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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Well, it’s really not too different from the same singer singing a single note and changing what vowel they are singing.
When we think of the note that someone is singing or an instrument is playing, we’re really talking about the*fundamental* note. When something produces a note, it actually produces a series of notes, getting higher and higher. But, because these notes are really closely related (something called the *harmonic series*) they blend together. Instead of hearing them as a bunch of notes, we hear them as a single note with a particular tone, colour, or *timbre*. Changing the relative loudness of all these *overtones* changes the timbre. This is what lets us hear the difference between different singers, as well as between different instruments. It’s also what’s responsible for vowels.
Try this: download a spectrum analyser app (frequensee used to be a good free one. Don’t know if it still is). Then sing the letter “Aaaaaah”. You’ll see a big spike at the pitch you’re singing, and then a bunch of other spikes at higher frequencies. If you change the note you’re singing, you’ll see all the spikes moving one way or the other together. Now try again, but this time sing “Aaaaaaaaaaeeeeeee,” changing sound part way through. You’ll see that the big spike stays the same, but all the other spikes get bigger or smaller.
Each person has a slightly different way of blending those overtones together, so the extra spikes would be slightly different. That’s why it sounds different to us even though the fundamental note is the same.
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