h a l f b a k e r yA few slices short of a loaf.
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I got this idea when I once was listening to Pink Floyd albums while watching the frequencies of the music displayed on an oscilloscope.
Why the artificial barrier between rhythm and melody? Can we really not hear frequencies below 40Hz? What about a 1Hz drum beat (once a second)? We can hear that
pretty well. When music changes stanzas regularly, doesn't that represent a frequency in the range of 0.1 or even 0.01Hz?
Our minds naturally appreciate musical chords. We even feel different emotions with different types of chords (minor chords are usually sadder than major chords). I think that if we build up the 'key' and chords of a particular piece of music and include the frequency of the rhythm of that music into the chord, that we can hear it and appreciate it.
How low in frequency do you go? We ought to start and experiment with rhythm, but you can go lower to include day-to-day, year-to-year, even include a whole lifetime in the chord! Isn't that the rhythm/music of living? Alright, maybe I'm taking this idea a little too far, but this is the 'halfbakery' afterall.
Note that I'm not a musician and haven't figured out the frequencies of rhythms/chord changes that match particular chords but I think it would be interesting to try.
Beat editing
Natural_20beat_20editing_20software
A tool that could be used in creating sub-harmonic chords [newt, Apr 17 2005]
Bias and Subsonics in Mixing and Stereo Imaging
http://www.themusic...icles/BiasGood.html
Some general info about subsonic freqs in sound engineering. [half, Apr 17 2005]
See last sentence of idea
Sexularity
[JesusHChrist, Apr 17 2005]
[link]
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Questions, young Padishwans. What is the invention here? |
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"...1Hz drum beat (once a second)? We can hear that pretty well." A 1Hz drum beat is made up of many frequencies above 1Hz. |
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Is the use of subsonic harmonics really a new idea? |
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+ absolutely. The harmonic beats that happen when two
tones slightly vary -- the ones you can hear as you tune
two guitar strings to the same pitch -- can themselves act
as a subsonic tone. If two people sing an approximate
unison, the harmonic beats created as their tones slightly
vary could act as a mutual clock on which to base other
timed communication. See the last sentence of (linked)
idea "Sexularity". |
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As written, your idea has precisely nothing to do with subharmonics. |
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My, God! [Ian], all these years I've just been sitting back & mellowing out. I should have known I needed an oscilloscope to do it properly.
I suppose next someone is going to say that the only true way to listen to the Doors is in the dark with flashing led's embedded into the record label. |
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I think there's some confusion between
subsonic frequencies on the one hand,
and subsonic modulation of sonic (?)
frequencies on the other. Every New
Year, there is a spate of people singing
"Auld Lang Syne", but this does not
mean that the song has a meaningful
audio component at 0.0000000317Hz. |
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Some responses:
what's the invention? New types of musical chords that no one has implemented into music before. |
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"this does not mean that the song has a meaningful audio component at 0.0000000317Hz" Yes it does, that's the whole point. But does this frequency match the other frequencies of the chord? Probably not. I am also not sure our brain would recognize the low frequency as part of the chord (but wouldn't it be fascinating if it turned out that the brain CAN recognize it). Maybe it needs to be sung every 200 days. I need to work out the math. |
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More realistically, I think that frequencies of 20hz down to 0.1hz can be added to chords --and that we would hear and appreciate it (if the frequencies were correct for the chord). |
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Yes 1HZ has lots of frequencies, but the one we notice the most is 1HZ. It would be interesting to build that 1HZ drum beat out of a sub-harmonic chord! |
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I like JesusHChrist's idea of harmonic beats that happen when two tones slightly vary. These sub-sonic frequencies are more pure than what I had envisioned, yet are still recognizable. |
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Now now, Ian, no need to get personal. |
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No, the one we notice most is not the 1 hz. If only one drum beat was played, we'd still hear it. |
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Yes, we can feel frequencies lower than 40 hz. Most people who haven't damaged their hearing via constant exposure to loud sounds can reliably hear a tonal quality down to about 20 hz. Some can identify all the way down to 10 hz, but at that point, it's felt more than heard. |
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If you were to play a pure square wave at 1 hz, you could hear it, but it wouldn't be as a tone, but rather as a pulse of white noise, since it would briefly stimulate all of the receptor hairs in your inner ear. |
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On the other hand, if you could amplitude-modulate a waveform at less than 40 hz, you could add some musical quality to the sound. But that's not a new idea either. Singers do it regularly. It can be done naturally as beat frequencies on double-strung (ie 12-string) guitars which are carefully mis-tuned, as well as pianos for all the keys which use multiple strings. |
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Properly "tuned" bagpipe drones produce slightly off-key harmonics which help to amplify and project the sound via subharmonic beats. |
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There's a language (nearly dead, I think) that relies on a group of several men singing slightly out of key, so that the amplified beat frequencies will carry great distances. |
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There's also a type of singing known as "throat singing", where the shape of the mouth and throat is carefully controlled to induce certain subharmonics and overtones. |
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But no, rythym and tone are two completely separate things. |
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//Properly "tuned" bagpipe drones//
which? |
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[FF], that's odd. Why would the beat frequency carry further than the waves of its constituents? |
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Low frequency waves travel further, i think. |
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I've heard throat singing. It has been said that Pres. Clinton sometimes used these types of sounds in his speaking voice (unconscously, but very effectively). |
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Nah, I still think that frequency and rhythm have been artificially separated by musicologists. The brain activity is full of frequencies from hearing down to the sub-Hertz. |
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Maybe I'll have to fully bake the idea to convince anyone! |
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Take it down to DC for the ultimate thrill. |
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A beat frequency is not a 'sound frequency' at all, in the strict sense of a pressure wave. It is simply the increasing and decreasing of the volumes of the average carrier frequency. It cannot be divorced from its carrier, and therefore cannot travel further than its carrier. |
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If we are talking about carrier waves, for example, radio signals then sure, I agree. Two signals would need to be received in order to get the beat. |
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But I'm not so sure about sound waves, where they can be mixed at source. |
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[Basepair]: hence the quotes around "tuned". Personally, I think a single bagpipe sounds like a sick angry cat being strangled, but massed pipes (large groups of pipers and drummers) blend together in such a way as to be absolutely beautiful. |
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[RayfordSteele]: The beat frequencies don't carry further. It's a side-effect of what a beat-frequency actually is: an amplitude-modulated source frequency formed by the blending of two slightly out-of-phase signals. |
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With two close-matched but not exact frequencies are played simultaneously, there will be times where the wafeforms add constructively (the "peak" of the beat frequency), and some times where they add destructively (the "valley" of the beat frequency). When the tones are close, you don't hear two seperate tones, but one single tone which increases and decreases in amplitude. Since the peaks are louder than any of the single tones alone, the sound carries farther. |
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First, let me jump in on what looks like
an obvious misunderstanding (or a
really bad turn of phrase). "What about
a 1Hz drum beat (once a second)? We
can hear that pretty well." |
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No, you can't. You can hear another
note modulated at 1 hz, but not the 1hz
note itself. Try it. Get a fan. Wave it at 1
Hz. You get a nice swish of wind, so
there's plenty of amplitude there, but
no note (if you do hear something it'll
be a resonant harmonic resulting from
the shape and weight distribution of the
fan). If you built a sensor that could
detecct this 1Hz wind, you could display
it on an oscilloscope, but you still
wouln't hear it. |
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The second thing is one that I find quite
interesting. If you modulate a note with
one half its frequency (ie an octave
below) and keep doing this until you get
to quote long 1Hz-ish freqencies is the
sound at all interesting... and, if you
play this note along-side other notes
that harmonise well with the first note,
will this, too, sound pleasing or will the
different frequencies of repetition jar
horribly. After all each note has an
effective echo set for it, the length of
the echo being dependent on the note
and therefore being different for every
note in a piece. |
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As an aside, isn't this how DSPs build
sounds -- by adding together sine
waves of different frequencies -- it's
just that they don't go sub-aural,
allowing the musician to decide the
rhythm of the piece rather than the note
itself. |
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//If you modulate a note with one half its frequency (ie an octave below) and keep doing this until you get to quote long 1Hz-ish freqencies is the sound at all interesting//
Sounds like the difference between a giant church organ and a little circuis calliope. So I'd say yes, it sounds interesting. |
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As an experiment, I played with a tone generator hooked up to an oscilloscope and a large ported-box subwoofer this afternoon. I started at about 100 hz, and turned down the frequency until I could no longer hear a proper homogeneous tone. I found that I could hear down to about 12 hz. Below that, I could still feel the sound, but there was no audio quality to it. |
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Just out of curiosity, I modified the waveform from pure sine to a heavily clipped sine (to approximate a square wave) and I found that there was audible sound all the way down, but it was more of a buzz that transitioned to a rapid clicking, as opposed to a proper homogeneous tone. |
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[FF], yeah I know. I see what you're saying with the distance carried. Simply more amplitude. |
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st3f, at those low frequencies, it's difficult to discern tonal differences at all, so the 'ultra-base' notes could harmonize with nearly anything. |
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[freefall] //a single bagpipe sounds like
a sick angry cat being strangled, but
massed pipes... blend together in such
a way as to be absolutely beautiful.//
Yes, it's odd, that, isn't it?
Sort of the audio-equivalent of a piece
of sand in your eye versus walking on a
beach. |
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"it's difficult to discern tonal differences
at all, so the 'ultra-base' notes could
harmonize with nearly anything." |
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Down at 1Hz, it's rhythm not tone. If
you start playing a three note chord
that harmonises, the question is, are
their different delay echoes going to
sound good together, too? |
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That's not a question that I'm equipped
to answer. I wonder if anybody here has
the ability
and the inclination to demo this. |
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A random thought, just occurred to me:
Since a note tends to bring out its
harmonics by driving sympathetic
oscillations (don'tcha just lurve long
words), sub-aural harmonics are a
natural fact of life. It's
just that the effect is rather weak when
you get to frequencies that are long way
from the primary. |
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[freefall] If you clipped the sine wave, you would hear the higher frequencies caused by the discontinuities. Same with the square wave you suggested. Try FFTing the clipped waveform and look at the spectrum. |
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