Letter of Transmittal

27 February 2019
Mahgoub Mohamed
105 The Pond Road
Toronto,ON, M3J0K9

Dear Ms.Gerrard,

As a guitarist I was fascinated by the way that blending notes together to make a chord can
produce melodic sounds. I wanted to explore if there was a connection. My research question is:

“What relationship links the individual notes in a major third chord?”

I Initially had to research and learn some relevant music theory, Which I detailed in my
introduction.

In order to answer the question, I measured the individual frequencies of the notes in a C-Major
chord, namely all the C, E and G notes in the chord and plotted them into a graph, in an attempt
to look for a trend in the frequencies.

As there are only five data points to be used to plot the frequency graph, the results obtained
were not sufficient to reach a conclusion. The results did, however, show a linear trend in notes
in an octave.

In order to get more detail, I used FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) graph-plotting software that
records both the fundamental note and the harmonics of that note produced by the guitar. I
extracted the data and compared it graphically, including the intensity of each component.

The FFT graphs showed that the note harmonics overlap with other harmonics in several places.

Despite overlaps in the FFT graphs, the data obtained did not agree with my hypothesis. The
overlaps did not form a new harmonic and therefore were not responsible for the consonance of
the sound produced. I was not able to come to a profound conclusion as more intensive and
complex research was required that is beyond the scope of my research.

Sincerely,

Mahgoub Mohamed

Page 1 of 17
 Technical Lab Report

Course Number: LE ENG 2003

Course Title: Effective Engineering Communication
Semester/Year: Winter of 2018-2019
Instructor: Ms.Gerrard

Report Title:
Date: 27/02/2018
Name: Mahgoub Mohamed
Student number: 214717235
Tutorial #: 1

My signature below attests that this submission is my (our) original work

Signature(s): _________________________ Date: 27-02-2019

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 Executive summary

A guitar chord gives out a harmonious or consonant sound, the frequencies of the notes should,
hypothetically, be proportional to each other. A chord is a set of three or more notes that when
played together give out a harmonious sound. When a chord is played it sounds as if it is one
note and sound produced is thought to harmonious and consonant. There are multiple ways of
constructing a chord, each based on a different theory, so on this investigation, I will only be
looking at the major third (triad) chords and investigating the relationship between the notes in a
major third chord. This would done through measuring the frequency of each of the notes and
looking for a common factor.

Page 3 of 17
 Table of content

Executive summary 3

Introduction and Background 5

Music Theory 5
Main Topics 8
Method 8
Raw material 8
Discussion 11

Conclusion 12

References 13

Appendix 14
C- Chord

FTT graphs combined

List of figures

Figure 1 6
Figure 2 6
Figure 3 7
Figure 4 9
Figure 5 9
Figure 6 10
Figure 7 10
Figure 8 10

List of tables
Table 1 7

Table 2 8

Table 3 12

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 Introduction and Background

For a guitar chord to give out a harmonious or consonant sound, the frequencies of the notes
(constructing the chord) should, hypothetically, be proportional to each other. A chord is a set of
three or more notes that when played together give out a harmonious sound. When a chord is
played it sounds as if it is one note, i.e. the sound produced is harmonious and consonant
(Malm). There are multiple ways of constructing a chord, each based on a different theory. For
example there is the major triad, the minor 7ths, the augmented 9ths and so on (The Music
Theory). On this investigation, I will only be looking at a major third (triad) chord.[1]
The research question asked is
“What relationship links the individual notes in a major third chord?”
The research question directs the investigation into looking at what relates the notes in a chord to
one another. This would be done through measuring the frequency of each of the notes and
looking for trends and similarities. The report would also try to investigate the reason why when
certain notes are played simultaneously, a consonant sound is produced, but when other notes are
played simultaneously a dissonant sound is produced. The notes that produce a consonant sound
must then share something in common.

Music Theory

In this section some music theories that relate to the investigation are explained

Any series of musical notes played one after the other either to make a particular sound or to act
as a starting point for a piece of music is called a scale (Schejtman). Different scales exist
depending on the nature of music played. One very famous scale is the Chromatic scale, which
consists of 12 notes. The notes that make up the Chromatic scale are shown below:

C
C#/Db
D
D#/Eb
E
F
F#/Gb
G
G#/Ab
A
A#/Bb
B

The ‘#’ in front of a note is read “Sharp” and the ‘b’ is read “Flat” and these are the notes
between two pitches.

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The notes repeat in a cycle, so after the last note B lies again the C note, however one C would
differ from another in terms of pitches, the latter is one octave higher. The set of the 12 notes is
called an octave and the difference between two consecutive notes is called a semitone. (Judge)
[2][3][10]
The diagram below shows a labeled diagram of a guitar

Figure 1 Guitar diagram showing different parts of a guitar[10]

The headstock is where the strings are attached and the tuning pegs are used to tighten or loosen
the strings to tune them. The string is played by plucking it over the sound hole. The fret board is
what the strings are pressed against to produce different notes.
When the string is played it produces a standing wave. The waves produced go through the
sound hole and get amplified to produce the sound that we hear. The frequency of the sound
heard is equal to the frequency of vibration of the standing wave (Henderson). It usually has a
graph similar to the one below shown on figure 2.[1]

Figure 2 Sound harmonics[1]

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The diagram below figure 3 shows the 6 strings on a guitar when tuned to standard tuning. The
letters represent the note produced when a string is pressed at that fret.

Figure 3 Representation of notes on a guitar[6]

In a guitar the notes are distinguished from one another by frets. Frets divide the fret board into
segments, each segment, when the string is pressed against and played, produces a distinguished
note. After every 12 frets, the notes repeat themselves, however the pitches produced are
different as it now enters a different octave.
Major third triads are constructed from three notes: a root note, a third degree note and a fifth
degree note (Purtell). [6]

So for example the C-major chord is constructed from the following notes in bold:
C – (root)
D
E – (3rd degree)
F
G – (5th degree)
A
B
In a guitar, to play a chord, all strings of the guitar should play one of the three notes making
Major Third. [6]
For example, the following are the notes produced by each guitar string when playing the C-
major chord:

String Number String Note Played

1 E E1
2 B C2
3 G G
4 D E4
5 A C5
6 E NOT PLAYED
Table 1

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By looking at figure 3 you can see where the string should be played to play the note. For
example the B string should be played at the first fret to produce note C. For clarification
purposes, the E notes and C notes are labeled with the string number they are played in, as they
are produced in two strings and therefore have different frequencies.

The two different E notes played in the chord are each on a different octave, and so are the C
notes, i.e. the first three notes played E1, C2 and G are in one octave, while E4 and C5 are in
another. So a chord is constructed so that all the notes played satisfy the Major Third Triads and
are similar notes of different octaves.

In this report the frequencies of each and every note in the C chord will be measured and
comparison made to see what they all have in common. The results would then be plotted into a
linear graph with the guitar notes on the x-axis (independent variables axis) and the respectful
frequencies on the y-axis (dependent variables axis).
To obtain as accurate results as possible, the same guitar and strings would be used to measure
the frequencies. The guitar would be tuned as accurately as possible.

Main Topics

Method

The investigation was carried out in a quiet environment with minimum background noise so as
not to affect the results obtained. The guitar was then tuned as accurately as possible with a
guitar tuner.
To measure the frequencies of the notes in one chord, each note on each string was played
separately and each frequency measured using the FM Pro application and then recorded.
Starting with producing E1 and recording its frequency and repeating the same to all other notes.

As the results of the previous investigation may not be sufficient, I decided to investigate the
relationship between note harmonics in hope to find a clear relationship. I used an FFT graphing
software. The peaks of the graphs were then labeled.

Raw Data

After conducting the experiment, the following data were obtained:

Frequency/Hz

Note ± 0.5 Hz
E1 322.99
G 193.70
C2 258.39
E4 166.32
C5 129.19
Table 2

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Table 2 shows the frequency measured for each note in the C chord. According to the hypothesis
stated in the introduction, these frequencies should be mathematically related.
Below is the FFT graph obtained for the C-Major Chord as a whole. The graphs of the individual
notes can be seen at Appendix 1.

Figure 4 FFT Graph of C-Major Chord

Data Processing

If the data is rearranged so that the frequencies are organized from smallest to largest, and given
reference numbers from 1-5, a graph can be plotted.
A graph of the reference number against frequency is plotted, and the graph obtained is shown
below figure 5:

Figure 5 Graph Frequencies of notes

As can be observed from the graph, there are two linear trends. The first one, which has the lower
slope, represents the relationship between the notes in one octave (C5, E4, and G). The second
linear trend, with a higher slope, shows the relationship between the notes in the higher octave
(C2 and E1).

I used the aforementioned application to view the graphs of the chord and one of the notes
together on the same grid. It can be noticed from the graphs that the first peaks of the notes’ FFT
graphs always overlap one peak of the chord’s graph. It can also be observed that almost all the
note peaks shared the same frequency as the peaks of the chord, but were lower on Decibels.
Below is the graph showing all the FFT graphs of the notes and the Chord as a whole. The rest of
the graphs can be seen at Appendix 2:

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 Figure 6 FFT Graphs of C major chord and component notes

As can be noticed, the graphs of the component notes resemble the graph of the chord in many
parts of the graph. The graph of the chord has higher sound pressure than the component notes.

I collected the coordinates of the graph peaks for the C note, E note and G note and plotted them
into a single graph, shown below figure 7.

Figure 7 Graph 2 Graph of note peaks

The graph shows that some frequencies of the note peaks overlap each other. As can be seen in
note peaks at frequency of approximately 130, note peaks at frequency of approximately 280Hz,
note peaks at a frequency of approximately 520Hz and note peaks at a frequency of
approximately 800 Hz.
A summary graph that clusters all the overlaps together is shown below:

Figure 8 Graph 3 Summary graph, merging overlaps

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 Discussion

The application used to measure the frequencies, although gave a precise measurement, may
have not necessarily been accurate. Also the built-in microphone on the Apple® iPhone® was not
designed for accuracy, it compresses the sound recorded to improve sound quality and therefore
may have affected the results.

The guitar used was not of high quality and may have not been tuned as accurately as needed.
These, as well as the background noise that was always present, affected the frequencies
recorded and the FFT graphs obtained.

In order to improve the results, I would use a high-quality, accurate and precise sound detection
device to record the sound produced. I would then analyze the sound using a more accurate FFT
graph-plotting software. To obtain a better set of results I would repeat the investigations a few
times using different guitars and perform the investigations for more than one chord.

Page 11 of 17
 Conclusion

My research question was:

What relationship links the individual notes in a major third chord?

I found that the frequencies of the notes in the C-major Chord showed a linear trend in notes
within an octave. This can be clearly seen on Graph 1, with the two linear lines representing the
two octaves present in the chord. The relationship, on the other hand, between the octaves,
obvious as it is, is that they are basically the same notes played but with higher pitches, that is
why they are consonant to each other. The difference in frequencies between the different notes
increases as the octave increases. That is why the slope of the notes in the lower octave is lower
than those in the higher octave.
With only five notes (and hence five data points) the results obtained are not sufficient to reach
any reasonable conclusion. Further investigation involving other chords is needed in order to
reach a solid conclusion. However, with the limited data to process, I was able to vaguely
conclude that in a Major Third Chord, notes within an octave follow a linear trend. This linearity
could be responsible for the consonance in the sound produced by the chord, with dissonance
occurring when the frequencies of the notes played do not follow a linear trend.

The FFT graphs (appendix 2, figures 5 – 8) in the second investigation showed considerable
overlapping between the individual notes harmonics and the chord harmonic. This lead me to
believe that perhaps the overlapping that occurs contributes to the consonant sound produced by
forming a new harmonic. However, after clustering the graphs and obtaining the summary graph
in figure 12, this was clearly not the case. The overlaps occurred at frequencies 134, 283, 513 and
798. As the frequencies were not in sequence, the graph obtained was not of a harmonic. This is
emphasized in the table below table:

Frequencies Ratio
134 -
283 2.11
513 1.81
798 1.56
Table 3
Therefore this investigation did not answer my research question.

The complexity of the results obtained, and the limitations of the equipment used did not allow
me to reach a profound conclusion. Further investigation that looks into other aspects of chords
is required. As detailed below, some improvements are also needed to ensure that the results are
accurate and reliable.

Page 12 of 17
 References

1.Beck, Douglas. Auditory Steady-State Response (ASSR): A Beginner’s Guide. 3 November 2007. 21 July

2014 <http://www.hearingreview.com/2007/11/auditory-steady-state-response-assr-a-beginners-guide/>.

2. Henderson, Tom. Longitudinal Waves and Guitar Strings. 1996-2015. 12 January 2015 <http://

www.physicsclassroom.com/mmedia/waves/gsl.cfm>.

3.Judge, Jon. A Chromatic Scale. January 2012. 30 July 2014 <https://www.basicmusictheory.com/a-chromatic-

scale>.

4.Kamien, Roger. "Music: An Appreciation, 6th Brief Edition - Annotated Instructor's Edition." Kamien, Roger.

McGraw-Hill Higher Education; 6th edition , 2008. 46.

5.Learn Notes on the Fretboard. 2010. 7 July 2014 <http://www.learnguitarclub.com/guitar-theory-lessons/

guitar-notes/learn-notes-on-the-fretboard/>.

6.Malm, William P. "Music Cultures of the Pacific, the Near East, and Asia." Third Edition. Michigan: Prentice

Hall, 1996, 1967. 15.

7.Miller, Micheal. "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory ." Miller, Micheal. The Complete Idiot's Guide

to Music Theory . Alpha; 2nd edition , 2005. 113.

8.n.a. Introduction to Chords. musictheory.net, LLC. 12 January 2015 <http://www.musictheory.net/lessons/

40>.

9.Need To Know The Parts of the Acoustic Guitar? . 2005. On the Spot Publishing. 21 July 2014 <http://

www.guitar-on-the-spot.com/parts-of-the-acoustic-guitar.html>.

10.Purtell, Teague. Guitar Chords and Diatonic Chord Construction . 1999-2014. Teague Purtell Music

Learning. 12 January 2015 <http://www.musiclearning.com/lessoncentral/chords/buildingchords.html>.

11.Schejtman, Rod. "Music Fundamentals ." Schejtman, Rod. Music Funcamentals. Buenos Aires: The Piano

Encyclopedia, 2009. 20-43.

12.Wright, David. "Mathematics and Music (Mathematical World)." Wright, David. American Mathematical

Society , 2009. 140-141.

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 Appendix

C-Chord:

Figure 1 FFT Graph of C-Major Chord

Figure 2 FFT Graph of C note

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Figure 3 FFT Graph of E note

Figure 4 FFT Graph of G note

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FFT Graphs combined

Figure 5 FFT Graphs of C major chord and C note

Figure 6 FFT Graphs of C major chord and E note

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 Figure 7 FFT Graphs of C major chord and G note

Figure 8 FFT Graphs of C major chord and component notes

Page 17 of 17