Chord's frequency

[stormx]

Hi !! 

I know each note produces a sound with an specific frequency (like A above middle C, whose frequency should be 440 MHz).
I wonder, when you play a chord, say C-E-G...what is the frequency of the resulting sound?
Why does it sound different from a single note with that frequency?

Sorry if this are obvious questions, but my knowledge of the physics of music is almost non existent...

[ted]

I think that is actually a very complicated question as it relates to the piano and I shall leave it to a tuner to answer you properly. In theory you could reason that the period of a combination is the lowest common multiple of the periods of the individual notes. For a start the piano is not exact in that sense anyway and secondly what the ear perceives is a separate issue again. I look forward with interest to any replies.

[steinwayguy]

A chord consists of sound waves of more than one frequency. You can't reduce it to one frequency.

[musik_man]

When you have multiple waves hitting each other, they combine to form one wave.  However, it's not always a nice sine graph like an C would make.

https://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/schroedinger/

There's a little thing on that website that'll let you see how different frequencies interact.