This is why tuning pianos is so hard, btw. The overtones are way more important than anything else about each set of strings.
If you don't take care of the overtones, playing scales will create a sort of "wah" effect that was cool in the 60's, but not so desirable for the freshly tuned piano. It's one of many reasons straight up MIDI sounds so weird. (Instrument modelling and multiple samples fixes that).
And you have different temperments, which flavour the sounds in different ways even after the "clashing" overtones are taken care of.
It's all related to how phonemes, units of speech, make different vowels or consonants when the pitch is changed. You'd be surprised at how much a speech sound changes in perception just because of the pitch. It has everything to do with those "What do you hear?" memes out there. Our brains do interesting things to similar wave envelopes at different pitches.
Fascinating stuff if you're into that sort of thing.
>It's one of many reasons straight up MIDI sounds so weird
PSA for anyone who needs to hear it: MIDI doesn't have a sound any more than sheet music does.
General MIDI-compatible software tone generator in Windows 95 is no more "MIDI" than an untuned piano in an abandoned house is "classical music".
MIDI to music is what TCP/IP is for communication (incidentally, these protocols are of the same age). If you want to "hear" MIDI, turn on the radio. You will "hear" MIDI in the same way you are "seeing" TCP/IP now, reading this page.
The limitations of this protocol do have an effect on sound, but in a subtle way. For instance, implementation of polyphonic pitch bend / slide was not standardized in the 80s. As a result, it was pretty much absent from electronic instruments until recently. A new MIDI-based standard, MPE, addresses that.
This is why tuning pianos is so hard, btw. The overtones are way more important than anything else about each set of strings.
If you don't take care of the overtones, playing scales will create a sort of "wah" effect that was cool in the 60's, but not so desirable for the freshly tuned piano. It's one of many reasons straight up MIDI sounds so weird. (Instrument modelling and multiple samples fixes that).
And you have different temperments, which flavour the sounds in different ways even after the "clashing" overtones are taken care of.
It's all related to how phonemes, units of speech, make different vowels or consonants when the pitch is changed. You'd be surprised at how much a speech sound changes in perception just because of the pitch. It has everything to do with those "What do you hear?" memes out there. Our brains do interesting things to similar wave envelopes at different pitches.
Fascinating stuff if you're into that sort of thing.