Irregular Waves:

Not all the waves are sine waves. Some of the non-sinusoidal waves are easy but are view seldom in nature. Some of these waves have hasty transitions; dissimilar the smooth sinusoid, they jump or jerk back and onward. If you have used a laboratory oscilloscope, you are well-known with waves like this. The simplest non-sinusoids are the ramp wave, the square wave, the saw-tooth wave, and the triangular wave. These can be produced with an electronic music synthesizer, and they have certain mathematical perfection, though you will never see them on the ocean. Irregular waves come in myriad shapes, such as fingerprints or snowflakes. The ocean is filled with these. In the world of waves, straightforwardness is scarce, and chaos is general.

Most of the musical instruments generate irregular waves, such as the chop on the surface of a lake. These are complicated combinations of sine waves. Any waveform can be wrecked down into sinusoid components, though the mathematics which define this can become complex. The cycles superimpose themselves on longer cycles, which in return superimpose themselves on still longer cycles. Even ramp, square, saw-tooth, and triangular waves, with their sharp corners and straight edges, are composites of the smooth sinusoids which exist in accurate proportions. Waves of this kind are simpler on the ear than sine waves. They are also simpler to produce. Try setting a music synthesizer or signal generator to generate square, ramp, saw-tooth, triangular, and irregular waves, and listen to the differences in the manner they sound. They all have the similar pitch, though the timbre, or tone, of the sound is dissimilar.