I understand notes as the wavelength one tone hits. Then if very skilled singers would sing the same song and hit every note right. Why does it still sounds like different people? Our ears just hear the soundwaves right?
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Sound waves aren’t individual notes, they are a combination of different notes known as [timbre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbre). Different singers as well as different instruments have different timbres.
By that same logic every instrument of every type should sound the same, and you shouldn’t be able to tell a singer from a piano.
Notes only have pitch and duration, pitch is how high or low the sound is, and as long as the sound is hitting that pitch then it’s doing the right note.
But we don’t produce perfect square sound waves, every sound has to ramp up to the desired pitch, stay there and then come down. The irregularities (small ups and downs) on the sound as it does that are called timbre and are what allows us to distinguish different sounds, even if they have the same pitch.
You obviously know every person is different, so it follows that their throats will be different and so will their timbre.
Sound waves aren’t individual notes, they are a combination of different notes known as [timbre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbre). Different singers as well as different instruments have different timbres.
Sound waves aren’t individual notes, they are a combination of different notes known as [timbre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbre). Different singers as well as different instruments have different timbres.
By that same logic every instrument of every type should sound the same, and you shouldn’t be able to tell a singer from a piano.
Notes only have pitch and duration, pitch is how high or low the sound is, and as long as the sound is hitting that pitch then it’s doing the right note.
But we don’t produce perfect square sound waves, every sound has to ramp up to the desired pitch, stay there and then come down. The irregularities (small ups and downs) on the sound as it does that are called timbre and are what allows us to distinguish different sounds, even if they have the same pitch.
You obviously know every person is different, so it follows that their throats will be different and so will their timbre.
By that same logic every instrument of every type should sound the same, and you shouldn’t be able to tell a singer from a piano.
Notes only have pitch and duration, pitch is how high or low the sound is, and as long as the sound is hitting that pitch then it’s doing the right note.
But we don’t produce perfect square sound waves, every sound has to ramp up to the desired pitch, stay there and then come down. The irregularities (small ups and downs) on the sound as it does that are called timbre and are what allows us to distinguish different sounds, even if they have the same pitch.
You obviously know every person is different, so it follows that their throats will be different and so will their timbre.
Voices have different timbres or tone colors, because the vocal chords that produce the sounds are different sizes and shapes in different people , and also because we can use different vocal techniques to vary our timbre to some extent. Humans have evolved to perceive timbre very well—we recognize voices we know, even over the phone or in a recording. This is probably because recognizing the source of an unseen sound is sometimes helpful for survival
Voices have different timbres or tone colors, because the vocal chords that produce the sounds are different sizes and shapes in different people , and also because we can use different vocal techniques to vary our timbre to some extent. Humans have evolved to perceive timbre very well—we recognize voices we know, even over the phone or in a recording. This is probably because recognizing the source of an unseen sound is sometimes helpful for survival
Voices have different timbres or tone colors, because the vocal chords that produce the sounds are different sizes and shapes in different people , and also because we can use different vocal techniques to vary our timbre to some extent. Humans have evolved to perceive timbre very well—we recognize voices we know, even over the phone or in a recording. This is probably because recognizing the source of an unseen sound is sometimes helpful for survival
Same reason a guitar and a banjo sound different – the space in which the sound is developed is different and the hole it comes out of is different. Plus, singers also change the shape of their instrument and their hole as they sing.
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