I figured it might have something to do with timbre or another thing? My basic understanding leads me to believe that if you’re hitting the same note, the sound waves should theoretically be the same. Why then, can one singer sound so much different that another if they’re playing the same thing.
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You’re exactly right when it comes to timbre. When you sing a note you’re not singing a pure frequency, your voice adds other “sub-notes” to it around the base note that you sing. It’s also why instruments sound unique, their shape/size/material all catch the air differently and produce different sub-notes.
the frequency you hear is the same. but the shape of the instrument that frequency is passing through is different. sound waves resonate through our whole sinuses/skull on their way out too, so small differences in structure make the sound different. there are also other intentional/unintentional impacts on timbre that a singer employs that create variations in sound without necessarily creating a different pitch.
Yes it’s timbre!
It’s the same way a piano and a trumpet and a violin can all play the same note and yet you can easily hear the difference despite them all having the same pitch. Different singers are all singing with different “instruments” too, everyone has different throat, sinus, and vocal cord dimensions that gives their voice its own timbre.
Think of it this way: another word for the pitch of a note is the *frequency*. Frequency, like it sounds, is a *rate*. A “number-of-things-per-second”. In pop music we usually define the note “A” to have a frequency of 440 Hz, which just means “440 per second”. *But the pitch doesn’t specify 440 OF WHAT*. A guitar string vibrating 440 times per second sounds different than a trumpet reed vibrating 440 times per second, or a human vocal cord vibrating 440 times per second – *but those will all be the note “A”.*
The pitch only tells you the *frequency* of sound waves, but the same note can sound very different depending on the shape of those waves! We call those differences “timbre”. Here, you can play around with this yourself and it will become super obvious what I’m getting at:
[https://onlinetonegenerator.com/](https://onlinetonegenerator.com/)
Change the shape of the sound wave (square, triangle, etc.) and play the same frequency and see how the sound changes while still being “the same note”. The differences between singers’ voices is less dramatic but the same principle. **Two people singing the same note will be producing the same number of sound waves per second (aka the same** ***frequency***), **but a different** ***shape*** **of waves.**
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