I’ve been a clarinet player since I was about 9. But when I was like 16, I had a physics class on the science of acoustics. We used slinkies to create standing waves either fixed at both ends or moving at one end to understand the concept of a standing wave, and then diagrams to demonstrate different harmonics. The connections were so amazing to learn. Seeing the diagrams of a closed vs open pipe, and of a string, and the standing waves that can form in it, was so enlightening. I finally knew why my instrument overblew at an octave and a fifth but other instruments overblow at an octave.
It was years later thanks I’m pretty sure to a Reddit comment, that I additionally learnt that a cone also experiences every harmonic, just like an open pipe. Though I unfortunately never learnt the intuition behind how to explain that detail.
Of course, this all goes somewhat out the window when you realise that it’s possible on many instruments to bend the pitch smoothly and play out of tune—or correct your tuning. No idea how the physics behind that works with the model of standing waves with fixed nodes and antinodes.
I’ve been a clarinet player since I was about 9. But when I was like 16, I had a physics class on the science of acoustics. We used slinkies to create standing waves either fixed at both ends or moving at one end to understand the concept of a standing wave, and then diagrams to demonstrate different harmonics. The connections were so amazing to learn. Seeing the diagrams of a closed vs open pipe, and of a string, and the standing waves that can form in it, was so enlightening. I finally knew why my instrument overblew at an octave and a fifth but other instruments overblow at an octave.
It was years later thanks I’m pretty sure to a Reddit comment, that I additionally learnt that a cone also experiences every harmonic, just like an open pipe. Though I unfortunately never learnt the intuition behind how to explain that detail.
Of course, this all goes somewhat out the window when you realise that it’s possible on many instruments to bend the pitch smoothly and play out of tune—or correct your tuning. No idea how the physics behind that works with the model of standing waves with fixed nodes and antinodes.