why do you sometimes start hearing a song a distance away, in one key but when you move closer to the sound it changes key (to the actual key it’s written in)?
In: Other
Most likely you’re talking about the Doppler effect.
When you hear a sound with a musical pitch, you’re just hearing pressure waves of air vibrating at a certain frequency. Think about a guitar string moving back and forth – it creates ripples of air moving according to the frequency of the string’s vibration.
If the sound source is traveling towards you, those vibrations will happen more quickly, so you’ll hear a higher frequency. If it’s moving away from you, those vibrations will happen more slowly.
The classic example is the sound of a train whistle, but it can happen with anything.
You’re not remembering the song in the right key, what you’re initially listing to is your mind playing the song in your head along with the scraps of sound you can hear, which are not enough to give you the actual key of the music until you get closer.
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