if every single sound is a different type or vibration, then how can a single speaker produce songs with multiple instruments and multiple melodies?
In: Physics
Overlapping sounds create a unique vibration you brain is able to connect with those individual sounds
Waves of different frequencies can be superimposed together, like [this.](https://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/quantum_theory_waves/waves_added.gif)
Your ears and brain are very good at hearing a complex waveform which is the superimposed sum of hundreds or even thousands of different simple waves like those, and picking it apart into all its components to figure out what they are and how they fit with each other.
Sound is pressure waves. Those waves add and subtract from each other, creating a much more nuanced series of pulses by the time they hit your ear. These vibrate your ear drum which your brain then can differentiate numerous sounds even though they are only hitting your two ear drums. A speaker, likewise, outputs the summation of these waves, recreating the same effect.
Interesting question.
Sounds can be layered together, which combines them into a new type of vibration.
So when playing a song, the speaker is still emitting a single sound wave, albeit a complex one.
Most of the time, combining sounds creates an unpleasant sound called *dissonance*. But part of the job of making music is layering sounds in a pleasing way. For example, the instruments are designed not to overlap, and everyone plays in the same “key” and to the same rhythm, all of which creates a pleasant new sound wave.
It doesn’t make multiple waves. It makes one wave that is the sum of the sounds.
Sound waves (the vibrations) add up together. If you play sound A, and sound B, then what happens is the air vibrates in the pattern (A+B). Play sound C and suddenly the waves travelling trough the air equal (A+B+C).
So, if you have a speaker and want to play A, AND B, AND C, just play a single vibration that is equal to A+B+C. Our brain are really good at splitting them apart and interpreting as three waves played at once instead of one complicated wave.
I don’t have an answer, but I honestly marvel at the technology in my record player. It’s old tech, but somehow that little needle picks up the vibrations and turns it into a masterpiece of sound.
In exactly the same way that a single eardrum can perceive the multitude of sounds.
The different sounds layer on top of each other, when they reach a microphone the result is one single vibration pattern that is a combination of all the sounds.
That same pattern when sent to a speaker recreates the sounds.
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