The overtone series

Hello everybody! 

The overtone serie... : I think is essential for any kind of composition, to know and master the overtones serie. It's important to compose knowing how the sounds behave. You can experiment this on the piano or, more clearly on a guitar. 

Do you have the overtones in mind when you compose?  

Here a very nice explanation and helpful article about the overtone series. Hope you find it helpful too! 

https://www.piano-composer-teacher-london.co.uk/post/overtone-series-harmonicity-and-anharmonicity-as-the-foundation-of-harmony

I do for orchestral and chamber music. Solo piano though, I don't really outside of the deep bass, where I know a sixth sounds more like an augmented fifth in the case of the minor sixth or a diminished seventh in the case of the major sixth.

Nice! 

Any composer who makes a decision to use one instrument's timbre rather than another is thinking about overtones whether they're explicitly aware of it or not.

On 12/8/2020 at 10:42 PM, OliverSmith said:

Hello everybody! 

The overtone serie... : I think is essential for any kind of composition, to know and master the overtones serie. It's important to compose knowing how the sounds behave. You can experiment this on the piano or, more clearly on a guitar. 

Do you have the overtones in mind when you compose?  

Here a very nice explanation and helpful article about the overtone series. Hope you find it helpful too! 

https://www.piano-composer-teacher-london.co.uk/post/overtone-series-harmonicity-and-anharmonicity-as-the-foundation-of-harmony

 

The post is very helpful and I love that, different melodies with thousands of melodies at Worldringtones.

I do think it's important to think about both the overtone series, and perhaps even more importantly finding a good ringtone. I'm glad I've finally been given the knowledge of where to look for them. Thank you, thank you!

Seriously though, it can be very useful to think about harmonics. As 

(@PaperComposer SORRY I CAN'T GET RID OF THIS TAG)

@Polaris said, choosing any instrument involves the overtones. When writing for combinations such as the wind quintet, voicing chords can be greatly helped by knowing which harmonics emphasise each other. You can even create the effect of there being more notes than there are.

I do think about the overtone series, especially in considering how to voice chords that use the bass register.  It's very easy to make the bass quite muddy and unintelligible, and most of the time I want clarity (unless I'm going for a specific effect).  I will also sometimes use spectral techniques in my music, and then I definitely think about the overtone series.  

If you're clever with your chord voicing, you can create the impression of notes than "aren't there," just the harmonics reinforcing each other to produce another note. This is especially helpful when writing for small wind ensembles (quartets, quintets, sextets) which I do a lot of, and there never seems to be the right number of instruments! Unfortunately, it gets difficult to write proper progressions but it's great for single chords.