What makes instruments sound different?

Have you ever been listening to music and wondered why instruments sound different even if they're playing the same note? Well, it has a lot to do with the physics of sound and how overtones work to create timbre. This concept also allows us to do some magical things as musicians! Check it out!

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—Further Reading—

—Special Thanks—
Harry & Erika Lister
Lesile & Jim Jeans
Karen & Bob Lawson
Andie & Alan Lytle
Andrew James
Zoe Dillard
Simon Seber
Mike Lister
Dat Ha

[raj.qwerty]

Wow, Mr. Lytle, this video is high calibre! The animation, narration, presentation, sound and content are all amazing! Why, I wonder, do you only have half a thousand subscribers? Good luck with this channel :)

[wesleymorgan]

I am literally working on my lesson plan to teach my Physics students about resonance, natural frequencies, and harmonics. So glad you uploaded this!

[Dmutt]

Had to watch this as part of my Physics lesson and man your content is amazing! Was blown away at the fact you only had 475 subscribers. Your videos were Profesional and just so well done, keep it up.

[RavikumarG]

Very profound content, It started with curious thoughts in the field of acoustics and ended with a beautiful and wise statement.

[DelvingDeeper]

You might want to mute the background track when playing the examples. It's not only harder to hear and distinguish them, it's also annoying ><

[viphomeconcerts]

Very good video. Concise and informative. Especially liked the brief part at the end about choirs.

[artsparadisopracticaleduca]

This is a really informative video about musical instruments and their sounds with a bit of science explained! Really nice info graphics! I like how you explained things very clearly and they make a lot of sense. You'd make a great professor!

One thing that would make the info much better would be if you could explain some of the basics to the viewers, such as what the concept of frequency mean and how it looks in the color graph. The other concept being the volume.
These things might seem obvious for those who took physics, but for many, these are really new ideas.

Keep up the good work, and if you have editors working with you to organize your lecture notes and presentation, that would take you to places! 👍

[axlcrush]

Thanks for this, when I was singing in a quartet, that was what I was trying to do - tweaking my voice to create a unique canvas of sound with the other 3 voices. I wouldn't have sung that way if alone.

[prodjazzeh]

This is a BEAUTIFUL presentation, I appreciate your hard work!

[heyhalogen]

I pulled this up, hoping to give a better explanation to my 7yo how sound “happens”, but I learned, too! I loved all my physics courses in college & am a musician & I still learned something new! Great video 🥰

[taniaburguete]

What an excellent way of explaining what pitch with graphics too! love your video im going to share it with my thank you

[HofTheStage]

Man, what a beautiful video, just found it. I'll make sure to check the other ones too. Thank you, have a nice day!

[briannguyen]

this is a beatiful video. and you have a great and profound message to spread :D

Keep going with this please!

I'm subscribing because you're about to be on the come up lmao

[asyademirkol]

that was amazing! thank you for your art!

[tophatbill]

Drew- I fell down a worm hole doing some research on dementia for a kids book. I have been singing my whole life. Singing barbershop is the most amazing way to hear overtones . The Buffalo Bill's were amazing at it.
Your passion is so beautiful. Thank you. I needed you today.

[VOTECHGURU]

Hey Drew, subbed. What software did you use in this vid? After Effects? Curious because my channel is all about voice over audio and I have courses that I'm looking to add sound theory to. Thx!

[RedDotPink]

He really just made choirs a metaphor for societies' unity.

[sannekaribo]

I don't usually comment but this is great presentation

[gandalfthedank]

That’s a beautiful message. Amazing work, and never be afraid to be “preachy”. It’s what the world needs. Thank you.

[MrJdsenior]

Good point on the vocal true tuning. One of my choir directors was explaining that once, and obviously it occurs when you are singing against nothing (a Capella) or against just one note of the chord played. If the instrument and the voices are playing the same chord, and you tried to truly tune the vocal chord, it would be a train wreck, at least it seems that way to me.

I was looking up different tunings, some which provide true, no beat, chords on some chords, and what they call wolf chords on others, so that some chords are excluded by those tunings, because they are audible train wrecks.

What well tempered (current Western tuning) actually means is that NO two different notes are in perfect tune, except, IIRC, octaves, which I think are true doublings, because again, IIRC (to lazy to work it out) those are the only intervals where the thelwth root of two (mulitplier for current semitone frequency, to get the next in line) works out to an integer division, if that made any sense. If not, feel free to correct me, I am an engineer, electrical, not a physicist, so this is a bit out of my wheelhouse.

This means, if I understand this correctly, that all non octave spread notes are very slightly out of tune with all other possible notes, but to an equal degree, so that no true wolf chords exist, and songs can be written in any key, none excluded.

And then we get out, eventually, into perception of sound, which frankly, when I read a book about it, just made my hair hurt, most of it. TM curves and the like, obvious, some of it generated that record scratch sound in my head, to keep the imagery bound mostly to the subject. :-) Great vid.