Although a sound is composed of the notes which, when developed, constitute three chords, beautifully differing in their musical effects; yet, as the three notes which make the fundamental chord have sixteen of the twenty-five circles of vibrations, this determines the predominance of the fundamental chord. And as the root of this chord has seven of these sixteen circles, the top of the chord five, and the middle of the chord four, so do these seven circles of vibration determine the predominance of the note to which they belong, and conspire to give a wondrous unity of effect to what is really a highly complex sound.1
Sir Isaac Newton said of himself that if there was any mental habit or endowment in which he excelled the generality of men, it was that of patience in the examination of the facts and phenomena of his subject. We are very apt to make up our minds too soon. Things are not always what they seem. Common sense, so very valuable in every-day life, goes but a very little way in science. Common sense could not have told that, when a uniform body is suspended at one end and oscillated as a pendulum, the oscillations would be the same if suspended at one-third from the end. Much less could common sense have told that suspension at a point between these two points, namely, at two-thirds of this one-third from the end, would give the highest rate of speed of oscillation of which the body is capable, a point which we shall call the center of Velocity.
1 The modest statement that "one sound contains three different sounds" has been disputed on the ground that "a simple vibration is surely a most possible thing, and therefore also a simple sound." There are no simple effects in Nature. Gravity gradually retards a rising body, and accelerates a falling body; an inclined plane is a diminished falling body; a pendulum is an interrupted inclined plane; and a musical string vibrating is a double compound pendulum, having its center of oscillation and velocity acting spontaneously and simultaneously on each side of the center of gravity.
Another objection to a sound being made up of different sounds was that "these sounds would beget other sounds, and this would go on ad infinitum. Thus a musical note should consist at once of every possible sound; and yet we know that this would be a jarring noise." It did not occur to these objectors that as Nature mixes her chemical elements in very various proportions, and adapts them to our constitutions and our wants, she could likewise mix her musical elements in such proportion as not to offend our ears.
What the Chord of Chords sounds like: http://www.svpvril.com/sharedfilefolder/Grand_Fugue-11-17-21-Stereo.mp3
See Also