The most mind-blowing concept in music (Harmonic Series)

The literal foundation of almost all music! FYI a good one to watch all the way through / not skip around because everything builds on what came before. Leave a comment if you have any questions - also some resources linked further down here. :)


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Interactive diagram

"What is a Fourier Series?" by SmarterEveryDay

Most of my other diagrams are straight from the harmonic series Wikipedia page - also a good spot to brush up on these concepts but definitely very technical!

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Thanks for watching today and a big hug to you if you share this video with someone!

[giuliozanetti]

Other MIND-BLOWING facts:

- The reason sometimes sounds start clipping after you EQ them subtracting harmonics (which seems absurd), is that the harmonics you removed were interacting with the others and they were actually lowering the peaks of the waveform!

- Two waveforms may have the exact same harmonics with the the exact same intensity yet sound completely different, because the harmonics are phased differently (the sine waves do not "align" the same way), so with a bunch of harmonics you'll still be able to obtain infinite sounds!


EDIT: I substituted the term "interfering", which was technically incorrect, with "interacting".
EDIT 2: Editing the comment made me lose the Heart from Andrew 😭😭 what we do for science

[maltalented]

4:39 "What the [sine wave] is a sine wave?"


clever, Andrew, clever.

[robscallon]

7:45 I HAVE NEVER CONSIDERED THAT. That makes SO MUCH SENSE

[hiriaith]

The coolest thing for me is that variations in harmonics is also how we pronounce different vowels. When we change the shape and position of the mouth and tongue, we create a different "instrument" that prioritises different harmonics. Basically different vowels are the result of filtering and boosting specific overtones.

[Krecikdwamiljony]

Part 2: Amount of overtones is important, but how their loudness changes over time and how the pitch wobbles is the other half of a timbre

[brianmessemer]

Andrew, I've been teaching music theory for years and have taught the harmonic series to some of my high school classes. Usually unsatisfactorily. Ive never seen it presented well in a reasonable timeframe. I used to use Leonard Bernstein's 1973 Harvard Lectures series clip of him demonstrating it on a piano. Charming if you love LB but terribly, grossly out of date for students today. This is the BEST video resource on the harmonic series I've ever come across BY FAR. Thank you so much.

[benjaminbarley]

Literally just finished harmonics in physics 😂😂 this is really helpful for that actually, cheers!

[AarPlays]

Honestly this was the first thing I wanted to figure out when learning music theory. Learning WHY things sound good together is so much more important to me than learning HOW to put things together.

[faithspencer]

Me as a child: "I'll never need math, I'm gonna be a musician."
Math: "Get back here, you little sh*t"

[TomMilleyMusic]

You'll often still hear overtones with a sine wave actually, because you're hearing them through speakers which have their own ways of vibrating and their own resonant peaks and you're also hearing the room. I think it's more in theory that they don't have overtones, because in the real world I'm not sure how you'd listen to it without engaging overtones from something, even if just from your own ear canal.

[remibuckybaeb]

I've had this explained several times but your pacing and visuals are extremely helpful

[sharpe]

Just going down the music theory rabbit hole and was just unable to grock how the same pitch sounds different in different instruments and this finally cleared it up for me.

[ChannelMath]

I already "knew" all this as a scientist. But now, as a beginner musician, you made the relationship to chords, notes, and instruments so clear for me!

[synthesismusic]

"or you already knew about this, in which case, why are you watching" because you're Andrew Huang

[kribophoric]

"All musicians are unconscious mathematicians" -Thelonius monk

[infnloopmusic]

Most mind blowing thing that I learned recently in music is:
Keys/Chords are only relevant to the most recent chord that you transitioned from. Think about that. That means chord number 3 can be totally bonkers from chord number 1 as long as chord 2 works to give you the feel you want when you transition from 1 to 2, and similarly works to give you the feel you want from chord 2 transition to 3. This is how great musicians use the circle of fifths to bounce around from literally wherever they are to wherever they want to be.

[llRoBoBinHoll]

When you play a harmonic on a string, you are actually physically stopping lower harmonics from ringing, while keeping the higher harmonics. For example your finger over the twelth fret, halfway across the length of the string, you prohibit the fundemental from sounding.

[GuidoGautsch]

Love how you censor "what the beeep is a sine wave?" With the the sound of...a sine wave 👏😂

[jackporath]

Acoustics nerd/musician here!


While overtones do not have their own overtones, they do "create" more notes! These notes are perceived when any 2 notes (including overtones) are present. The term for this phenomenon is a "combination tone" or more specifically in this instance a "resultant tone". Resultant tones are often sounded an octave below the fundamental, adding additional depth to a tone of a given instrument. This is one of the aspects that makes virtual instruments not as "real" as their real instrument counterparts.


This goes into what is known as the undertone series which is a whole topic of it's own (your string player friends should be able to tell you more. "wolf tones").

[ashtheauthor]

It’s wild to think that each note is essentially a chord on a micro level🤯