Eli5: Why can different singers sing the same song with the same notes but still sounds different?

Question

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?

In: 1

Answer 1

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