Since people aren’t able to actually hear what other people can hear, how are we able to harmonize with other people. It seems like if you tried to harmonize with someone, what sound you were making wouldn’t match the other since the same note you were singing wouldn’t sound the same.
In: Biology
The simple answer is that we were all separately taught how to read music, and part of that process is pegging certain notes to certain frequencies. If I play a middle C on a properly tuned piano and then sing it, and someone else does the same thing half a world away, we’re still singing the same note regardless of the fact that we’ve never heard each other. It doesn’t matter what we each subjectively experience as middle C, because the tuning process (which is ultimately a form of calibration) eliminates any difference.
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