You Are Reading the First 6 FREE Chapters (470 pages)
3.2.5 The Overtone Series (or Harmonic Series)
If you have the right equipment, you can identify and measure all the overtones present when you pluck a single guitar string and produce Middle C. The frequencies of all the dozens of overtones turn out to be simple whole-number multiples of the fundamental.
Taken together, the fundamental and all the overtones are called the harmonic series or the overtone series (these two terms mean the same thing).
Table 4 below shows the frequencies of the first 15 overtones of Middle C. It’s important that you sit down right now and memorize every single number in the “Frequency” column.
(No, wait! It’s not important.)
TABLE 4 Fundamental and First 15 Overtones of the “Middle C” Overtone Series
Tone / Overtone | Multiple of Fundamental | Frequency (Hz) |
---|---|---|
|
|
|
These are just the first 15 overtones—they continue on and on, ever higher in pitch, ever softer. The next overtone in the series above would be the 16th overtone, with a frequency 17 times that of the fundamental, or 4,447.2 Hz.