Why Length, Mass and Tension Set the Fundamental Frequency
The explanatory core for pitch. Shorter, lighter, tighter folds cycle faster; longer, heavier, slacker folds cycle slower. Treated as one teachable thing because the three quantities are inseparable terms of a single relationship, exactly as in a vibrating string. This node is the anchor the sex, puberty and ageing nodes all attach to, and the reason a genetic effect on tissue properties is even plausible.
Questions this Concept answers
- Why do longer, heavier vocal folds vibrate more slowly than short, light ones?
Mersenne's laws
Mersenne's laws describe how the pitch of a stretched string is fixed by three quantities together. The natural frequency is inversely proportional to the length, proportional to the square root of t…