Synthesis
Method for creating sound by building mathematical models of acoustic instruments
What is physical modeling?
This interval is the fundamental building block of Pythagorean tuning.
What is the perfect fifth?
This vibrating wooden part of the piano acts as a nonlinear resonator shaping the instrument's tone.
What is a soundboard?
Tone color or quality of sound
What is timbre?
The Karplus-Strong algorithm was originally used to simulate this plucked string instrument
What is a guitar?
The mistuning of pure intervals to limit number of pitches available. Allows for transposition without introducing new pitches
What is tempering?
Unlike the fortepiano, the modern piano uses this mechanism to allow rapid repetition of a note before the key fully resets.
What is the double escapement action?
Because of the narrowing of fifths, this interval on the keyboard is unbearably dissonant
What is the wolf fifth or wolf interval?
The process of creating new sounds using multiple sine waves
Difference between 12 justly tuned perfect fifths (3:2) and seven octaves (2:1)
What is the Pythagorean comma?
By modulating the delay length over time, one can imitate this expressive playing technique on string instruments.
What is vibrato (or pitch bending)?
The fortepiano’s main innovation over the harpsichord was this expressive capability.
What is dynamic control (soft and loud)?
Decomposing a complex sound wave into its fundamental sinusoidal components, revealing its constituent frequencies and their amplitudes
What is Fourier Transform?
This tuning system narrows each fifth slightly to make major thirds pure.
What is quarter-comma meantone?
Because piano strings are stiff, their overtones are slightly too high, causing this effect that makes octaves need "stretching"
What is inharmonicity?
This approach represented a significant shift in 20th-century composition, drawing inspiration from electronic music's ability to manipulate sound spectra.
What is spectral music?
A sound technique where a mixing console is used as a sound generator rather than a tool for mixing external audio sources.
What is no-input mixing?
Difference between the Pythagorean Major third and the Just Major third
What is the Syntonic Comma?
This device plays back short musical patterns one step at a time, letting you set pitch, rhythm, and repeats without performing them in real time.
What is a step sequencer?
Only these harmonics are heard in a closed-end pipe
What are odd harmonics?