having seen the article, most likely the article is
explaining that a musical instrument does not produce a 'single'
frequency when you play a note.
Our nervous system and ears are set up in such a way that we decide
the sound's pitch on the basis of the lowest frequency in the sound.
All the other frequencies affect our perception of the sound's 'timber'
or 'tone color' or 'tonal character.'
The lowest frequency (the frequency that we perceive as the 'pitch'
of the sound) is called the fundamental and the higher frequencies are
called overtones. Sometimes you will see the phrase 'upper partials'
instead of overtones.
Thus a string instrument and a horn can both play at the same pitch
(same fundamental frequency), but our brain and ears can tell the
difference between them because the overtones of each instrument are
completely different.

...and the point is: You can manipulate the overtones of your own
playing by changing your embouchure, such that your playing will have a
particular tonal character --- which we describe with such metaphors as
'dark', 'bright', 'focused', 'ragged', 'sparkling' and so forth because
nobody has (yet) been able to unravel the precise effect of different
overtone patterns --- except that most people agree that 'bright' means
to emphasize the higher overtones and 'dark' means the opposite.

The following web page has graphs that illustrate 'overtones':

http://hughes38.som.ohio-state.edu/spectra.htm

Cheers,
Bill

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