Mondo Knows Facts
Open and closed pipes behave differently
An open pipe supports every harmonic, while a closed one supports only odd ones That is why stopped organ pipes sound hollow and an octave lower than an open pipe of the same length. Wind players use the effect when they half hole a note. Brass instruments with mutes shift closer to the closed case. It sits in Mondo's music collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
Where this comes from
Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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Tags: acoustics, pipes, physics
Open and closed pipes behave differently: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- An open pipe supports every harmonic, while a closed one supports only odd ones. The figure is taken from Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a music fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Music shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.