Standing Waves: Strings, standing waves and harmonics

Introduction: vibrations, strings, pipes, percussion....

How do we make musical sounds? To make a sound, we need something that vibrates.
If we want to make musical notes you usually need the vibration to have an almost
constant frequency: that means stable pitch. We also want a frequency that can be
easily controlled by the player. In electronic instruments this is done with electric
circuits or with clocks and memories. In non-electronic instruments, the stable,
controlled vibration is produced by a standing wave. Here we discuss the way strings
work. This also a useful introduction for studying wind instruments, because vibrating
strings are easier to visualise than the vibration of the air in wind instruments. Both
are less complicated than the vibrations of the bars and skins of the percussion family.
For the physics of standing waves, there is a multimedia tutorial.

Travelling waves in strings

The strings in the violin, piano and

so on are stretched tightly and
vibrate so fast that it is impossible to
see what is going on. If you can find
a long spring (a toy known as a 'slinky' works well) or several metres of flexible
rubber hose you can try a few fun experiments which will make it easy to understand
how strings work. (Soft rubber is good for this, garden hoses are not really flexible
enough.) First hold or clamp one end and then, holding the other end still in one hand,
stretch it a little (not too much, a little sag won't hurt). Now pull it aside with the other
hand to make a kink, and then let it go. (This, in slow motion, is what happens when
you pluck a string.) You will probably see that the kink travels down the "string", and
then it comes back to you. It will suddenly tug your hand sideways but, if you are
holding it firmly, it will reflect again.

First you will notice that the speed of the wave in the string increases if you stretch it
more tightly. This is useful for tuning instruments - but we're getting ahead of
ourselves. It also depends on the "weight" of the string - it travels more slowly in a
thick, heavy string than in a light string of the same length under the same tension.
(Strictly, it is the ratio of tension to mass per unit length that determines speed, as
we'll see below.)

Next let's have a close look at the reflection at the fixed end. You'll notice that if you
initially pull the string to the left, the kink that travels away from you is to the left, but
that it comes back as a kink to the right - the reflection is inverted. This effect is
important not only in string instruments, but in winds and percussion as well. When a
wave encounters a boundary with something that won't move or change (or that
doesn't change easily), the reflection is inverted. (The fact that it is inverted gives zero
displacement at the end. However, reflection with any phase change will give a
standing wave.)

Plucked strings

If you pluck one of the string on a guitar or bass, you are doing something similar,
although here the string is fixed at both ends. You pull the string out at one point, then
release it as shown. The motion that follows is interesting, but complicated. The initial
motion is shown below. However, the high frequency components of the motion (the
sharp bends in the string) quickly disappear – which is why the sound of a guitar note
becomes more mellow a second or more after you pluck it.

A sketch of the reflection of travelling kinks caused by plucking a string. At the

instants represented by (e) and (m), the string is straight so it has lost the potential
energy associated with pulling it sideways, but it has a maximum kinetic energy. Note
that, at the reflections, the phase of the kink is changed by 180°: from up to down or
vice versa. Notice also how the kinks 'pass through' each other when they meet in the
middle.

Why is the reflection inverted? Well, if we assume that it is clamped or tied to a fixed
object, the point of reflection didn't actually move. But look at the motion of the string
by comparing the different times represented in the left hand sketches. Note that the
string behind the kink is moving back towards the undisturbed position (down in the
sketch). As the kink approaches the end, it becomes smaller and, when it reaches the
immovable end, there is no kink at all - the string is straight for an instant. But the
string still has its downwards momentum, and that carries it past the position of rest,
and produces a kink on the other side, which then moves back in the other direction.
(The motion of waves in strings is described in more detail in Travelling Waves,
which has film clips and animations. On this page, however, we'll concentrate on the
musical implications. )

As mentioned above, this motion is only observed immediately after the pluck. As the
high frequency components lose energy, the sharp kinks disappear and the shape
gradually approaches that of the fundamental mode of vibraiton, which we discuss
below.

A bowed string behaves rather differently

First, it has a continuous source of energy, and so can maintain the same motion
indefinitely (or at least until one runs out of bow. Second, the string shape required to
match the uniformly moving bow is different.

A sketch of the reflection of travelling kinks caused by bowing a string. See the
animation and an explanation of the bow-string interaction in Bows and strings

Travelling waves and standing waves

An interesting effect occurs if you try to send a simple wave along the string by
repeatedly waving one end up and down. If you have found a suitable spring or rubber
hose, try it out. Otherwise, look at these diagrams.
The animation shows the
interaction of two waves, with
equal frequency and
magnitude, travelling in
opposite directions: blue to the
right, green to the left. The red
line is their sum: the red wave
is what happens when the two
travelling waves add together
(superpose is the technical
term). By stopping the
animation, you can check that
the red wave really is the sum
of the two interacting travelling
waves.

The figure at right is the same

diagram represented as a time
sequence - time increases from
top to bottom. You could think of it as representing a series of photographs of the
waves, taken very quickly. The red wave is what we would actually see in a such
photographs.

Suppose that the right hand limit is an immoveable wall. As discussed above, the
wave is inverted on reflection so, in each "photograph", the blue plus green adds up to
zero on the right hand boundary. The reflected (green) wave has the same frequency
and amplitude but is travelling in the opposite direction.

At the fixed end they add to give no motion - zero displacement: after all it is this
condition of immobility which causes the inverted reflection. But if you look at the
red line in the animation or the diagram (the sum of the two waves) you'll see that
there are other points where the string never moves! They occur half a wavelength
apart. These motionless points are called nodes of the vibration, and they play an
important role in nearly all of the instrument families. Halfway between the nodes
areantinodes: points of maximum motion. But note that these peaks are not travelling
along the string: the combination of two waves travelling in opposite directions
produces a standing wave.

This is shown in the animation and the figure. Note the positions (nodes) where the
two travelling waves always cancel out, and the others (antinodes) where they add to
give an oscillation with maximum amplitude.
You could think of this diagram as a representation (not to scale) of the fifth harmonic
on a string whose length is the width of the diagram. This brings us to the next topic.

Harmonics and modes

The string on a musical instrument is (almost) fixed at both ends, so any vibration of
the string must have nodes at each end. Now that limits the possible vibrations. For
instance the string with length L could have a standing wave with wavelength twice as
long as the string (wavelength λ = 2L) as shown in the first sketch in the next series.
This gives a node at either end and an antinode in the middle.

This is one of the modes of vibration of the string ("mode of vibration" just means
style or way of vibrating). What other modes are allowed on a string fixed at both
ends? Several standing waves are shown in the next sketch.

A sketch of the first four modes of vibration of an idealised* stretched string

with a fixed length. The vertical axis has been exaggerated.

Let's work out the relationships among the frequencies of these modes. For a wave,
the frequency is the ratio of the speed of the wave to the length of the wave: f = v/λ.
Compared to the string length L, you can see that these waves have lengths 2L, L,
2L/3, L/2. We could write this as 2L/n, where n is the number of the harmonic.

The fundamental or first mode has frequency f1 = v/λ1 = v/2L,

The second harmonic has frequency f2 = v/λ2 = 2v/2L = 2f1
The third harmonic has frequency f3 = v/λ3 = 3v/2L = 3f1,
The fourth harmonic has frequency f4 = v/λ4 = 4v/2L = 4f1, and, to generalise,

The nth harmonic has frequency fn = v/λn = nv/2L = nf1.

All waves in a string travel with the same speed, so these waves with different
wavelengths have different frequencies as shown. The mode with the lowest
frequency (f1) is called the fundamental. Note that the nth mode has frequency n times
that of the fundamental. All of the modes (and the sounds they produce) are called the
harmonics of the string. The frequencies f, 2f, 3f, 4f etc are called the harmonic
series. This series will be familiar to most musicians, particularly to buglers and
players of natural horns. If for example the fundamental is the note C3 or viola C (a
nominal frequency of 131 Hz: see this link for a table), then the harmonics would
have the pitches shown in the next figure. These pitches have been approximated to
the nearest quarter tone. The octaves are exactly octaves, but all other intervals are
slightly different from the intervals in the equal tempered scale.

The figure shows the musical notation for the first twelve harmonics on a C
string. When you play the sound file, listen carefully to the pitch. The seventh
and eleventh harmonics fall about halfway between notes on the equal tempered
scale, and so have been notated with half sharps.

You can produce these pitches on a stretched string: it's easiest on the low strings of a
guitar, cello or bass*. Touch the string lightly at a point 1/n of its length from the end
(where n is 1, 2, 3 etc), then bow the string close to the end. Alternatively, touch the
string very lightly at a point 1/n of its length from the end, pluck the string close to the
end and release the first finger as soon as you have plucked. Touching the string
produces a node where you touch, and so you excite (mainly) the mode which has a
node there. You will find that you can play bugle tunes using harmonics two to six of
a string.

(* If you have just done this experiment, you may have noticed some peculiarities.
The twelfth fret, which is used to produce the octave, is less than half way along the
length of the string, and so the position where you touch the string to produce the 2nd
harmonic – halfway along the string – is not directly above the octave fret. I said
"idealised" string above, meaning a string that is completely flexible and so can bend
easily at either end. In practice, strings have a finite bending stiffness and so their
effective length (the "L" that should be used in the above formulae) is a little less than
their physical length. This is one of the reasons why larger strings usually have a
winding over a thin core, why the bridge is usually at an angle that gives the fatter
strings longer lengths and why the (solid) G string on a classical guitar has poor
tuning on the higher frets. There is also an effect due to the extra stretching of a string
when it is pushed down to the fingerboard, an effect which is considerable on steel
strings.)

An exercise for guitarists. On a guitar tuned in the usual way, the B string and high
E string are approximately tuned to the 3rd and 4th harmonics of the low E string. If
you pluck the low E string anywhere except one third of the way along, the B string
should start to vibrate, driven by the vibrations in the bridge from the harmonic of the
first string. If you pluck the low E string anywhere except one quarter of the way
along, the top E string should be driven similarly.

Harmonic tuning on guitars

Guitarists often begin to tune-up in the

following way: first tune the 4th harmonic of
the low E string, the 3rd of the A string and the
top E all to the same note. The figure at right
shows the harmonic series on the two lowest Guitar tuning by harmonics. (These
strings. are real pitches: guitar music is
usually transposed up an octave.)
Next they tune the B string (B3) to the 3rd
harmonic of the first (E2); then tune the 4th
harmonic of the A string to the 3rd of the D
string. This method cannot be extended
succesfully to the G string because it is usually
too thick and stiff, so it is better tuned by
octaves, using the frets. For several reasons
(see the notes at the end of this page), this
method of tuning is only approximate, and one
needs to retune the octaves afterwards. The
best tuning is usually a compromise that must
be made after considering what chords you
will be playing and where you are playing on
the fingerboard.

Harmonics in music

Composers often call for such harmonics on string instruments: the most common is
the "touch fourth". With one finger, the player stops the string to produce the length
required for a particular note, and then, using another finger, touches the string very
lightly at the position required for the note four notes higher in the scale (hence the
name). This position is one quarter of the way along the string, so it produces the
fourth harmonic of the stopped note. The fourth harmonic has four times the
fundamental frequency, and so is two octaves higher. For string players, the
harmonics are called "natural"; when they are played on open strings and "artificial";
if the player must stop the string. The diagram shows the how a natural touch fourth is
played, and the notation for the touch fourth on the violin A string. The vertical axis
of the diagram has been exaggerated for clarity.

Open A string played normally, then the touch fourth on this string (4th harmonic)

The pitch of a note is determined by how rapidly the string vibrates. This depends on
four things:

 Thicker, more massive strings vibrate more slowly. On violins, guitars etc, the
open length of the string doesn't change, and usually the tension doesn't change
much either (they are all about equally hard to push down). So the low pitched
strings are thicker.
 The frequency increases with the tension in the string. This is how you tune the
instrument, using machine heads or tuning pegs: tighter gives higher pitch.
 The length of the string that is free to vibrate is also important. When you stop
a string against the fingerboard of a cello, for example, you shorten the
effective length and so raise the pitch.
 You can also change the pitch by changing the mode of vibration. When you
play harmonics, you induce the string to produce waves which are a fraction of
the length of those normally produced by a string of that length.

We can put all of this in a simple expression. If the vibrating part of the string has a
length L and a mass M, if the tension in the string is F and if you play the nth
harmonic, then the resulting frequency is
 fn = (n/2L)(FL/M)1/2 = (n/2)(F/LM)1/2.

In instruments such as the violin and guitar, the open length and the tension are fairly
similar for all strings. This means that, to make a string an octave lower, while
maintaining the same length, you must quadruple the ratio M/L. If the strings are
made of the same material, this means doubling the diameter. However, the fat strings
are usually composite: a thin core wrapped with windings to make them more massive
without making them harder to bend.

Let's see where this expression comes from. The wave travels a distance λ in one
period T of the vibration, so v = λ/T. The frequency f = 1/T = v/λ. So f = v/λ. We
also saw that, for the fundamental frequency f1, the string length is λ/2, so f1 = v/2L.
The wave speed is determined by the string tension F and the mass per unit lenght or
linear density μ = M/L, v = (F/μ)1/2 = (FL/M)1/2. So f1 = ½(F/LM)1/2.
Multiplying both sides by n gives the frequencies of the harmonics quoted above.

We can rearrange this to give the string tension: F = 4f12LM.

Complications with harmonic tuning

There are several problems with any guitar tuning, including that using harmonics
suggested above.

The most obvious approximation is related to temperament: if the guitar strings were
ideal and the frets ideally spaced for equal temperament, tuning harmonic fourths to
the E-A and A-D pairs, plus two equal tempered semitones on the D string, would
make the interval between lowest E and 2nd fret on the D string about 4 cents flat
((4/3)222/12=1.996). This would lead to interference beats at rates of order one every
several seconds.

Another obvious complication with harmonic tuning is that the strings do not bend
with complete ease over the nut and bridge (as discussed above). See also How
harmonic are harmonics.) As a result, the 1st overtone on a string is slightly sharper
than an octave, the next even sharper than a twelfth, and so on. So tuning the 4th
'harmonic' of the E string to the 3rd of the A string makes them their open interval
more than a harmonic fourth. So this tends to compensate for the temperament
problem.

A further problem has to do with fret and bridge placement. When you press a string
down at the twelfth fret, you increase its length. (Before you press it, the shortest
distance between nut and bridge. Afterwards it is longer.) To lengthen it, you have
increased its tension. Because of this, and also because of the bending effect at the end
of the string, if the 12th fret were midway between nut and bridge, the interval would
be greater than an octave. (You can check this experimentally on a fretless
instrument.) Consequently, the distance from bridge to the 12th fret is greater than
that from the nut to the 12th fret. The effect differs among strings. In some electric
guitars, individual adjustment of the position of each bridge is possible. In other
guitars, the bridge is placed at an angle. In a classical guitar, the straight simple bridge
necessitates some compromise in tuning.

The effects above are difficult measure with experimentally with the required
precision: the effects are only a few cents, which is not much larger than the precision
of ears or tuning meters when applied to a pluck string. Further, it is difficult to adjust
machine heads to achieve a precision better than a couple of cents. On the other hand,
if you get all notes in tune within a couple of cents, you are doing better than most
musicians and it will sound pretty good!

There are further problems when strings get old. Where you finger them with the left
hand, they pick up grease and become more massive (although they may also lose
material where they rub on frets). They may also wear where you pick them. As the
strings become inhomogeneous, the tuning gets successively worse. Washing them
can help.

The way to get around most of these problems is to play fretless instruments, but this
makes chords more awkward.

Some technical information for string players

How do you work out harmonics if they are not

explicitly annotated? Although the touch fourth is
the most common harmonic, it has a disadvantage
as an example. A touch fourth produces the fourth
harmonic, but the two "fourth"s are from quite
different context. In no other simple case does a
touch nth produce the nth harmonic. For the low
harmonics, the rule is obvious: 1/n of the string
produces the nth harmonic. This formula starts to
fail at very high numbers where the finite
thickness of the string is important. Further, it is
not a reliable way of producing harmonics above
about the 8th.

String players will know that, if you play five

scale notes up a string, you arrive at a position one
third of the way along the string, so a "touch fifth"
produces the third harmonic. We can write the
harmonics in the format:

scale fraction interval

harmonic
position of string above open
number
touched length string
octave 1/2 2 octave
fifth 1/3 3 twelfth
double
fourth 1/4 4
octave
major third 1/5 5 seventeenth
minor third 1/6 6 nineteenth
augmented halfsharp
2/7 7
fourth 20th
minor sixth 3/8 8 triple octave
major
1/9 9 twenty third
second
The scale positions are in just intonation. The touch at 2/9 is safer than that at 1/9, but
it doesn't fall above any scale note position: it is a little above the minor third. Violists
or violoncellists rehearsing Radulescu's "Practicing Infinity" (sic) are invited to write
to me for further suggestions about techniques for high harmonics.

Source: http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/strings.html