SUBHARMONIC Music (Anomalous Low Frequency Vibration)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ก.ค. 2024
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/ adamneely
What a f***ing weird thing. There still exists magic in this world, and its called subharmonics. Undertones, anomalous low frequency vibration, and other crazy topics!
Henry Cowell New Musical Resources
zztt.org/lmc2_files/Cowell_New...
Harry Partch’s “Otonality and Utonality”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otonali...
Primer on Helmholtz Motion and the physics of bowed strings
newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/Bows....
Helmholtz Motion in slo Mo
• Bowed violin string in...
I know I said in the video that nobody knows what causes ALF, but it’s not entirely true. It’s been directly linked to something called Torsional vibration, which is basically how the string vibrates as it’s being twisted. It’s far too complicated for me to understand but here’s the paper. Very cool! Weird stuff.
knutsacoustics.com/files/alf-c...
Spectral Centroid (awesome name for something)
www.researchgate.net/publicat...
Spectral pitch perception
www.utdallas.edu/~assmann/hcs6...
www.musicandbrain.de/fileadmin...
Background Music:
sungazermusic.bandcamp.com
Follow Me on the Internets...
/ adamneely
/ its_adamneely
Peace,
Adam - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
Fun fact, you can actually lower your voice an octave in singing using a technique called, well, subharmonic singing.
where does vocal fry fit in to this? or is this more akin to Tuvan throat singing?
*****
Subharmonic singing is kinda like vocal fry, but the fry is a different thing. Subharmonic singing is when you get your vocal folds to vibrate at two different frequencies so when their wave intersects it creates a new wave that's an octave lower than the original pitch.
***** Wait, so the left fold vibrates at a different frequency from the right fold? Is this done by separately controlling the tension of each flap?
I'm not sure the exact science behind it, but if you search around for videos on subharmonic singing I'm sure there's others who can explain better than I can. But yeah, they vibrate at two separate frequencies, I'd imagine by doing what you said.
I'm going to be a mannnn
I really do appreciate that tab in 4:27
but wait which string? it doesn't specify? HELP!
Your videos are like the Vsauce of the music world.
these are more practical though.
Vsauce actually did a music-related video: "Will we ever run out of new music?"
his example space included every permutation of white noise for a particular length of time. Not sure I'd use that to quantify music
He used it just as a parameter to calculate.
Except they stay on topic ;)
Thank you for the guitar tab, I would've been lost!
dun worry, you'll get used to it in a couple of hours of practicing, keep going man !
Nailed it
That cracked me up
i was just about to make the same comment!! i guess there truly are no original thoughts lol
Damn I remember if 5th grade playing hard and getting "cool sounds" on my violin... did I accidently find undertones? ?
To clarify your initial statement: Subharmonic ORCHESTRAL music was thought to not exist. Subharmonic VOCAL music has been used for decades to hit super low notes (first, zero, and negative octaves).
I've never seen subharmonics to be used to hit negative octaves, that's only fry as I've heard.
Subharmonic singing only really lies in the first octave. Not really any point “singing” notes in the 0 octave
@@Xenon1825 I've practised the growling technique, and with that I'm able to hit notes in the from A-1 to A1. I know that A-1 is less than 20hz but if you record it and play it at double speed, you can hear an A0. But for me it's really hard to sustain pitch from the lower half of the 0 octave and down
@@matthewdockray9745 I'd even say second and first. Tanya Tagaq is a woman who sings with this technique to get notes that low! th-cam.com/video/dumvYzfuT0w/w-d-xo.html
@@Xenon1825 Its possible. Its just insanely difficult. I have managed to hit a B-1 using the 3rd subharmonic. It was weak, unstable and took many tries to get it in the first place. There are people who can get to the 3rd subharmonic more reliably like David Larsson, but i highly doubt there will ever be someone who sings that low using that technique in a live performance. Especially as a profundo/oktavist in an opera/choir. The lowest i could realistically see subharmonics find an use in unamplified performances is the upper 0th octave range. Maybe G0 at best.
Hi Adam. The phenomenon you're describing, is basically what happens when you play your five string bass on a rig that can't reproduce notes below, say, 50 Hz but the low B still sounds deep and full.
Holy fucking shit this blew my mind when you did the overtones in the computer program. By the way, you say it's supposed to be quiet but to me it's extremely loud.
Incredibly loud for me as well, even at low volumes. Insane phenomenon though.. Blew my mind as well
Swoleham Same thing here. It was really loud for me.
We're the next step in human evolution haha
same here, but i know nothing of music..
>tfw the fundamental isn't super loud for you but you aren't supposed to be a musical normie
I subscribed as a bassist, but in my day job I'm an acoustic engineer and these videos are... resonating with me on so many levels :D
Jack Traveller haaaaaa I see what you did there
Well said
I want a full version of "Hey man, you gotta check out some of this stuff!".
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yes please!
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Nice video.
One thing, when he says that this lower frequency just exist in our head and not in the frequency analyser, if you record the sound from your speakers with a mic and analyse it, you will have the lower note appearing. It happens physically as it is mentioned before in the video !
The reason you can reconstruct the fundamental in your head from only harmonics is that the interval between the harmonics is fixed and natural. Almost like if you see a projectile flying at a certain speed in a certain direction, you could infer where it was launched from from looking at its arc.
This subharmonic series doesn't seem to be like that. It seems like in the case of the bow technique and the tuning fork on the paper, a lower frequency is being produced but it doesn't have a natural relationship to the fundamental; it's just a lower, arbitrary frequency being produced by unusual means. Like you said, the paper on the fork is just a way of dividing the frequency, but it's not a natural attribute of the sound.
You can divide a frequency in half by just singing an octave lower, that doesn't give the lower note any special relationship to the higher one just because of the way it was produced.
I've heard the ALF efect called a Tartini tone (wikipedia: combination tone). You can sort of hear it when you play power chords, or on a woodwind if you growl the third or the fifth above the note you're fingering.
Yeah he has a video on that now. It's pretty good.
I recommend checking out David Larson. He has a whole series of videos that explain how the subharmonic technique can be utilized with the human voice in the style of the Russian oktavists. It's amazing.
Its time to make some Mysterious Kabbalistic Low Frequency Spectral Enigmatic Neo-post Ethereal Wave music
The Infinity Light agreed.
NY'ers have already done it. There were 5 people in the audience, two left before it really got cookin.
+Jeffrey Collins can you link it? I wanna see!
kabbalistic music? bah! hahahaha!
the color blind analogy is perfect. Watch videos on how we see yellow, on an rgb tv screen. Two waves combine, and where they meet, you get a phantom third wave.
THANK YOU for mentioning Harry Partch in this video!
subject matter necessitated it.
much respect.
That little piece "Hey man" at 0:26 was so amazing that i had to repeat it 20 times and it was still in my head to the rest of the day. Adam, it is a genius thing to compose such catchy thing with just 5 secs!!!!
tab: -0- killed me
Best explanation I have heard so far about 'implied fundamental tones'. I intend to watch all your videos.
Your videoes are so inspiring, and so well made! Thank you so much for making them
"Thanks for sticking around until the end of the video! This is where you can listen to the background music at full volume!"
*Proceeds to talk over the background music for the remainder of the video*
I love you Adam
Hey Adam, love your video! I wrote a paper on this very topic a few years ago which covers most of the same things you did. After some practice I was able to play these ALFVs on my viola and made some recordings to analyze. A quick frequency analysis showed that the ALFV really does produce a pitch which is infact lower than the strings fundamental. The raucous motion on it's own is a pitchless percussive sound but if controlled to have a periodicity it can produce a pitch. You can easily synthesize this by recording a short clip of the raucous motion and repeating it over and over again at different frequencies to hear different pitches. A violinist can vary the bow speed, pressure and contact point to find the 'sweet spot' to achieve that controlled periodicity of raucous motion and create a subharmonic frequency.
This is an awesome series. Basically vsauce for music
I watched this video as a break between studying for finals and I just have to say that this is an amazing video. You really explained the concept and theory surrounding it in depth within a short amount of time, and now I'm really interested to see if I can use it somehow. Anyway, I love your videos and am always excited for learning about some new musical concept. Keep up the good work!
Very cool Adam, nice one. There was one article in Bass Player magazine, over a decade ago, where an orchestral double bassist gave a brief description of his 'subharmonic' technique which also relied on the bow grazing the string in very particular locations. The only other reference to this subject I've come across other than yours. Maybe this will ring a bell for somebody else who may know who the cat's name was. Thanks again, keep it coming.
Thank you Adam, this is the first time that I have heard of this ALF. This is fascinating!
Never noticed how much aliasing Operator produces! Great vid as ever Adam.
Those videos are so amazing, so much science and music at the same time!!!
Fantastic video! Very impressed with the information you provided. Definitely got me thinking now :)
Just discovered this AWESOME channel. Thank you!
It also happens with the pick against guitar strings! Great video Adam! Keep it up.
Zak
Loved the video. Thank you so much for the links, saved me a lot of hassle!
Ok, I've figured out the perfect metaphor. Remember when you first learned to drive stick? You'd dump the clutch and the car would do that jerky thing and then die? No matter what, you can't reproduce that. You'll either drive fine or kill the engine, no middle ground.
She figured out the middle ground...
I saw this video a few days ago, and it caught my attention. I was really interested. Now, earlier today, I was noodling around on my guitar at my desk and I found a way to recreate the "octave-below" sound on a guitar! I was playing and I noticed it sounded like it was filling up my ears a lot more than normal, but only sometimes, so I held really still and saw that the bottom of the guitar was gently touching my desk, and it sounded an octave lower when I played a string! I think the frequencies from the guitar strings resonate through the body of the guitar against the wood of the desk, and it adds an extra octave below your playing!
I got really excited when Harry Partch was mentioned. His music is insane and he made some crazy instruments
Fascinating as always. I feel good about my self that I could hear the implied fundamental. I should probably find a better basis for my self esteem...
when i was in my senior year of high school, the end of our physics class was the sound and light unit. i will always remember the exercise where everyone in the class got to hear pitches all the way from the lowest humans can hear to the highest, and i was the only one in the class who couldn't stop their muscles from clenching and body from wiggling. when i listened to all the high pitched overtones, i very much physically felt the low buzz of the C. magic does exist, and it's in the way we can listen to music with our bodies :)
By the way most people do in fact 'hear' the fundamental from just the overtone information. Many of us have been doing it for years. Every time we listen to a radio with little 4 inch woofers. We can quite clearly tell that an electric bass' low E is not the 2nd E. Even though the E on a bass is 42 Hz. and there is no 4 inch speaker that can duplicate this fundamental. Interestingly many world class audio mixing engineers (like Bob Clearmountain) mix on tiny (and sometimes cheap) near-field monitors that cannot reproduce lows but mimic playback systems in the real world.
Great job Adam. I just found this channel and am an instant fan!!
Wow. She has such exquisite touch. Thanks for sharing and explaining clearly. I find both the undertones and overtones fascinating to learn about though I still haven't incorporated it into my writing much. Pinch harmonics are fun to muck around with over chords. It makes me have an odd longing for a new type of bowed guitar to be built so there was a physical way to reach the (fake) undertone series on the guitar. If we can hear it it must exist. It is such a strange and interesting thing to know our brains sort of hallucinate a lower frequency that isn't picked up when analysing the sound. Thanks for keeping me entertained and curious whist increasing my knowledge again and introducing me to another amazing exploratory performer.
THIS NEEDS TO BE VIRAL
if the violin is supposed to be playing an A @2:10 then the violinist should probs tune their violin lmao
It's meant to be A in baroque tuning. That's to say it's an Ab. It's not at 440Hz (nor is it at 432).
I'm sure it's supposed to be a 440hz A and he just missed it by a half step.
innit. my perfect pitch was quaking
@@Danmashinigamikuro no its somewhere in between I hear it too
yeah sounded flat to me. but pitches vary. i once had a violin teacher who swore by A415.
I couldn't hear the fundamental when you played all of the undertones.... WHAT DOES THIS MEAN!?!?!?! Am I a broken human being? *throws himself from balcony*
Turn the volume way up, listen through headphones, and make sure you are in a quiet environment.
I did, loudly... my wife can, but I cannot, due to, according to her, her not being a broken human being... fml
I also cant hear it. When i turn volume up, i can hear rather phase shifting of overtons, and it's too unpleasant to try even louder.
me neither, I guess we are broken human beings! i cranked it up and everything... I guess we are soundfrequency deaf...
I am not hearing it too, even I'm using headphones and the volume is all up.
I've been singing subharmonics for years and never knew that Adam had made a video on this!
Tuvan throat singing has been around for a while, bro. Awesome stuff.
I recently did a little experiment with some of my singer friends similar to yours with only the upper overtones. I started our lowest Bass on around a D or E, somewhere around there, and had the next person sing the octave above him, then the next would sing another 5th up, then a 4th, so on so forth with 10 notes of the overtone scale. After that I told the bass singer to stop singing his note, but the note he was holding did not stop. I actually thought he had missed my cue to cut off because the note was SO loud, but sure enough he backed away from the group and the tone was still there. It's absolutely mind-blowing to hear it happen in person.
I love these videos and also the music you produce. It sounds ethereal but I really appreciate there's probably some kind of experiment or mathematical theory behind every piece. Fascinating stuff!
The theme lick to "hey man, you gotta check out some of this stuff" was so cool. Thanks.
This reminds me so much of that kind of style of Tibetan Singing called Throat Singing, or Khargyraa, or Khaargyra (not sure which), where one takes a journey through the painful experience (I'm exaggerating a little) of turning a cough, or the clearing of one's throat, into a consistent note that can be played. They also have a type of singing for the overtone series, and it actually allows you to be able to sing two notes at once. Love these videos, and I applaud your memes with great awe. Bass!
Well either way it still refers to harmonic undertones, as that's what I was getting at, but thanks for the info anyway.
Bro, I can't perform even the most basic musical feat. I listen to bands like Skinny Puppy and Ministry, but I always appreciate your videos. You explain, what seems like complex information, in a way that even I can follow. Keep it up!
I could hear that "ghost" fundamental C with headphones on! It's the same volume as the rest, but those upper pitches form a cluster that is so strident and overpowering. Fascinating. Thank you!
I'm a little bit disappointed that you didn't mentioned about octavists/basso profondo etc. but still, great video, I'm glad that I found your channel.
The tuning fork on paper reminds me of Cymatics, a phenomenon where, after a vibration is generated, different patterns of interference are (visibly) symmetrical on the flat plane. My hypothesis here is that the interference is based on the prong position and the bend in the paper, where the prong is vibrating fundamentally in 2+ tiny points of contact, resulting in a phase cancellation in an 1/2 octave series. The ‘undertone series’ you mention here could also be just that single 1/2 undertone with it’s own overtones being produced again, which is why you can hear it so well.
Your lesson are amazing! I'm not a bass player (and not even strong in musical theory) but your explanations are very good and the physics basis strong.
aha! i've been searching for this video (the part with the harmonics making you hear a non-present fundamental) for so long!
Educational and inspiring. Overall excellent presentation.
Great, succinct & clear explanations anybody can follow of facts about music & physics. Thank you.
Last year, I went to an acapella festival in which one of the teachers taught me how to use subharmonics with my voice. After three months, it worked. I am now able to hit notes up to two octaves lower than the fundamental frequency. I don't normally use it (because it can hurt my voice apparently), but it did benefit my group when I used it.
Really fascinating videos! Note for bass guitarists, if you pluck directly above the fret which is an octave up (on the same string) from any note you are fretting with the left hand you introduce a nice sub octave to your sound. Try it
Ok, I've just discovered your channel, it's awesome.
suggested read: "multiphonics on the double bass" by Hakon Thelin. great video, thank you and keep up the good work
Super interesting! Thanks for those videos!
Dear Adam and friends...This low note is called the difference tone. you can find difference tones just by finding the difference between two harmonics, for example: let's take the 2nd and 3rd harmonics of fundamental C (c and g). 3 minus 2 makes 1, so you should be able to hear the 1, the fundamental (C).. Try it with different harmonics, say 10th and 7th (E and Bb).. you should get the result 3, thus hearing the 3rd harmonic which is the 5th degree of C (G), which is pretty cool because you get something like a C7 chord, just by two sonic sources! ( G difference tone, E, Bb, and you can associate all of them with C because these notes come from it's haronic scale)
You just have two be REEEAALLY exact with your JUST (not equal) tuning, otherwise it's not going to work.
One can get really deep with that one, imagine having difference tones made of other difference tones... Also this is even possible to achieve with the human voice! (yes, for one person to sing 3 notes at once) If one has the abiity to throat sing (harmonic note singing technic mostly practiced in Mongolia) they can create a difference tone from the fundamental they sing, the harmonic they produce and the difference tone these two create. I have benn able to do this but it is really hard to always achieve because of the unstable nature of the human voice in terms of just tuning... just some info i've been into the last years!
So interesting!!! Very well done!!!
David Larson is pretty good at this type of stuff, he does subharmonic singing all the time.
I don't totally understand what you are saying, but I enjoy it so much. TY
This is some crazy stuff. Great video.
around 3:43 when you show the spectrum analyzer and PROVE what you're talking about I think it gives weight to the idea and by making this video you are helping me support my claims with some sort of evidence when I try to educate those who seek ideas from me. I talk about subharmonics from time to time and although few know what I'm talking about, even fewer than that believe me. So maybe this will help. Thank you
You actually blew my mind with that bit about hearing C just by listening to the overtones! Wow
I heard the C loud and clear when you played the overtones, even without headphones. Interesting!
This reminds me of subharmonic singing. When you talk about the frequency being produced between the proper way to bow a violin and the raucous motion, that's similar to subharmonic vocals. The undertone (usually an octave below because singers want low notes) happens when you mix normal chest voice with fry vocals. It's somewhere in that sweet spot and I've only been able to achieve it a few times. Interesting stuff.
Hi Adam. I’ve actually solved the problem of the (so-called) “missing” fundamental. It’s not an auditory illusion but the frequency of the complex (combined) wave. Now, for pure harmonics, the explanation is easy enough. The undertone is just the greatest common divisor. C#550Hz with E660Hz produces A110Hz. Easy enough! But what happens when we take, say, C#551Hz? The GCD jumps down to 1Hz!
It’s too complicated to explain here but my model predicts a fundamental of A110.0909...Hz. I’ve tested the theory under proper conditions at university and they all confirm it. It’s a physical phenomenon. No more dependent on psychological effects than our perception of any other frequency in general.
As I was listening to the demonstration of the tuning fork applied to paper, I thought, that kind of sounds like when I get a filling at the Dentist. The sound of the of the drill, the grinding sound of your tooth, and the vibration of your jaw into your skull, all working together in harmony. I'm not certain that this is the same phenomena of sub harmonies, but added a thought of beauty to an otherwise agonizing experience.
3:31 you said "peebs of paper" 😝
Lol, seriously though, awesome video. Well done.
This is why I have the DBX 120A Subharmonic Synth hooked up to my Cerwin Vega Subwoofers. As long as there are under tones in the program, you receive these subsonic frequencies. It's awesome and it's what audio engineers use in movie theaters...
Mmkay, this is probably the first thing I had no idea about on this channel. Kudos Adam, kudos.
(I studied theory at university myself)
The experiment in the end is mind-blowing!
Your videos blow my mind man. Thanks a lot for sharing all these knowledge. I seriously think I am becoming a music geek :-) and I love it. Grt work and keep it up
6:45 - isn’t the fundamental reconstructed through the overall periodicity of the harmonics though?
thank you very many muches!!!!!
Love all those pieces of information
pleeeaaase keep it going! :)
thanks again!
*Instantly grabs a tuning fork
Also, you can make alot of "ALFV" with electronic instruments. Just generate something below hearing threshold with enough volume/energy and with such a colourful timbre (plenty overtones) and there you have it. Producing the undertones, though, that's basically impossible from a strict pov, as they literally do not exist materially, only theoretically.
Hmm... I play the viola and this is something I've noticed, though I haven't really messed around with it. Now I have a reason to do so! Thank you!
Also, Mari Kimura seems to be able to control what tone comes from her "subharmonic bowing" technique. This makes me think that the outcome tone isn't random at all, as it can be reliably created, but that we simply lack the scientific know-how to adequately explain the phenomenon. If anyone happens to read this comment, I'd love to hear any other ideas on this.
It's gotta be that 1 on the G string she's got. Maybe something about multiples? Or maybe she just played around with it enough to get a feel for what sound it makes. Maybe that's what playing an instrument even is. But yeah, i did notice that he said random but she predicted what note she would play.
Hey man, I found this fascinating! As a Physics PhD student, this has so many parallels with my own research (Ultra Low-Frequency [ULF] waves in the magnetosphere). Nature keeps repeating itself!
A good way to hear the "implied fundamental" stuff is to simply highpass a complex waveform such as a saw wave or even a guitar or violin recording
Yours is such a great public service! Thanks.
I've been doing this on guitar for years. This lets you play notes *below* the lowest string. In drop-D tuning, a whole step down (a C) is heard if you play 5 & 3 on the D and A strings (the 5th and 8th of the C you hear). So there's an easier way of showing this than the tuning fork/paper method.
You can actually do this with your voice!
Try to hit a note and then almost fry your voice and you are gonna hear a note one octave lower.
Geoff castellucci has entered the chat
That's called subharmonic singing. Pretty sure it's not to be confused with throat singing. I could be wrong though.
FYI you can do this with your voice (not vocal fry or growling) but it takes a while to get the handle of it
What you show at 6:40 is very similar to the phenomenon that occurs with bell tones. I once saw a demonstration where the spectral makeup of a note from an upright (chromatic) percussive chime was played. The fundamental frequency did not show up, even though (at least as a musician) I was able to make out what that supposed fundamental note should have been!
Hey, there is the effect of two sine waves added together. You also get the sum and the difference of the two frequencies. If you the those tones that you used to recreate the fundamental C, you'll find that there will be a subtractive combination that gives you the fundamental. but much lower in volume as it us a byproduct of the raw tones.....if that makes sense
for example. If I were to mix a 200Hz and 300Hz done wave together, I would get a 500Hz resonance being the sum of the two tones, and a 100Hz resonance being the difference of the two. That's how most transistor radios work !
I think you're confusing the addition/mixing of waves with Amplitude Modulation- sum and difference sidebands arise from multiplying signals (AM), not from adding them together.
Tristan Pantano, still applies. When you tune one sting to the other, you hear the difference in the notes as a low pulse
That pulse you speak of is phasing, which is also not the same as sum/difference sidebands from AM.
Chris Wilson Thank you for both sharing and being interested in this stuff, too!!!
The phasing effect you hear is basically like AM but the other way around: When multiplying two sine waves, you get two new waves, the sum and the difference. So if you add two sine waves with only a small difference in frequency, it will sound the same as a sine wave between those two (actually the frequency is the arithmetic mean), whose amplitude has been modulated by a low frequency sine (actually the difference between the two sine waves).
Great videos! Congratulations
0:07 That felt like dental drill to my ear. Don't do that ever again.
actually you can do something very similar to the tuning fork-on-paper thing w/ stringed instrument, you just need to pluck the string on the fret an octave higher than the one you are actually pressing down, this produces a OC-2 kind of effect
I think it just sounds like someone put a sine wave on top of the note.
Your analogy of being able to lower your speaking voice an octave is actually true - bass singers use the subharmonic technique in singing to reach super low notes, I can do it too
dat tab tho
Oh, I'd so much like to see +SmarterEveryDay look into this!!!
man you improved so much in past 6 years😎🤟
Adam, your videos are very interesting..And you should make more music! I mostly listen to prog rock/metal and find the electro music that you make really cool, using polyrythms and stuff. You get an A+ from me :P
What an awesome video. You're the best man. This really makes my day, I love this shit.