I understand how sound is generated by pressure waves vibrating the eardrum. And this makes perfect sense to me when a single sound is generating that vibration. But when multiple sounds are vibrating the eardrum at the same time (like when listening to music with different instruments and vocals) how does the brain tease those differing vibrations apart so we can hear the individual inputs…as opposed to them mixing all together into one sound; The equivalent of mixing a bunch of different paint colors together and ending up with brown.
In: Biology
I’m not an expert but I did start reading a book on music cognition, which I never finished.
I think you’re right to think about the ear, not just the brain. A single area that transmits a wave can transmit multiple waves at the same time, without those waves interacting too much. For instance imagine swinging on a swing. As you go from front to back, the chain is moving in a consistent pattern, which would be a wave except that the frame at the top of the swing is fixed and absorbs all the force. As you swung back and forth, you could also start shaking the chain, and then waves would travel up and down the chain. These waves would be separate to the waves of you going back and forth on the swing, they wouldn’t particularly interact. In the same way, from a physics point of view, it makes sense for a single eardrum to be sensitive to multiple simultaneous sonic waves.
That’s what I remember from the book anyway
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