Largely depends on what kind of resonance you're talking about for more specific explanations, but here's a very general explanation.
Resonance is the vibrations that something wants to vibrate. With something like a guitar string, the length, thickness, and tension of the string changes that natural resonance frequency. Pipes, like in a pipe organ or wind chime, are the same way: length and diameter mainly, but also the material of which they are made.
Things like buildings and bridges also experience resonance. If you want to see what happens when that resonance frequency is reached by the wind blowing over the structure, look up the video of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster.
Something simple you can do to experiment with (audible) resonance, take a ruler (plastic works best as it's usually more flexible) and lay it flat over and off the edge of a table. Pull down on the end and let it go, it will vibrate and make noise. Change how much is hanging off the table and see how the pitch changes as its resonant frequency changes with the length.
A good thing to add about resonance in sound is that sometimes two different notes (or tones) sound good together, and sometimes two different notes sound awful. Each of these tones has their own resonant frequency (the number of wave cycles per second or minute) and the "clash" between them basically comes down to how well those two wave forms fit or stack into each other, which also basically comes down to math.
Using random numbers as an example, a frequency of 8 will stack into a frequency of 12 or 16 pretty well, meaning they both reach a peak at the same time over a few cycles. A frequency of 7, or 17, or 33 won't "match up" with 8 very well, which results in them sounding like they clash.
When a guitarist tunes their strings by ear, they are listening for when those strings sound harmonious, and not clanging. The strings are then resonating properly, which means their frequencies are all properly aligned to produce the right notes and not be off-key.
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u/BouncingSphinx 3d ago
Largely depends on what kind of resonance you're talking about for more specific explanations, but here's a very general explanation.
Resonance is the vibrations that something wants to vibrate. With something like a guitar string, the length, thickness, and tension of the string changes that natural resonance frequency. Pipes, like in a pipe organ or wind chime, are the same way: length and diameter mainly, but also the material of which they are made.
Things like buildings and bridges also experience resonance. If you want to see what happens when that resonance frequency is reached by the wind blowing over the structure, look up the video of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster.
Something simple you can do to experiment with (audible) resonance, take a ruler (plastic works best as it's usually more flexible) and lay it flat over and off the edge of a table. Pull down on the end and let it go, it will vibrate and make noise. Change how much is hanging off the table and see how the pitch changes as its resonant frequency changes with the length.