The quality of music from a group of instruments is independent of the listener's distance from the instruments. Why?

Question

Filo · Accepted Answer

There are 3 properties of sound, based on which we can distinguish one sound-note from the other.

They are Loudness, Pitch(or shrillness) and Quality.

Quality.

Loudness of a sound depends on the Amplitude of the sound-wave. Greater the amplitude, louder is the sound.

Pitch or shrillness depends on the frequency. Greater the frequency, shriller is the sound.

Quality or Timbre depends on the overtones present in the sound, along with the fundamental note and their amplitudes. Quality is the property by which two sounds may appear different even if they are equally loud and shrill.

When a sound wave travels, the waves split and spread around the direction of propagation. The further the sound travels, more is the splitting. The amplitude of the original wave gets divided equally among the split waves.

Hence the loudness of the sound heard becomes less and less with increase in distance.

The split waves however have their fundamental frequencies and the overtone frequencies same as those of the original wave.

Hence the pitch and quality of sound doesn't change with distance.

Question Text	The quality of music from a group of instruments is independent of the listener's distance from the instruments. Why?
Answer Type	Text solution:1
Upvotes	150

The quality of music from a group of instruments is independent of the listener's distance from the instruments. Why?

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