Quality of sound

Play the same note, at the same pitch and loudness, on a piano and on a violin. You can still tell them apart. What the ear uses to do that is the quality of the sound.

Figure to be added

Figure 4.32 — a piano and a violin being played.

The waveforms of the same note played on a tuning fork, a violin and a piano all have the same frequency — but their shapes are different. That difference in shape is why each instrument sounds like itself.

Figure to be added

Figure 4.33 — the waveforms of the same note from a tuning fork (a smooth sine), a violin (a jagged repeating shape) and a piano (a flat-topped repeating shape).

Quality of sound

The quality of a sound is the sensation the ear feels that depends on the shape of its waveform.

Pitch

depends on frequency

Loudness

depends on amplitude

Quality

depends on the shape of the waveform