Another Slight Diversion: Where Do Music Notes Come From?

I’d been thinking about what interesting weather fact to blog on next, when yesterday some local students came into the flower shop.  It turns out that one was an aspiring guitar player so (killing time and not wanting to clean vases) I asked her if she knew where the notes of the scales came from.

As she was trapped waiting for my wife to make a flower arrangement for her friend’s mother, I could mercilessly quiz her.  I though that an aspiring guitar player should (at least) know where the notes came from she was playing so aptly (as I imagined).

After she left it hit me.  Why not use that as a topic for the next blog--so--here it is.

This fits my idea that most everything I blog about you already knew, but don’t know you knew it.

Most all of us (whether we play an instrument or not) has stretched a string then plucked it, and you might have also plucked a string on an actual stringed instrument.  Even if the string is not tuned to an actual note of the scale most of the time a nice sound is produced.

The vibration of the string looks very complicated because it is made up of many different vibrations going on at the same time. The first vibration is the whole string going up and down.  If the string is tuned to the note C on the piano, then this first vibration is the note C, and it is the loudest of the vibrations.

The second loudest vibration is the string going up and down in two equal sections and this is also the note C, but one octave higher (an octave is the span between two of the closest same notes on a piano).

The third loudest vibration is the string vibrating up and down in three equal sections and this is the note G, but in the same higher octave as second C note.

The fourth loudest vibration is again the note C (the string divided into four equal sections), but two octaves higher that the original note C.

The fifth loudest vibration is the note E (the string divided into five equal parts as it vibrates), but in the higher octave of the third note C.  Continue this way and (no kidding) all the 12 notes of the scale that we are familiar with are produced in the vibration of that one plucked string.

That is why the notes sound so well used together.  They are the natural notes of a plucked string.  This is why a major chord (for example C major made up of the notes C, E, and G) sounds so strong and pleasant.  This chord is made up of the three strongest notes produced when a string is plucked.

However, nothing it seems is without problems. When a piano is tuned to the notes produced when a string (tuned to the note C) is plucked, then all the chords made from those notes in the music key of C sound really great.  But, if then you try to play a D major chord (D, F#, A) it will not sound very good.

Why?  Because when a string tuned to the note D (produced from the plucked C string) is plucked it will produce notes (except for the D notes) that are not the same as the notes made when the string was tuned to the note C. 

It’s a sad and true fact that each plucked string makes a series of ever softer notes unique to that string.  Each music key really has its own unique notes.

Fortunately the differences are not that great.  As a compromise, the notes on a piano (guitar, etc.) are not quite tuned to the exact series of notes produced when a string is plucked.  This way the chords for all the different keys will sound, not really great, but great enough.

Did you ever wonder why a Barbershop group sounds so good?  It’s because the human voice is not constrained to only play fixed notes (like a piano).  As long as they are not accompanied by and instrument, the members can harmonize using the real notes produced when a string is plucked, no matter what key they are singing in.