What is an overtone in music?

Answer 1

I'll give as brief and basic an idea as I can. Consider something that produces musical sounds. There would be a vibrating string or wire, as for violins, other instruments in the string family, and pianos, or a column of air as for woodwinds and brass. The idea holds for the membranes of tuned timpani as well. A length of wire vibrates in some complex ways; it doesn't vibrate in one simple motion. It's easy to think of a tightened wire going up and down in the middle, uniformly, with no other motion involved. But it is more complicated than that. The wire will also vibrate as two halves. The left half will be 'up' while the right half is 'down', and so forth. Each of these halves will also vibrate by halves. The wire also vibrates in thirds of its length, and in fifths of its length, etc. The fundamental tone produced by the wire (the largest and simplest vibration) is the dominant tone, and it is this vibration that gives the tone its pitch name. But all the other vibrations produce pitches too, and while they are usually much softer than the fundamental tone, you can train yourself to hear them. Piano tuners use these overtones, also called harmonics, to help them tune accurately.