Peters [1] discussed some theoretical aspects of the ‘ringing’ sound associated with barbershop quartet singing. These combination tones were first investigated theoretically by Helmholtz [2] who showed that the transient displacement of the ear membrane is governed by the anharmonic motion equation. Rayleigh [3] modelled the situation as an initial value problem and this is now referred to as the Rayleigh problem. Following [1] there has been a renewed interest in the problem (see [4‐8]). The intention of the present paper is to:alfaillustrate the qualitative behaviour of the solutions of the Rayleigh problem by a phase plane analysis;alfadescribe how the method of multiple scales provides a framework within which previous analyses can be seen;alfadescribe an improvement to the method of multiple scales, which may also prove useful in other applications.