eli5 How does the brain separate out frequencies it’s hearing so that we can make out different instruments in a song? It seems like some insanely complex analysis behind the scenes??
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This is called selective auditory attention, or the cocktail-party effect (where you can pick out one person’s voice from many others in a loud environment), and it is my understanding that how it works is not particularly well known. That said, the task is considerably more difficult if you only have one ear, so that’s a factor.
You only need to read something, realise how your brain turns inanimate scribbles into deep, meaningful pictures, accents, emotions.. VOLUME.. to know that you are in posession of a remarkable pice of evolution, that happens to be a top notch audio analyser.
You only need to read something, realise how your brain turns inanimate scribbles into deep, meaningful pictures, accents, emotions.. VOLUME.. to know that you are in posession of a remarkable pice of evolution, that happens to be a top notch audio analyser.
You only need to read something, realise how your brain turns inanimate scribbles into deep, meaningful pictures, accents, emotions.. VOLUME.. to know that you are in posession of a remarkable pice of evolution, that happens to be a top notch audio analyser.
There are two parts to this answer; the biological pattern recognition part that others have mentioned is an important piece of the puzzle. The other piece is audio mixing. The job of a mixing engineer is to manipulate and edit the recorded frequencies in order to ensure there is not too much clashing going on between instruments, in order to allow your brain to make more sense of what’s going on. If no mixing is done, the resulting song will be quite “muddy”, and as such it is harder to parse through and understand each individual track. Granted; you would of course still be able to make sense of what you’re hearing, and it still sounds like music, but since audio mixing is essentially the act of separating out frequencies, some of the work is being done for you.
There are two parts to this answer; the biological pattern recognition part that others have mentioned is an important piece of the puzzle. The other piece is audio mixing. The job of a mixing engineer is to manipulate and edit the recorded frequencies in order to ensure there is not too much clashing going on between instruments, in order to allow your brain to make more sense of what’s going on. If no mixing is done, the resulting song will be quite “muddy”, and as such it is harder to parse through and understand each individual track. Granted; you would of course still be able to make sense of what you’re hearing, and it still sounds like music, but since audio mixing is essentially the act of separating out frequencies, some of the work is being done for you.
There are two parts to this answer; the biological pattern recognition part that others have mentioned is an important piece of the puzzle. The other piece is audio mixing. The job of a mixing engineer is to manipulate and edit the recorded frequencies in order to ensure there is not too much clashing going on between instruments, in order to allow your brain to make more sense of what’s going on. If no mixing is done, the resulting song will be quite “muddy”, and as such it is harder to parse through and understand each individual track. Granted; you would of course still be able to make sense of what you’re hearing, and it still sounds like music, but since audio mixing is essentially the act of separating out frequencies, some of the work is being done for you.
You are correct, it is insanely complicated and we still don’t understand it completely.
It’s important to understand that what you perceive is not the same as what’s physically there. You hear one sound (e.g. a piano playing), but it’s not just one frequency that is produced by the piano. Instead you have the [fundamental frequency ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_frequency) and then there’s even more frequencies, the [harmonics](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic), where the waves overlap.
So even if you consciously hear only one specific tone, in reality your brain receives a pattern of frequencies and just tells you that you hear one sound instead of a multitude of sounds.
The harmonics influence the musical timbre or tone quality of the sound. Thanks to that, when hear a piano and a guitar play the same pitch, you can differentiate if the sound originated from a guitar or from a piano.
So that’s what your brain basically does. It listens to the sound it hears, analyses the frequencies of the fundamental and harmonics and can then not only determine the pitch of the sound but also the instrument.
You are correct, it is insanely complicated and we still don’t understand it completely.
It’s important to understand that what you perceive is not the same as what’s physically there. You hear one sound (e.g. a piano playing), but it’s not just one frequency that is produced by the piano. Instead you have the [fundamental frequency ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_frequency) and then there’s even more frequencies, the [harmonics](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic), where the waves overlap.
So even if you consciously hear only one specific tone, in reality your brain receives a pattern of frequencies and just tells you that you hear one sound instead of a multitude of sounds.
The harmonics influence the musical timbre or tone quality of the sound. Thanks to that, when hear a piano and a guitar play the same pitch, you can differentiate if the sound originated from a guitar or from a piano.
So that’s what your brain basically does. It listens to the sound it hears, analyses the frequencies of the fundamental and harmonics and can then not only determine the pitch of the sound but also the instrument.
You are correct, it is insanely complicated and we still don’t understand it completely.
It’s important to understand that what you perceive is not the same as what’s physically there. You hear one sound (e.g. a piano playing), but it’s not just one frequency that is produced by the piano. Instead you have the [fundamental frequency ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_frequency) and then there’s even more frequencies, the [harmonics](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic), where the waves overlap.
So even if you consciously hear only one specific tone, in reality your brain receives a pattern of frequencies and just tells you that you hear one sound instead of a multitude of sounds.
The harmonics influence the musical timbre or tone quality of the sound. Thanks to that, when hear a piano and a guitar play the same pitch, you can differentiate if the sound originated from a guitar or from a piano.
So that’s what your brain basically does. It listens to the sound it hears, analyses the frequencies of the fundamental and harmonics and can then not only determine the pitch of the sound but also the instrument.
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