By blowing across the mouth of a tube closed at one end, we produce a flutter of the air, and some pulse of this flutter may be raised by the resonance of the tube to a musical sound.
The sound is the same as that obtained when a tuning-fork, whose rate of vibration is that of the tube, is placed over the mouth of the tube.
When a tube closed at one end—a stopped organ-pipe, for example—sounds its lowest note, the column of air within it is undivided by a node. The overtones of such a column correspond to its division into parts, like those of a rod fixed at one end and vibrating longitudinally. The order of its tones is that of the odd numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, etc. That this must be the order follows from the manner in which the column is divided.
In organ-pipes the air is agitated by causing it to issue from a narrow slit, and to strike upon a cutting edge. Some pulse of the flutter thus produced is raised by the resonance of the pipe to a musical sound.
When, instead of the aërial flutter, a tuning-fork of the proper rate of vibration is placed at the embouchure of an organ-pipe, the pipe speaks in response to the fork. In practice, the organ-pipe virtually creates its own tuning-fork, by compelling the sheet of air at its embouchure to vibrate in periods synchronous with its own.
An open organ-pipe yields a note an octave higher than that of a closed pipe of the same length. This relation is a necessary consequence of the respective modes of vibration.
When, for example, a stopped organ-pipe sounds its deepest note, the column of air, as already explained, is undivided. When an open pipe sounds its deepest note, the column is divided by a node at its centre. The open pipe in this case virtually consists of two stopped pipes with a common base. Hence it is plain that the fundamental note of an open pipe must be the same as that of a stopped pipe of half its length.
The length of a stopped pipe is one-fourth that of the sonorous wave which it produces, while the length of an open pipe is one-half that of its sonorous wave.
The order of the tones of an open pipe is that of the even numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, etc., or of the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.
In both stopped and open pipes the number of vibrations executed in a given time is inversely proportional to the length of the pipe.