Plucked strings vibrate as a sum of harmonic partials, not as a pure tone

Evidence

If a string is plucked, it does not emit a pure sinusoidal tone, but vibrates in a complex, periodic way that reflects the sinusoidal motion at harmonic frequencies at all the partials of the string. The periodic motion resulting from a pluck foreshadows the miracle of bowing a violin: while the bow is being slowly drawn up across a string, a periodic kink wave develops that travels counterclockwise around the string, as described in chapter 18. The periodic kink is a sum of sinusoids, each contributing its own vibration to the whole. The kink reflects back and forth off the bridge at one end and the finger position at the other end. The periodic vibration goes hand in glove with equally spaced frequencies. The whole is a beautiful example of a cooperative resonance. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 1398

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Plucked-string spectra reveal the plucking point through nulled harmonics — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1127