Talk:Harmonic

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Contents 1 Integral multiple 2 subharmonics 3 Harmonic series 4 Partials 5 Article split 6 Notation + MIDI-Sound 7 Fourier

[edit] Integral multiple

It might be helpful to define integral multiple. I think I know what the authors mean, and would be happy to edit the page, but I don't want to jump to any incorrect conclusions. I'm not entirely sure.

I've put an example in. Hope that clears it up. -- Tarquin 20:31 Jan 16, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks, it clears things up perfectly. I'm a beginning graduate student in mathematics, and I use Wikipedia often because my background is in computer science, so thanks so much! -- Brittany

Like above, would anyone be willing to explain why we have an "itegral multiple" instead of just an "integer multiple." I guess I just don't really understand.

"Integral" is an adjective, while "integer" is a noun. Of course, in English, we can use nouns and adjectives but why bother when have the right kind of word already. ---Ben

It's just confusing because of the other uses of the word integral. - Omegatron

[edit] subharmonics

I don't understand how subharmonics can be generated from a wave. How are they numbered? - Omegatron 17:23, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC) >> Think of the opposite function, mutiplication instead of division. Wonders of acoustics allow us to hear lower octaves of fundamentals, as if the string would be twice as long<<

[edit] Harmonic series

In the article, what is presented as the harmonic series is the series of successive diminishing intervals between increasing numbers of harmonics. I think it makes much more sense to present them as a matrix of sub-tones in their relation to the fundamental! in which 1,2,4,8,16,32 are octaves of the Fundamental; 3,6,12,24 pure fifths; 5,10,20 natural major thirds; 7,14,28 natural minor sevenths; 9,18 major second, 11,22 natural augmented fourth; 13,26 flattened sixth; 15,30 major seventh. In every successive higher octave twice the amount of harmonics are found appearing as neighbouring tones between the octaves of previous numbers. If nr. 13 is a flattened sixth, double the number minus one gives 25, which is an even flatter sixth, just as 23 is an even sharper augmented fourth. martinspaink@yahoo.com

-- Yes, this is a good way of thinking about it. The table itself could use some cleaning.

[edit] Partials

One question from a German native speaker: in german, "partials" is the same as "harmonics", i.e. integer multiples of the base frequency. In this article here partials are regarded the "non-harmonics". Is that so, or is it just an asumption? In the Harmonic series (music) partials are used just as harmonics.

The terms are used to mean different things. Keep in mind that there are complex sounds, such as the ringing of bells, where there are non-harmonic components (component frequencies that are not whole number multiples of the lowest or fundamental frequency). One possible consistent usage would be to define a partial as any component of a complex sound and a harmonic as a partial that is a whole number multiple of a fundamental frequency.

[edit] Article split

This article talks about two different concepts:

• the technical/telecommunication side, which is basically the same thing as the article on Overtone
• the musical term "Harmonic mode" / "Flageolet tone"

I suggest we merge the former with Overtone and move the remainder to "Harmonic mode" or "Flageolet tone" to make the distinction clearer. Comments? Peter S. 16:05, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notation + MIDI-Sound

[[1]] Notation und MIDI-Sound --88.73.222.2 08:21, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fourier

I removed the passage that said "Harmonics come from the fact that any periodic signal of frequency f is mathematically equivalent to the sum of harmonic signals (sine-like or cosine-like signals) of integer frequencies (f, 2f, 3f...) — see Fourier decomposition." This is misleading, and doesn't actually help in understanding how harmonics arise. Not all periodic signals contain harmonics (Fourier notwithstanding). The significance is more the other way around: because of this property of Fourier series, the sum of a signal and its harmonics is always periodic at the signal frequency. Whether all of the harmonics are resonant in the resonator producing the signal depends on the design of the resonator (damping as a function of frequency, etc.) --Srleffler 02:50, 10 March 2007 (UTC)