Background

In the previous laboratory assignment, you measured the velocity of a plucked string and determined that it was not perfectly periodic. Another way of analyzing this signal is to perform a hybrid time and frequency domain analysis such as the Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT). This corresponds to essentially performing a Fourier Series-similar analysis at various windows in time. The end product is a time-varying spectrum.

In the previous laboratory assignment, you observed the peaks in the time-varying spectrum. These corresponded to the harmonics or sinusoidal components in the velocity signal, where a large portion of the energy in the string corresponded to very confined (ideally point-like) frequency regions.