Overtone - what is it in the musical concept

To understand the concept of a word like the overtone, you first need to listen to it or sing it, since it is an additional sound or a sound that is above the basic tone, sung by a voice or played on some musical instrument. The musical term overtone is a kind of ornament of natural natural sound.

History of classification of overtone

In Europe, no one paid much attention to the additional sounds that were extracted on musical instruments. But everyone knew perfectly well that they heard additional sounds. This sound is the overtone, what it is and how it is designated, let's try to figure it out.

At one time, the classification of overtones was dealt with by Professor Keizerling and his student named Ralph Rowing, who even surpassed his teacher, improving the concept of overtones. In doing so, he even wrote music based on this unique scale.

Harmonic and nonharmonic overtones

Surely, many know that there are sounds that cause positive or negative emotions. Here they are the overtones. It is believed that the lowest sounds of the hum type refer to "bad" sounds. But the overtones and sounds in the upper range act on a person soothing. Then consider the overtone - what kind of sound, and how it affects a person.

Overtones can not be imagined without some additional terms. This applies to their varieties. The meaning of the word overtone is general and includes two main categories by which overtones are classified.

There is also such a thing as a harmonic overtone. What is it, it is necessary to understand. In the world of music and the study of sound vibrations in physics harmonic overtones, it is customary to call additional sounds of the upper range, whose frequency is a multiple of the fundamental frequency. The joint sound in music theory is called harmonic.

In some cases, the frequency of the vibrations of the overtones may exceed the limits of the multiplicity by the fundamental tone. Here the concept of a non-harmonic overtone is applied. What it is? In fact, this is too much difference in the sound of the main and secondary sounds, which can occur, for example, when vibrating massive strings.

The most popular in the musical sense are harmonic overtones, the multiplicity of which is expressed by regular and irregular fractions. The second option is used for instruments without a specific tone, for example, for drums. Here you also need to consider the amplitude of the sound, which is often confused with loudness, and the frequency of vibration, and resonance.

The meaning of overtones in music

The use of overtones in the musical plan is difficult to overestimate. Indeed, it is thanks to them that you can observe a wide range of timbres of instruments. If all the sounds on the musical instrument did not have overtones, we would simply not distinguish them. Each sound would be similar one to another. It is clear that emotionally, such sounds will not cause any moral satisfaction.

It is from a musical point of view answering the question: the overtone that this, you can give a lot of vivid examples of how the overtones can adorn the sound of the instrument. So guitarists very often use the tricks of the game, called artificial flajulets. Moreover, if such a sound is extracted on a guitar using effects such as Fuzz, Drive or Overdrive, the overtones are significantly enhanced. In addition, different overtones can be obtained by extracting the wavelets on different sections of the neck.

If we take history, then overtones were given a special preference in ancient China. The Chinese treated very scrupulously to the tuning of musical instruments and sound production. In principle, they did not have the concept of overtones, but they felt the emerging harmony on a purely intuitive level.

The role of overtones in tuning instruments

The overtone tone is of great importance for tuning instruments. Of course, you can use special devices, called tuners. But the same professional piano tuners never use them, because they used to rely only on their own unique ears. When tuning, they perceive by hearing a difference, from which several strings sound when struck by a hammer.

In the lower registers there are two strings per key. In the upper octaves - three. One can only imagine how subtle the perception of sound should be in the tuner, in order to hear a subtle difference in amplitude and sounding overtones.

The same can be said about professional guitarists who use the technique of building a tool based on comparing natural flajolets, extracted on neighboring strings (usually on the fifth fret).

Vocal overtones

The overtones of the voice, as well as the overtones obtained on musical instruments, play one of the key roles for the transmission of all emotional vocal tones. This is understandable. After all, the human voice is the most interesting tool of natural origin. And it is not subject to adjustment. Here you just need to learn how to use it with the help of a variety of singing techniques.

Probably, many of us paid attention to the strong vibration of the voice of opera singers. It is at this moment that additional harmonics-overtones can be heard. Only with vocals you need to be very careful, because if the voice is incorrectly put, there can be a situation where it will sound somewhat false. To avoid this, you can use quite a lot of techniques for teaching singing. And spend it will have more than one month or a year. But, when a person has learned this, listening to his performance of a song will be a real pleasure, from which the spirit captures.