A tube’s emitted frequencies come from the driving tone, not its own resonances

Evidence

The partials of such a tone are not the same as the resonances of the tube of the instrument To make this clear, note that any one of the tubes we have just discussed could be fed a complex periodic tone at one end, and the tube would have no choice but to emit sound at the equally spaced frequencies of the driving tone. Granted, the tone would be colored by the resonances of the instrument (the strengths of the partials would be affected by the tube resonances—for example, louder if one of them fell on a resonance), but the periodicity of the note would be unaffected. This point goes back to driven oscillators: they always settle down at the drive frequency, whether they like it or not, but their amplitude response depends on the frequency of the drive and how close it is to the resonance of the oscillator. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 1477

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• DEFINE: Clarifies the crucial distinction between partials of a tone (drive property) and resonances of a tube (instrument property), a core conceptual framework for auditory perception.
• XREF: Connects to the driven-oscillator physics the reader would have covered in the book’s earlier chapters on resonance and to how any resonant chamber colors but cannot override a driving frequency.

Related

• A driven tube emits at the drive frequency regardless of its own resonances (similarity 0.94)
• Good wind instruments align tube resonances onto each partial of the drive note (similarity 0.85)
• A resonance’s strength depends on where you drive it, not just its frequency. (similarity 0.84)
• Flute tone arises from jet instability locked to tube resonances (similarity 0.80)
• Tuning tubes to octave and twelfth partials produces a more pleasing tone (similarity 0.80)
• Tube termination conditions determine which harmonics a wind instrument produces (similarity 0.79)
• Realistic periodic sound sources generate many harmonics, not single frequencies. (similarity 0.78)
• Acoustic resonance enhancement is used to purify tones by suppressing contaminating frequencies. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Flute tone arises from jet instability locked to tube resonances #contradicts (0.85) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 1569