Like for example when I’m listening to an orchestra I can hear a clarinet and a violin quite distinctly from one another, but they’re both sounds vibrating through the same air. Logically, shouldn’t one air only be able to carry one frequency (Vibrate in only one way)? How does the air contain so many frequencies simultaneously?
In: 80
first reason: location.
We have two ears to be able to tell where sounds are coming from. A sound hits one ear before the other. Based on the time difference we can tell where the sound is coming from. This happens subconsciously of course, similar to the eyes depth perception. you see the different instruments in the orchestra so telling where a sound is coming from helps you distinguish the sounds from each other.
Second reason: Sound waves combine and create new waves with new frequencies(pitch).
This is called interference and is how the air is able to carry more than one sound. sometimes waves destroy each other, active noise-cancelling head phones utilises this. In an orchestra multiple types of interference occurs, where both frequency(pitch) and amplitude(volume) is affected. This results in fun harmonic sounds that we like.
TL;DR Its a boring answer but you can tell the violin apart from the trombone because you know what it sounds like when someone plays them at the same time.
If you heard two instruments you didn’t recognize and they sat close to each other you would have a harder time telling which sound came from where. But its possible you would anyways because you can see the instruments and bigger instruments usually produce lower frequencies(deeper pitch), and you can tell a string instrument from a brass instrument. You can tell because you have intuition and you listened to sounds every waking moment of you life so your brain is pretty good at distinguishing sounds from each other, even though they interfere.
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