Friday, December 16, 2011
A musical pitch is a blend of many different frequencies beside the fundamental. Here’s a visualization of the different vibrational modes of an ideal string. The string’s movements are the sum of all these different modes simultaneously.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
In high school science class, you probably saw a picture of an atom that looked like this: The picture shows a stylized nucleus with red protons and blue neutrons, surrounded by three grey electrons. It’s an attractive and iconic image. It makes a nice logo. Unfortunately, it’s also totally wrong. There’s an extent to which [...]
Filed in Math, Music Theory, Physics, Science
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Also tagged chemistry, einstein, electromagnetism, linkedin, Math, Music Theory, orbitals, Physics, quantum mechanics, visualization
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If you’re a guitarist, you may have noticed that it’s hard to get your instrument perfectly in tune. This is not your imagination. If you tune each string perfectly to the one next to it, the low E string will end up out of tune with the high E string. If you use an electronic [...]
Filed in Math, Music, Music Teaching, Music Theory
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Also tagged autotune, guitar, harmony, history, Math, Music, Music Theory, tuning
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People had been playing electric guitar for decades before Jimi Hendrix. Mostly they used it as a louder, less effortful version of the acoustic guitar. Jimi was one of the first musicians to think of the guitar amp as a musical instrument unto itself, an early analog synth, with the guitar as a very sophisticated [...]
Filed in Hardware, Interfaces, Key Musicians, Math, Music, Physics
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Also tagged analog, electricity, electromagnetism, electronica, feedback, guitar, harmony, interface, jimi hendrix, Music, Music Theory, recursion, remixes, resonance, tuning, wah pedal
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Say “oooh” as in “noodle.” Then say “aaah” as in “park.” When you say “oooh” your mouth is more closed, with less resonating space and a smaller opening. This configuration blocks the higher overtones of your voice. When you say “aaah” your jaw and lips open, creating more resonating space and letting more high overtones [...]
Filed in Hardware, Music, Physics
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Also tagged electronica, envelope filter, funk, guitar, jimi hendrix, keybs, metal, overtones, Physics, physiology, pop, resonance, rock, seventies, sixties, soul, speech, wah pedal
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Music is really just orderly vibrations: in the air, in instrument bodies, in speaker cones, in tiny hairs in your inner ear, in electromagnetic fields in wires, in patterns of neurons firing in your brain. If you understand the math behind these vibrations, it can help you understand how music works. Surprisingly, it can also [...]
Filed in Math, Music, Music Theory, Physics
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Also tagged guitar, harmony, Math, molecules, Music, Music Theory, overtones, Physics, resonance, Science, strings, vibration, visualization
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