The human ear hears sine waves.
If you hear a complex waveform (like a square wave), the ear decomposes it into sine wave "harmonics", which are all multiples of a "fundamental" frequency.
The human ear identifies pitch as the "fundamental" frequency, AKA the GCD(sine harmonics), AKA period of a waveform.
VRC7 plays a carrier sine at f, and applies FM at g to create a series of sine "harmonics" at f ± y*g for integer y. Loudness decreases as abs(y) increases. If f is 8 and g is 1, the waveform will sound bright, piercing, and bassless (since it only has high frequencies around 8).
The resulting waveform has a period of gcd(f, g), and all "harmonics" are multiples of gcd(f, g), so the ear hears a tone at gcd(f, g).