Musical instruments are engineered to suppress higher partials to avoid dissonance
Evidence
A clear connection between psychoacoustics and music has been shown. Roughness is closely related to consonance and dissonance perceived between two or more musical notes; the more the partials of the notes generate roughness, the higher the perceived dissonance is. This leads directly to basic melodic and harmonic structures in music. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1350 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Perceived musical dissonance reduces to roughness from beating partials. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1350; Suppressing dissonant 7th and 11th partials does not measurably improve tone quality; Rich complex tones can contain internally dissonant partials without sounding dissonant (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- Perceived musical dissonance reduces to roughness from beating partials.
#expands(0.95) — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1350 - Suppressing dissonant 7th and 11th partials does not measurably improve tone quality
#qualifies(0.85) - Rich complex tones can contain internally dissonant partials without sounding dissonant
#qualifies(0.85) - Distinct high partials make tones sound cutting or rough and powerful
#expands(0.80) — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 1520 - Instrument design exploits impedance mismatches to create resonance and timbre
#expands(0.75) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 83