Why Instruments Sound Different
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 มิ.ย. 2024
- Have you ever wondered why instruments have such a unique sound? It's more than just the material and shape of an instrument that determines why it sounds a certain way, and in this video I'll be going over the basic science behind why every instrument sounds different.
0:00 Intro
0:26 Physics
2:47 Overtones
4:49 Orchestral Instruments
8:41 Outro
Don't forget to subscribe to the channel for all things instruments, orchestras, and music!
#instruments #overtones #physics #sound #orchestra #strings #brass #woodwind #percussion
Brandenburg Concerto No4-1 BWV1049 - Classical Whimsical by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Source: incompetech.com/music/royalty-...
Artist: incompetech.com/
The attack of a note has a huge effect of it's 'timbre'. It is much more difficult to differentiate two instruments if you remove the attack and just play the tone.
Not just the attack, but the rest of the envelope too!
Exactly. take any tenor-bass voiced brass instrument, they sound (almost) identical playing in unison but articulated passages gives it away. (my sound still sometimes gets mistaken for a trumpet or trombone by my director and gets wrong sections' called out lol)
Thanks, I was coming to make the same comment. The video is unfortunately incomplete.
Wait how does this guy only have 47 subs
This is actually really informative, and this only helps my understanding of music as I continue my music career 😼
im thinking the same thing
He has 308 now and it’s because he‘s new.
at 400 rn
539
One big omission : in addition to the overtones present, the "attack" (initial transient) of the sound of a musical instrument is very influential in the character of that instrument. This is the short period leading up to the steady-state resonant character of the of the instrument. If you separately record a flute and oboe playing the same pitch, and replace the attack (say first 50ms) of the flute recording with the first 50ms of the oboe the result will sound very much like an oboe even though only 50ms of the oboe sound is present. In addition "noise" and other non-harmonic elements associated with particular instruments can also be significant, especially with percussion instruments many of which emit non-harmonic partials (sometimes misnamed as overtones). The differing profile/shape of marimba bars and xylophone bars result in a different set of non-harmonic partials for these two instruments. So there is often much more to musical instrument sounds than a varying set of static harmonic overtones.
Right - transients play very important role.
You should start with the trumpet for the brass, because it is easier to switch from high brass to low brass than it is to switch from low brass to high brass
Counter argument: start with French Horn. The mouthpiece is smaller than a trumpet’s mouthpiece. I had a buddy in high school switch from trumpet to French horn and he said the hardest thing to adjust to was the size of the mouthpiece.
Y’all better stick around because… 👀
@@williamsanborn9195i did the same thing and the hardest thing is hitting the correct partial, as they are way closer than on trumpet
bro really thought he could get away with the Sam o'Nella intro piece.
Another comment: I appreciate your presentation style, especially that you speak slowly and clearly, especially when defining an important point, and that you use your hands to describe a point, rather than just waving your hands for no reason.
Good presentation!
I appreciate the positive feedback! Thank you for subscribing, I hope you enjoy the content!
0:07 I'll tell you why the first one sounds different. It's about 30 cents sharp.
Oboe things
I've been asking this same question the whole time but never even got the chance to look up the answer on the internet. And yet low and behold, somehow TH-cam just randomly ecommends this banger of a video to answer my question. This was awesome, dude!
There's also an interesting phenomenon called sympathetic resonance with polyphonic string instruments and the piano. At least I think it's just with those.
But basically, when you pluck/play a a note, notes that share a note with that note in the overtone series will vibrate in "sympathy". Pretty cool :)
Great video. I think I was your 100th subscriber. Can’t wait to see you learn trombone since that’s the instrument that I play.
Thank you for helping me reach a milestone! I’ll try to remember you when I get around to trombone 👌🏼
This is the best explanation of how overtones are produced I’ve seen on YT. Thanks. I’m subscribed
I would be interest in a bit more of physics:
- how does a wave with overtones look like (longitudinal wave or transverse wave)
- how do the overtunes of different instruments look when put into a frequency spectrum
Those topics would get you another click from me.
Otherwise I'm more into music experts for one instrument.
But good luck and have fun learning many instruments!
Wow, you are really good at explaining concepts!
Great video, it really help me understand how sound is a wave.
very informative and interesting, thank you!
Super high quality video for amount of subs, keep it up!
Welcome to the TH-cam scene! Praying for nothing but success from this channel. Happy to support a fellow musician.
This chanel is really nice ! I wish you luck on learning every instrument !
dude, amazing video, do more, instant subscriber here!
Bells can be a notable exception to the overtone occurnce.
Source: David Bruce, composer, on YT, from "Why Composers Love Bells."
Great video man 🎉
This needs to get big
You earned my sub! Can't wait for more
Ur gonna go big bro I can’t wait for ur success😃
Tenor Saxophonist and Guitarist here something I find interesting about overtones is about how shapes of instruments affect such things. The clarinet and the sax produce tone in the exact same way with the only major difference being that sax has a larger mouthpiece however due to the cone shape of the sax and the cylinder shape of the clarinet they sound very different and are very different volumes because of that.
I understand you wish to play all orchestral instruments but it would be pretty fun if you picked up a sax of some sort just saying. Not as commonly used but classical sax is pretty cool.
Saxophone is certainly on the list ✔️
@@2T_Music If you do I would definitely recommend starting on an alto or a tenor though an alto would be easier. Bari and especially Soprano are more niche but also just harder to control so with a 3 month span an alto or tenor makes more sense.
Happy learning!
This was great. Would you consider doing a video on subharmonics and where they appear in the orchestra?
I'll make a note of it!
@@2T_Music You have a really great talent for teaching!! I would love to hear you explain subharmonics and undertones, it'd be really helpful to us😊
You don't really talk about the difference between "overtone" and "harmonic".
It's noticeable that at 4:40 you add the caveat "more or less" when asserting that the overtones are "multiples of the fundamental pitch", without any explanation of why this should be so, and why it's only approximate and why the frequency of a particular note is what it is.
So why when a trumpet plays A440 (written B4) - as in the example you give - is the "fundamental" B4 rather than B3 as the length of the tube would suggest?
Stringed and wind instruments work differently. On a stringed instrument, the string keeps getting shorter as the pitch goes up. That's easy On wind instruments, above the bottom 5th / octave / 12th of the instrument, the effective fundamental length of the column of air doesn't get any shorter. The intended (perceived) pitch is not a fundamental but an overtone. The same fingering or length of tube can produce a lower pitch.
All of which means that this video doesn't really even begin to answer the question about why a sounding D5 sounds so different on trumpet, clarinet, oboe, flute, bassoon, French horn and trombone.
And yes, I've not even started to take into account the role attack also plays in distinguishing instruments apart.
@2T_Music
I enjoyed your video and appreciate the work you put in.
Please note: *not *only does
-the onset “quickness” of a note’s rise (slope) to apex of onset and “quickness” of descent (slope) and average sustained nadir of onset
-AND the duration of this ascent/descent
-AND its sustain and decay (slope)
-AND the amount AND frequency AND duration of sibilants in the onset
-AND duration of sibilants
-AND subtones
-AND more …
----all sum to create defining conditions and characteristics for each instrument.
----It behooves us to consider the insights into “how/why different instruments sound” by how wave/sonic/etc. investigations show how differently just one instrument sounds using different mouthpiece. This helps us to understand how/when/why/what/etc. we can hear and explain how different instruments sound different.
I wish you health and joy.
Dr D
Thumbs up if you too didn't hear a low pitch on 2:21
underrated and high quality
+1
Physics is okay as long as I don't have to do any math. 😂
you should keep making videos! You are extremely underrated 😔
This is gonna blow up pretty quick
If you were to do something like this again, I was kinda hoping that the overtones of different instruments would be visualized.
I'd love to revisit this topic down the road when I have more material and do a deeper dive into the harmonic makeup of each instrument sound. Maybe someday!
Such a great video idea, I subscribed halfway through, and I’m excited to be a part of your channel. I did want to learn more about how the overtones change the sound. do they change the sound in ways that are pleasing or unpleasing when the ratios are simple or complex? what gives brass, the brassy sound? those kinds of things. this is a good explanation of how the instruments make the sound, but not really why they all sound distinct from one another. It’s a good video. I just wanted to learn more about the relationship between the overtones and the instruments: like do some instruments have considerably less overtones more overtones? Which ones are they?. How does that affect the sound how the material and the construction of an instrument change its overtones. you mention that even within the same instrumens, from instrument instrument, the overtones could be different. How can they vary? What are the general overtones that make the instrument sound like that instrument and not like another one? I was really curious: what about the envelope of the instrument- i imagine that the attack and decay of a brass instrument is considerably different to a string instrument. Or maybe it isn’t, idk. I would love to see a follow up video with some more details and maybe some comparisons of some charts comparing those overtones you did one or two charts I think. again awesome video can’t wait to see more.
All these questions are awesome, and I would also like to know more about this topic! Maybe later down the road I can revisit the subject with more detailed information. Until then, thanks for the sub!
Yes, instruments vary in terms of how many overtones/harmonics they have, which are more prominent, and how many partials. I believe the recorder has very few. Not quite an instrument, but a sine wave generator would have the least in that it has none, just the fundamental.
If you really want to see the fine details, look up the spectrum analysis graphs of various instruments. That will show you exactly which overtones are being hit, how strong they are, the fall off at higher frequencies, even the nature of their partials.
waiting for this guys channel to blow up...
one time i saw a really good video from a youtuber with like, 400 something subs.
i came back a month or two later and he had over 2.5k.
it really is a small world, huh?
@@play3r.wav. Haha you watched him too?
i won't name the guy,
i'll just wait for more people who know what i'm talking about to appear.
he was music related btw
Your videos look very professionals don’t give up !
Hey very cool man!
Doesn't mention the most popular woodwind, Saxophone; mentions Clarinet, shows a picture of a Saxophone mouthpiece. Just bustin' your balls! Nice job. Now go one step further - get an oscilloscope and have your buddies who play a few different instruments play their one note into it - show us the waveform! Now THAT would be fun!!!
Darn, I tried so hard to color correct that into looking like a clarinet mouthpiece! 😉
Excellent vid
Great video
I hear the Brandenburg Concerto No4-1 BWV1049, and I know that its just classical Music, but I cant unhear SamO'Nella
Bach is baroque music, almost 100 years older than classical period.
Really interesting.
I’m excited for when you start percussion! I am percussion education major in college
I've never learned a percussion instrument before! Which would you recommend I start with?
great videoooo
I ❤ music and instruments ong 💕🔥
Commenting before this channel blows up
Mallet percussion is 442 ik that because my teacher uses it to say that u can tune a band using mallets
I was thinking about this a few days ago and realized that Trombones can hit the same notes as a trumpet however they have a stronger fundamental making the tone more rounded and warm. Same with almost every reed instrument, they have a very similar range but the overtones make them sound higher or lower than they actually are.
That's a very good point actually. I always wondered why the Alto sax sounds so much higher than the Tenor when they're only a perfect fifth apart. Thank you!
@@steve17 The tenor sax does I guess have a lower range, it's a much bigger tube but you can certainly hit very high notes on both, just one is going to be more throaty.
@@PiotrBarcz Yup. Oh, I forgot to add, a trumpet can also play the same notes as a trombone :) Definitely harder to do and doesn't sound the same, but it's possible.
Source: Arturo Sandoval heh
@@steve17 Yeah, pedal tones xD
here before this channel blows up
This I understand. Is there an explanation, in which way the way to create and amplify the sound waves influences the amount and volume of the overtones?
That's a great question! I'd love to know more about it myself. A lot of those topics are pretty advanced physics concepts, and unfortunately I'm not versed enough in them to give you a satisfactory answer. But I definitely want to learn more about it!
@@2T_Music
I enjoyed your video and appreciate the work you put in.
Please note: *not *only does
-the onset “quickness” of a note’s rise (slope) to apex of onset and “quickness” of descent (slope) and average sustained nadir of onset
-AND the duration of this ascent/descent
-AND its sustain and decay (slopes)
-AND the amount AND frequency AND duration of sibilants in the onset
-AND duration of sibilants
-AND subtones
-AND more …
----all sum to create defining conditions and characteristics for each instrument.
----It behooves us to consider the insights into “how/why different instruments sound” by how wave/sonic/etc. investigations show how differently just one instrument sounds using different mouthpiece. This helps us to understand how/when/why/what/etc. we can hear and explain how different instruments sound different.
I wish you health and joy.
Dr D
Esto es un tema bastante peculiar :3
Regarding the flute, does the air "split" or does it oscillate in and out of the embouchure hole?
It's a little bit of both! The amount of air that enters the flute oscillates, depending on the pressure inside the instrument. Although the amount varies, there's always some going in and some going out, which is why I say it "splits."
An acoustics teacher asked us: why does a string section sound louder with vibrato than without it? I never got the answer and he didn't tell us...
Nevertheless, from my experience, it doesn't happen with choirs, unlike strings
Commenting before this guy gets big
149th subscriber surprised I’m not 149,000th subscriber
same lmao, i'm willing to bet that after a few uploads he'll have a few thousand subs
here before you blow up wooooo
50th sub
❤
Did you know that harp is actually a percussion instrument? I know, weird right?
No, it's not
631
This is interesting, but as a person who knows nothing about music, this content is too advanced for me. I need it broken down into smaller & more simple details in order to understand it.
He only has like 3 vids so yeah he doesn't have many subs
I like your video! I have some very minor feedback. During this video, especially during the physics portion, you talk very slowly and like you are explaining this to a child. It makes the experience more difficult to enjoy, as it comes off as slightly rude. (although of course I understand that's not intended and reading from a script is a difficult thing to do naturally ;) I know this is pretty nit-picky, and I like where you're going. I hope your channel does well as you learn content creation!
Thanks for the feedback and the well-wishes!
I thought the physics explanation was fine. Many people watching this won’t have a physics background, so going through it slowly makes it more accessible, but understandably a bit more frustrating for people who already know it and are eager to move on.
I was in fact going to give a little bit of the opposite feedback 😂 I thought the language was maybe a bit too sciencey, maybe not as accessible as it could be. But the diagrams were very helpful, and the explanation was concise and very clear, so overall great job 👍
I have worked as a science teacher, so I know it’s always a balancing act. It’s hard enough to pitch a lesson at the right level to a classroom of 25 kids, let alone the whole of the internet! You did great with this one, so keep up the good work!
Yeah, I thought it was totally fine and not condescending. Taking time to explain things is important for new folks.
0:00 to 0:20, the intonation was poor🤓
First
Second
Third
Fourth
Physics? Boo! I turned off.
Find a way to tell this story without frequency waves being at the start of the story.
I cant wait for watching you learn saxoph-oh.. nvm... 🫠🙃 Thanks for the info
You didn't think I'd make an instrument channel without plans to learn the saxophone, did you? ;)