Question

State three differences between a musical sound and noise.

Answer 1

Hint: Define music and noise in your own term. Try to see the different components of both musical sound and noise and understand their properties. Then we can explain the differences between the musical sound and noise.

Complete Step-by-Step solution:
Simply we can say that musical sound is a sound which is pleasant to our ears, but noise is very unpleasant to us. Both the musical sound and the noise are mixtures of sound waves of different frequencies and wavelengths.
In physics we can state three differences between the musical sound and noise as-
1. In a musical sound we can separate the different frequencies of sound from each other which are components of the original sound. In a noise we cannot separate the components of the noise because every frequency will be present over some range.
2. Musical sound has harmonic frequencies and wavelengths or we can say repeating signals or regular signals. A noise has a very irregular wave and has low frequency.
3. The component frequencies of a musical sound are rational. It means that the ratio of the frequencies of the component of music form simple fractions. Again, if we consider the noise, the components frequencies are random. They are described by a probability distribution.

Note: Both the musical sound and the noise are produced from vibrations. But the difference in properties of these vibrations make some vibrations a musical sound and some vibrations just noise.
Depending on the listener we define some sounds as both musical sound and noise. If we are making a rhythmic sound from something the one producing it may find it relaxing, but for someone working on something nearby it may be just a noise.