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Why does an A note on a piano sound different from an A note on a violin?
omarshehata.me
So if two sound waves have exactly the same frequency, according to my tuner app, they cannot possibly sound different. But they do! Does that mean there’s something else, something more than frequency that can differentiate sound?
There isn’t! That’s all sound is - vibrations in the air of some specific frequency.
Was the tuner lying? Yes, kind of: when we say a sound is 440 hz, that’s not actually a complete description of the sound. It’s kind of like telling you a shape has 4 points - you might assume it’s a square. But it could be a rectangle, or some completely wacky irregular polygon.