Plucking position on a string determines which harmonic modes are suppressed
Evidence
When a string is plucked, it is pulled a small distance away from its rest position and released. The nature of the sound source it provides to the body of the instru ment depends in part on the position on the string at which it is plucked. This is directly related to the dis placement component modes that a string can adopt. For example, if the string is plucked at the center, as indicated by the central dashed vertical line in Figure 4.6, modes which have a node at the center of the string (the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, etc., or the even modes) are not excited, and those with an antinode at the center (the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, etc., or the odd modes) are maximally excited. — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 1107
When a string is plucked, it is pulled a small distance away from its rest position and released. The nature of the sound source it provides to the body of the instrument depends in part on the position on the string at which it is plucked. This is directly related to the displacement component modes a string can adopt. For example, if the string is plucked at the center, as indicated by the central dashed vertical line in Figure 4.6, modes that have a node at the center of the string (the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, tenth etc., or the even modes) are not excited, and those with an antinode at the center (the first, third, fifth, seventh, ninth etc., or the odd modes) are maximally excited. If the string is plucked at a quarter of its length from either end (as indicated by the other dashed vertical lines in the figure), modes with a node at the plucking point (the fourth, eighth etc.) are not excited and other modes are excited to a greater or lesser degree. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1083
Categorization
- DEFINE: Explains the mechanism by which plucking location filters which harmonics sound — the physical basis of tonal variation.
- corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 1107; David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1083
- XREF: connects to: Adding mass at a node leaves a vibrating string’s mode unchanged; Striking near a string’s fixed end cancels the sound; Plucking a string at a node suppresses every Nth harmonic (+4 more)