Inharmonic tone complexes can yield multiple or virtual perceived pitches

Evidence

Pitch perception becomes an even more complex phenomenon if the sound consists of partials that are not necessarily whole number multiples of a common fundamental frequency. For example, church bells and other vibrating bars and plates generate tone complexes with partials in more or less inharmonic succession. There may be one or more pitches perceived from the bell sound, and the pitches may correspond to some high-level partials in the spectrum, or they may be virtual pitches generated by some partials. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1118

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• SEED: Possible angle: how bell and metallophone tuning relies on exploiting these virtual-pitch illusions, relevant to instrument design and digital synthesis of bell sounds.
• SHARE: A church bell / gamelan friend would enjoy this detail about inharmonic partials producing virtual pitches.

Related

• Inharmonic sounds like bells can produce multiple simultaneous pitches (similarity 0.94)
• A bell’s perceived pitch arises from virtual pitch even when its prime is absent. (similarity 0.83)
• A bell’s perceived pitch is usually absent from its actual partials (similarity 0.82)
• Most vibrating objects produce inharmonic partials, unlike the ideal string (similarity 0.81)
• Listeners perceive missing fundamentals from the harmonics that remain (similarity 0.81)
• The ear perceives a virtual pitch not physically present in a sound’s components (similarity 0.81)
• Bell partials are unequally spaced yet still produce a definite perceived pitch (similarity 0.80)
• Virtual pitch only arises under specific combinations of fundamental and lowest-component frequency. (similarity 0.79)
• A perceived pitch can exist with no partial at its own frequency. (similarity 0.78)
• Virtual pitch arises only for certain fundamental-to-lowest-component combinations (similarity 0.78)