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The Physics of Music

Understanding some aspects of physics can help people learn about music.

  • Strongly agree

    Votes: 66 38.2%

  • Somewhat agree

    Votes: 68 39.3%

  • Neither agree nor disagree

    Votes: 22 12.7%

  • Somewhat disagree

    Votes: 9 5.2%

  • Strongly disagree

    Votes: 8 4.6%
  • Total voters
    173
#41
One hardly knows where to begin, but I find myself unable to resist rising to the bait. An overly poetic or casual appeal to Nature to explain things musical has been a mainstay of theorists since Pythagoras, and has included nearly every theorist from Johannes Tinctoris to Arnold Schoenberg. This project well suits extreme personal passions, just ask any reader of schmartarse music-journalists like Richard Taruskin. Use it all you want for fun, but to convince me it had better be actual science, not the sloppy approximate matches between armchair physics and musical empiricism I read here.

BTW, Vincenzo Galilei was a composer, singer, and lutenist, not a luthier. The devil IS in the details, isn't it?

MarkTAW said:
A fifth is the ratio 2:3. You can prove this for yourself.

How long is a bass string - 34" right? Measure the distance from the bridge to the 7th fret. It'll be about 22.5" - 2/3 the length of the string.

The 4th is 3/4 the length of the string - this is easy you can eyeball it. The 12th fret is 1/2, so take half of that and you land on the fifth fret (or the 24th fret if you go the other way).

Incidentally, the harmonics are located at these ratios - 1/2 (12th fret), 2/3 (7th fret) 3/4 (5th fret) for this very same reason. The string vibrates in a complex way & includes these sub-vibrations (called the overtone series) of 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, etc. of the string. If you play the full string & then lay your finger down at these points, you hear just the harmonic. Do it a few time and you'll begin to recognize the harmonic sound in the full string sound. (This is easiest to do with the 12th fret harmonic).

Do you really think it's a coincidence that the I, IV, V progression just happens to fall on the same frets the harmonics fall on? Do you really think that it's some trick of the ear that make us gravitate towards these tones & not some random other tones somewhere on the fretboard? It's physics.

The tritone is the ratio of 25:36. It sounds discordant because it's more complex, more chaotic. (fyi about 23.5")

A 2:3 ratio lines up every 6 pulses. A 25:36 ratio only lines up every few hundred pulses (225). You can rhythmically overlay a waltz (3/4) over a 4/4 and it'll sound interesting and maybe even beautiful. But lay a 25 pulse rhythm next to a 36 pulse rhythm and you have chaos. And just try to imagine a harmonic based on 25/36th the length of a string.

To say that 25:36 is dischordant because of a choice we made is like saying 4/4 is preferred as a drum beat over 13/4 because of some choice we made. No, 4/4 is preferred because it's the rhythm of walking - left right left right = kick snare kick snare. We don't gravitate towards songs in 13 because we have no basis for a 13 beat rhythm in the natural world.

We prefer the tempos we do because they're the tempos of walking & running. (ever fall into step with the music on your ipod? do you have workout music for the gym that's at a faster tempo?)



Galileo & DaVinci (among others) have serious treatises on music. Galileo's father was a luthier & Galielo called the movement of the planets "the music of the spheres." You're welcome to classify Galileo's other works as "philosophy" too if you like.

As our understanding of music grew, so did the sophistication of the music. Think of the music of the middle ages - monks chanting in unison, or if they wanted to get fancy, the same melody, a fifth apart.



The 20th century saw a deconstruction of all of this. The blues, the electric guitar, recorded music, radio - all this contributed to a "dumbing down" of music. Once if you wanted to be a serious musician you understood the math behind music - it's pretty much the first chapter in music textbooks of the day. Just like modern music textbooks may start with "the major scale" - so did classic textbooks. Only they got into the WHY of the physics behind the major scale, whereas our textbooks just say "memorize these notes."

We don't need to know the physics behind music because the guitar (a fretted instrument with fixed note locations) alleviates of the "burden" of having to know why anything works. At the same time, it's approximations of real harmonies, while allowing us the freedom to move from key to key with ease, robs our ears of the richness real harmony, and is, I suspect, the reason so few of us sing - our ear has been cluttered with approximations & we don't hear the "lock" of pure harmonies the way our predecessors did. A fifth is no longer 2:3, it's a "good enough" approximation and this "good enough" sound means that when we sing along, there's nothing to "lock" onto, so our ears go unused to hearing the real harmonies of physics.

Also +1 Howard Goodal's DVDs, he's got a few different sets and they're all excellent. Highly recommended. Intended for the layman & easy to follow, they're very fun & educational.
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#42
Race car analogies are fun, but not really germane, since music isn't a competition.

Bill, itemizing each of your questions, here's what I think are important:

Why do two notes an octave apart have the same name?

Not important.

Why are there 12 different notes?

Not important.

What do "equal temperament" and "just intonation" mean?

Not important unless you are a piano tuner.

Why does a fifth sound "correct" at point A in tune B, but a flat fifth sounds horribly wrong?

Very important, but can easily be explained by explaining the concept of dissonance and matters of taste, and physics isn't really into matters of taste.

Why does middle C played on a piano sound different to middle C on a guitar if they're the same note?

Important but not as much.

I will say that learning audio physics over the last 2 years has helped me immensely to put together small rigs I like, and it helps people greatly with building instruments and sound reproduction systems, and people looking to play really fast use basic physics in developing techniques. Will it help you to be a more tasteful player or decide what note to play next? No. Theory's what you need for that.
 
#44
Thanks for chiming in, Jimmy. I know you understand the role that theory plays in being a musician. To me, understanding the physics has helped me to understand some musical theory (such as dissonance, to pick one aspect you mention). But I do think that different people learn in different ways and what's helpful to one person may not be helpful to another (see my last post).

As far as the first three quesions go, I'm not sure how I'd rate them in terms of "importance". In terms of interest, otoh, they all seem relevant to musicians to me. But maybe not to ALL musicians. ;)
 
#49
TheFrogPrince said:
Understanding the physics of sound will enhance anyone's playing. You'll know what sounds 'good' and what doesn't fit most of the time. It explains a lot of things and fills in knowledge gaps.
Click to expand...

How does understanding room modes, resonance, nulls, standing waves, etc. enhance your playing? I'm curious to know.

And, what difference does it make to a vocalist when the ratio of a natural harmonic is 5:4?
 
#50
I've been tracking this and am a bit split on the issue. I am an audio engineer and do understand much of the minutiae of physics, acoustics, electrical engineering, psychoacoustics, cognitive psychology and other related areas. I *know* these things make me a better audio engineer but I'm not totally sure if they make me a better bassist.

Sure, I know how to set my amp EQ, I understand proper gain staging (very important if you are unfamiliar!!! simple concepts but very important!) and troubleshoot my rig, which certainly helps make me a better *sounding* bassist, but I feel like my skills around being a bassist are rooted in music theory and lots of practicing. And no matter how the controls are set, 90% of my tone comes from my hands, not my gear anyway.

I don't need to know *why* playing closer to the neck sounds fatter and warmer than playing down closer to the bridge, I just need to be observant enough and inquisitive enough to notice it, build it in to my technique and use it to my advantage.

I do understand temperament and intonation and this helps me do setup work on my instruments, but in practice I'm not sure how much that impacts my musicianship. Again, it makes me a better *sounding* bassist because my instrument is set up properly and plays in tune all the way up and down the neck. However, I could just as easily plunk down a hundred bucks every six months and have someone else set up my instrument and I don't need to know jack about any of that.

Counterpoint: I acknowledge that folks who understand (even rudimentarily) how their instrument works are less "afraid" of their instrument and are more apt to play it well (particularly around intonation) since they understand that they are using this tool to "make" their sound, and are more willing to explore the myriad options in terms of articulation and creating different tones not by turning knobs, but by playing the thing differently.

This person is also more apt to maintain their instrument well; to install strings carefully, getting the right amount of string on the post so the string angle at the nut is adequate for example. (side note: one of my electrics is a little light in the headstock, so i put a couple extra windings on each peg which balances the instrument out nicely, and we know a more massive headstock adds to sustain)

This person is more apt to notice when something has gone wrong; that their intonation has gone screwey or that the change of the seasons has caused their action to change and it's time for some setup work... But this all pales in comparison to one's ability to choose good notes and play it like it means something.

Good conversation.
 
#52
People learn in different ways. IF somebody is the sort of person who finds that understanding WHY two notes go together suits the way they learn, and this satisfies their curiosity in a way that just learning "these two notes will sound good together here" without knowing why does not, then that can make learning for them more rewarding and motivating. That's likely to enhance their learning, and enhancing their learning will ultimately influence their playing. And this can apply to SOME people learning about music on any instrument (or to singers, for that matter).

As noted earlier by several people (including me), this won't necessarily apply to everyone and that's fine. But for those people who are wired up that way, it can work. I think some posts in this thread show that to be the case.

To put it in a slightly different way - when I first started learning about pitch, harmony and other related musical concepts, then linking that into an understanding of waves and frequencies piqued my interest and made me want to find out more. I have a better musical undertsanding as a result (for me personally) and this has had an impact, over a longish period of time, on the way I play.

But we're not all the same. It COULD have had the opposite effect and might even switch some folks off. But not in my case. To echo my first sentence - people learn in different ways.
 
#53
bassybill said:
Do you think learning about music can be enhanced by a sound understanding of its physical basis?

Consider the folllowing questions:

Why do two notes an octave apart have the same name?
Why are there 12 different notes?
What do "equal temperament" and "just intonation" mean?
Why does a fifth sound "correct" at point A in tune B, but a flat fifth sounds horribly wrong?
Why does middle C played on a piano sound different to middle C on a guitar if they're the same note?

These questions and others like them are the sort of things many learners might wonder about. I don't particularly want to discuss these questions (or the validity of the assumptions underlying some of them) here, so if you would like to do so, please start a separate thread. What I'm interested in is your views on the extent to which a sound grasp of physical concepts like frequency and waveforms can support a person's musical development and help them understand the answers to questions like the examples above.

So, can understanding some aspects of physics help people learn about music?
Click to expand...

I took a course here at my university called "Physics of Music," and those are actually some of the topics that were discussed. While a lot of that stuff is interesting to know, I don't really think it's very useful, unless you're a builder of instruments.

Edit: or a piano tuner.
 
#55
bassybill said:
People learn in different ways. IF somebody is the sort of person who finds that understanding WHY two notes go together suits the way they learn, and this satisfies their curiosity in a way that just learning "these two notes will sound good together here" without knowing why does not, then that can make learning for them more rewarding and motivating. That's likely to enhance their learning, and enhancing their learning will ultimately influence their playing. And this can apply to SOME people learning about music on any instrument (or to singers, for that matter).
Click to expand...
If someone wants that info, it's out there. And I will agree that a rudimentary appreciation of how sound works is important in order to figure out unpredictable aspects of working with amplified instruments, such as slotting instruments in a live mix, overcoming boomy rooms, etc. But when I was semi-ignorant of such things, I played really well and practiced all the time. Now I get interested in it and I'm on Talkbass and audio sites all the time, and my chops have gone to hell.
 

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