Yo Waffles. (Also Nigel due to neuroscience)

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I'm reading this new book, courtesy of my keyboardist/vocalist, called , "This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science Of A Human Obsession" by Daniel T. Levitin. It was a Christmas gift, but I just finished the chapter where it describes that how we recognize an instrument as its specific sound, timbre, in English language musician jargon, is due to overtones. It made me think of your stuff because it's very synthesized and how it's amazing that the only difference between how a human brain recognizes the difference between, say, a synth and an electric guitar is really nothing more than a matter of how loud the various frequencies in the overtones are.

I'm trying to wrap my head around it, the idea that the sound of one thing or another playing the same note will sound like the same note but the only difference in our perception is just a matter of loudness in overtones.

Actually, Nigel might fin the book interesting as fuck too, so I'll put her in parentheses in the subject.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

The really interesting thing is that certain portions of the brain will fire in response to a specific note.

There was apparently an experiment where they hooked up an owl brain, played some music, measured the frequency of owl neuron firing, rand that through an amp, and it played the same damn song.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

To explain overtones, say you hit a note at 220 hertz.

You do that on any instrument and you will hear frequencies at 220, 440, 660, and 880 hertz, but the loudness of each of those frequencies will define an instrument. AND if you somehow delete the 220 but leave the 440, 660 and 880, your brain will still fill in the blank and interpret it as 220 (as point of reference, 440 Hz is considered to be the note A, and the note A in the middle of a keyboard or piano).

The other weird thing is that if you cut off the first part of the note, the attack (with a guitar, when the pick hits the strings), digitally, and replace it with the attack of another instrument the resulting sound will be interpreted as a third, different instrument. Like if you get a violin and a piccolo to play the exact same note, but if you take the attack of the piccolo and splice it with the sustain of the violin, the resulting sound will sound nothing like a piccolo or a violin.

[Reginald Ret]

mind halfblown, halfconfused.

[EK WAFFLR]

Now this is interdasting. BRB, splicing instruments.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

mind halfblown, halfconfused.

Same here.

Right now I'm like, hell yeah, book with weird knowing.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Senses are cool.

[Telarus]

Very interesting stuff.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Still reading it. It's honestly a bit of a mindfuck because it's combining an area I'm familiar with with an area I have no idea about even though the two areas are the same.

Think about this- matching key is instinct. You don't even have to think about it. Someone has to start Happy Birthday. Someone always does a split second before, but then everyone follows. The apparent leader can start on any note. Any. Note. Or tempo. But as long as the relative pattern remains the same, it is the same song. You can start it on C or G or F#, but everyone will follow suit. Humans instinctively know what key it's in even though they don't understand what key means. It's the relative pattern of notes and relative timing in between them that makes a melody. You can change the notes, and the durations, but as long as they are relative, it is interpreted as the same song. This seems obvious, but it's kind of interesting when you think about it.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

In other words, a well known song that is technically supposed to start with the note C and the second note is E. If someone starts it on the note D, then everyone else will expect the second note to be F sharp. The notes are different but the pattern remains intact.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Notes, by Western reckoning are as follows: A, A#(sharp)/Bb(B flat)[A sharp and B flat are the same note, but from different perspectives], B, C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, E, F, F#/Gb,G,G#/Ab. There is no B sharp/C flat nor E sharp/F flat. It's arbitrary, but there are 12 fundamental notes and 7 letters involved.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

So that, the C major scale is C D E F G A B C (all the white keys on a piano, also, apparently, roughly the key that people who speak European languages tend to speak in normally), which is the same as A minor: A B C D E F G A.

So the same pattern starting with D becomes D E F# G A B C# D

[Nephew Twiddleton]

This book is tempting me into neurobiology.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It's pretty cool stuff.

And then we would be colleagues!

[Nephew Twiddleton]

It's pretty cool stuff.

And then we would be colleagues!

That would be awesome but I'm still in the where the hell do I go phase. I like the idea of making technology mimic biology, especially in the area of energy production.

I won't lie though. The brain is looking more interesting than it used to. And it's because this neurologist is talking to me in a language I understand, and explaining neurology with music, since that's the whole basis of his study, music and the human brain. It's just incredibly interesting for something I take for granted, even sometimes without jargon, to be explained in this entirely biological/psychological way.

I mean, I've never thought about it before. Why DOES a guitar sound different from a piano even if they're playing the exact same note? How can we pick out different instruments playing the same note at the same time? And why do they make an entirely different sound together? There's musical illusions due to this ability. Apparently there is a specific Catholic hymn that I never heard about in my youth that is meant to be sung by 4 males, and if done properly, a 5th female voice becomes apparent. It's Mary rewarding the singers by joining them. But really it's an auditory illusion for the same reason that I mentioned earlier. The brain fills in missing frequencies that it expects, and in this case, it expects a singing woman.

The author at one point was talking to one of his professors and the professor asked him to bring 6 songs that summed up rock and roll, since he didn't understand it. The author balked at first, begrudgingly accepted, pulled 6 songs together and the professor said that what defines rock and roll is the unique interplay between guitar and bass. I play rock and roll on both instruments and would never have even thought of that.