Timbre: why different instruments playing the same tone sound different
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- "The same tone" is not the same at all. We usually think of a tone as the frequency of one sound: the fundamental frequency common to all instruments exemplified here, but every tone is in fact a complex entity - a chord if you will - consisting of many other simple tones.
These simple tones are reiterations of the same energy, on different levels. They are harmonically related to each other (do not confuse true harmony with the simultaneous playing of equal tempered tones). The simple mathematical law governing the harmonic series is depicted here: the fundamental frequency at 128 Hz is harmonic 1, or simply the fundamental. The next harmonic oscillates exactly 2 times faster at 256 Hz; harmonic 3 precisely 3 times giving 384 Hz, and so on.
This progression 1 2 3 4 5 ... generating aurally unequal tones continues to infinity. Physically, a harmonically rich timbre like that of the sitar or accordion goes beyond the 120th harmonic - visible on the graphic. Musically, the Harmonic Series is nature's perfect tuning system, generating perfectly consonant harmonies.
[Note that "tone" means "sound with regular structure" and has no connection to the definition given to it by Western music theory. Some of the overtone series in the video are not perfectly harmonic, that is, bearing exactly whole number relationships with the lowest frequency, because of the physicality of the instruments. The stiffness of strings together with the exciting action performed upon them (like striking and plucking) are responsible for the stretching or compressing the series into numbers that are not 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 but for example 1 - 2,001 - 3,002 - 4,003 - 5,004 - 6,005 and so on. This is called "inharmonicity".]
The program used in making this video is
Overtone Analyzer by Sygyt Software:
www.sygyt.com/
The sound file analyzed (with a +11dB difference in volume):
whatmusicreally...
More about What Music Really İs:
whatmusicreally...
TLDR it is the number and amplitude of harmonics produced by a voice or instrument that define the timbre, but they all share the fundamental tone being the biggest contributor
Yeah. Root tone with 0 harmonics would be a sine wave
Noise also plays a part especially with the percussive elements
But it wasn't, for the viola and the accordion? Still confused.
With respect to the comment in the video about how out of tune 12-tone is: When you consider harmonic substitution by way of tempering, 12EDO actually isn't so out of tune after all. For starters, it has a very good perfect fifth -- you have to go all the way to 29EDO to do better (although an unequal temperament of an intermediate number of divisions of the octave could potentially do better). Yes, the 12EDO minor third (300 cents, 4th root of 2) is nearly 16 cents flat of its nominal 6/5, but it falls very close to both 19/16 and (closer yet) 25/21, which has pretty good consonance. Yes, the major third (400 cents, cube root of 2) is nearly 14 cents sharp of its nominal 5/4, but it falls almost perfectly on top of 63/50 and (if you go slightly more sharp) 24/19 -- those are a bit more rough, but not too bad. And the minor seventh (1000 cents) is WAY off from its nominal 7/4 . . . but it substitutes this by being very close to 16/9 and 25/14 -- definitely not to specification, but at least a pretty good-sounding substitute. And I think the perfect roots of 2 -- 4th root and cube root already mentioned, and square root (tritone) themselves have virtue, especially with the square root of 2 getting a lot of use in modern jazz, but also significant use in Baroque music.
Love how the intro music was the harmonic/ overtone series. Pretty neat.
is anybody else watching this for school? xd
Nah, just for fun😂
I am
Yeah same
Eu sou do Brasil,mas meu professor passou tbm kk
What do you study ? Sound engineer?
I would like to know the name of this analysis software。
Sygyt Software's Overone Analyser is mentioned at the end of the video :)
Which program did you used to record this video ? It was awesome !!! :D
Made with Overtone Analyzer by Sygyt Software.
Great tutorial could you do more instruments? What do you mean by compare with the lines behind, those lines are not in sync with whole/integer harmonics, their equal all the way up, should be getting smaller and smaller
Aaron Banks That's precisely my point: Western musical culture takes those artificially created lines (the 12-tone equal tempered tuning of the piano) as standard. Here you see just how inappropriate that is.
Re. more instruments: Perhaps it would be better to do 110 Hz because it related with the standard these instruments were tuned to when recorded and this way there's no pitch-shifting & time-stretching of the samples.
By the way, this approach also explains "inharmonicity": imgur.com/D7OZpHZ
Great demonstration! What App did you use to draw the spectrogram?
Hello, the creator used the Overtone Analyzer, this is the previous version of VoceVista Video. You can find this software for free download at www.vocevista.com/purchase-vocevista-video-for-mac-and-pc/
Does anybody know what Note was played?
C 128,40 Hz
@@j8aco thank you
اذني: سأخبر الله بكل شي 🙂💔
I have an alternative spectrogramming algorithm :)
This explains why accordions ruin everything
You lie
oh... go fuck yourself. btw, I love how the comment section of a really nice scientific demonstration turns into a hate therapy session
@@gastonrobles2870 things were pretty civil until you chimed in
@@davidgrout1056 I know, I´m an asshole, I´m just wondering why all us assholes got clustered in here. mmm. me, personally, I got triggered by the accordion comment. I got some great performers I could recomend. what music do you like?
@@gastonrobles2870 I like prog rock, bebop, bluegrass, Frank Zappa, Rush, Steely Dan, REM, Talking Heads, Tribal Tech, and Shostakovich, to name a few. I also have extensive hands-on experience with accordion players: I was the percussionist with Valery Kovtun, Russia's best accordionist, for many years. I also worked for a TV news company, and did an entire story on accordions. I respect talented players on any instrument, but you won't change my mind about the sound of the accordion. It saturates the air with overtones, and the constant crescendos and decrescendos irritate me.
I am computer professional and I hate how the classic people treat music as complicated concepts and all weird notation. There is no scientific consensus and its real hard to learn the music as arcane art.
People in music talk about perception which is hard to translate in science. Only exists is the Sound Waves, Frequencies and amplitudes along with physics notion of Nodes and anti-node, superposition, attenuation etc etc.
Can we make music more scientific in 3rd Millennium ?
who the fuck would want to do that lol
@@ShanevsDCsniperr
Seeing as your name is Libtard, I don't think anyone expects an intelligent opinion from you. And here you are, proving it right.
@@Persun_McPersonson the name is obviously meant in jest but i'm not surprised someone who would focus in on that word would have trouble with reading comprehension lol. in any case, do you care to explain why you think "more scientific" art would be more desirable? there is no scientific consensus about art and nor should there be. art is the realm of ambiguity and subjectivity and interpetation. of course there are physical properties to sound and all other media, but understanding physics or electrical engineering does not make one a great composer or a great synthesist, for example. i'm not opposed to artists being educated or developing an understanding of scientific concepts relevant to their medium (i'm classically trained), but looking for scientific consensus on a subject like music is evidence of a limited worldview and an event more limited perspective on the actual value of art imo.
@@ShanevsDCsniperr
I'm a libtard myself and was just shitposting haha. It would've probably been a good idea to exaggerate a bit more to highlight my non-seriousness...
@@Persun_McPersonson poe's law lol
xd f
So what is music really? It should be the expression of truth in harmony.
Music, is an idea which originates in the conscious, which then unconsciously executes crazy math equations to stimulate neurons to control body to operate a musical instrument created by another humans imagination who had in mind the frequency of waves induced into the air by vibration of an object and specific frequencies react nicely to eachother and then they go into the ear and bounce off a drum with an electrical signal running through it changing its energy which is measured by the brain and converted into something we can hear and somehow triggers chemical emotions in the body and the sound also goes into a microphone where it is again converted to electrical signal, then digital, where it can be manipulated by a computer using 1s and 0s to change all characterics of the wave and then is converted to a radiowave where it can travel at the speed of light to an atenna and be converted again so the world can hear it 🤔
@@kornbread5359 "so the world can hear it"... & eventually one will say: I have an idea!
@@kornbread5359 gay
what truth is there in numbers? they're all true as they are
your obsession with simplicity and symmetry has nothing to do with truth or music, you're just looking for easy brain stimulation
The chord in the intro is A major dominant 7th add 9 add 10 if anyone wondering.
its overtones
@@AdamMaykov yep but can be heard
@@femyeah3064 of course
Anyone who's watching this with a growing music driven curiosity?. Would love some more ideas to get a better undstanding and deep dive into the subject of sound and waveforms, anyone any help?
THAT HARMONIC SERIES INTO THO WTFF
Ikr
Thanks for clearing my one year old doubt 🙏
I love the shakuhashi at the end, really beutifull wave
Awesome visual aid!
Have you used Fourier Transform to separate the frequencies? What software?
The software he is using is Overtone Analyzer by Sygyt software. The visualisations you see in this videos are not possible without FFT.
Very good video! This is what I've been wondering for a few years. Thank UA-cam recommended this to me
I love the additive synthesis intro
they were all the same hertz though? it was the same c with all the instuments? am i missing something?
yes, they had all the same fundamental frequency (128 Hz). the most important point, why all these instruments sound different, is because the harmonics are not always the same volume compared to the volume of the fundamental frequency.
@@dariusduesentrieb so the harmonics are like a residual? I call it residual because some had alot of movement from the 'main' frequency. not sure if that made sense :/
@@borpie I don't understand what you mean with residual (sorry I'm not a native English speaker, I could just be that I don't know the correct meaning of the word).
@@dariusduesentrieb kind of like 'what's left over' i cant really articulate it well so if you still dont understand it''s totally ok
Can “digitally changing sounds ie what you play on electric guitar is transformed into a piano sound with a processor” be explained with this? Changing the residual/smaller frequencies of guitar into the smaller freqs of piano tahn replicating the timbre?
+igopepra Download the source file from the link in the description, lower the volume 11dB and analyze it to your liking.
yoyoyo bun sarib
xD
hello and thanks for the video is great! ... I just want to know which was the amplitude in dB used during the recording of these sounds ... thanks!
Thank you for this video. This greatly increased my understanding of music. Answered a lot of questions. Well done experiment and presentation of results.
Is it because the amplitude?
Different amplitude in every periode or we can say that it is
Just like different volume every(lamda)
the title of this video is wrong instead of tone the video is referring to pitch . different instruments playing the same pitch have different timbre and therefore sounds different . [timbre explanation- the sound producing or vibration creating part of different instruments are made of different material so whenever the instruments vibrate it creates different after effects of the vibration (like different sets of harmonics and overtones)]
its because of the overtones
...
My ears hurt
Which produces the most harmonics
SO WHAT !!!
Really just why things sound different in general.
Irivel
Que KAKAAKKK
Vira home rapaz
f
maybe be they sound diffrent because they're not the same instrument
no its because each overtone has a different volume
Well yes, but why do different instruments sound different? That's the question. If you play a note, let's take C for example, that sound wave travels through the air. But if I play the note C on a different instrument, it sounds different, even though the same C note sound wave is traveling through the air. The reason is because there's "hidden" notes that your brain filters out.
@@jakegearhart It is not cancels out, I believe is is due to superpositions of different waves that gives characteristic perception.
@@rs-tarxvfz No, it is your brain filtering out overtones. Here's an example: ua-cam.com/video/Wx_kugSemfY/v-deo.html
that completely misses the concept that's being explored in this video.