Why is singing/playing an instrument off-key a thing? Why are some frequencies of the acoustic wave okay and some not okay?
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Just playing a single note out of tune is not likely to be offensive to anyone, because there is no other reference sound to compare it to, to determine if it’s in tune or out of tune. However, if you play two (or more) notes that are out of tune with each other, it will often be immediately obvious to most observers. Here’s why:
A musical note is a vibration at a certain frequency. A 440Hz note means something that is vibrating back and forth 440 times per second, whether that’s a metal string, a column of air, a block of wood, etc.
When playing multiple musical notes together at the same time, they sound best when the frequencies of the notes are in simple ratios to one another. For instance, if you play an A at 440Hz and an E at 660Hz, they sound pleasing together. This is because their ratio is 3/2, which is a simple ratio. If instead you played an A at 440Hz and an off-key E at 668Hz, it would sound nasty, because their ratio is 57/110, which is not a simple ratio. This complex ratio creates strange chaotic non-periodic interactions between the 440Hz tone and 668Hz tone, which sound harsh to our ears.
Combinations of tones that are considered pleasing are called “consonant”, and non-pleasing combinations are called “dissonant”. Note that this isn’t a black and white distinction, consonance and dissonance exist on a spectrum, and this can be used as a tool by a skilled composer to achieve different effects.
Check out [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonance_and_dissonance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonance_and_dissonance) for more info.
Just playing a single note out of tune is not likely to be offensive to anyone, because there is no other reference sound to compare it to, to determine if it’s in tune or out of tune. However, if you play two (or more) notes that are out of tune with each other, it will often be immediately obvious to most observers. Here’s why:
A musical note is a vibration at a certain frequency. A 440Hz note means something that is vibrating back and forth 440 times per second, whether that’s a metal string, a column of air, a block of wood, etc.
When playing multiple musical notes together at the same time, they sound best when the frequencies of the notes are in simple ratios to one another. For instance, if you play an A at 440Hz and an E at 660Hz, they sound pleasing together. This is because their ratio is 3/2, which is a simple ratio. If instead you played an A at 440Hz and an off-key E at 668Hz, it would sound nasty, because their ratio is 57/110, which is not a simple ratio. This complex ratio creates strange chaotic non-periodic interactions between the 440Hz tone and 668Hz tone, which sound harsh to our ears.
Combinations of tones that are considered pleasing are called “consonant”, and non-pleasing combinations are called “dissonant”. Note that this isn’t a black and white distinction, consonance and dissonance exist on a spectrum, and this can be used as a tool by a skilled composer to achieve different effects.
Check out [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonance_and_dissonance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonance_and_dissonance) for more info.
I see two interpretations of your question, without understanding your knowledge level. Out of key could be referring to notes that are not in the scale or key the music is in. The alternative would be e.g. If the singer is attempting to sing the correct note but misses.
So the word you may be looking for is diatonic, which would be a note that is in the current key.
Music that is only consonant tends to be pretty boring. For example, a lot of children’s music uses only consonant, diatonic notes. There is nothing wrong with this, per se, but a lot of the things that make music interesting are when your expectations are broken. The song Mary Had a Little Lamb is a very good example of a song that has no dissonance in it. It goes up and down the major scale in a pleasant and completely unsurprising way.
Now, what is consonance and dissonance? It is a physical relationship between the tones in music. Tones that are simple ratios of each other sound consonant. That is, for example, a 400hz tone with a 300hz tone. That’s a 4:3 ratio. For every four cycles of one sound, there are 3 of the other. These will sound cinsonant together because they line up frequently.
By comparison, a 141:100 ratio is not a simple ratio, nor is it close to a simple one. So these will sound dissonant together.
If you’re singing and you miss a note by a tiny bit, our ears cover a bit and will agree with it and think it sounds fine, if not perfect. But if you sing too far off, rather than a nice simple ratio, you sing an ugly ratio, and it sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s even possible to miss a dissonant note and sing a consonant one by accident. If someone does this when singing a song you know, it’ll sound wrong even though it is consonant.
Almost all music has some dissonance in it. Some dissonance is gentle. Some is grating. Some is invigorating!* Some won’t even feel dissonant, but it might be an unexpected note or chord that adds some color or feeling to the music. Most is in between. You can’t just mash random keys on a keyboard together, because you’ll hit a lot more dissonant notes than sounds good together.
But dissonance used wisely gives you a feeling of tension. Tension is good. And then, usually, but not always, the song may resolve that tension by shifting to notes that are more consonant, and this will release that tension and feel good. Not all music is structured like this, of course, but most is.
For an example of some extremely dissonant music made to sound quite beautiful, here is Eric Whitacre, who writes choral music that uses a lot of chords that have a bunch of “wrong” notes – but he does this to great effect in this cover of a familiar song, which itself has quite a bit of dissonance in it too:
For an example of some invigorating or whimsical dissonance, listen to the Simpsons theme song. When. They sing “the SIMPsons”, that “simp” is a dissonant note that would be out of key in the major scale. If they sang the “right” note, it would sound a lot more boring. The bass line also uses that same dissonant interval too.
I see two interpretations of your question, without understanding your knowledge level. Out of key could be referring to notes that are not in the scale or key the music is in. The alternative would be e.g. If the singer is attempting to sing the correct note but misses.
So the word you may be looking for is diatonic, which would be a note that is in the current key.
Music that is only consonant tends to be pretty boring. For example, a lot of children’s music uses only consonant, diatonic notes. There is nothing wrong with this, per se, but a lot of the things that make music interesting are when your expectations are broken. The song Mary Had a Little Lamb is a very good example of a song that has no dissonance in it. It goes up and down the major scale in a pleasant and completely unsurprising way.
Now, what is consonance and dissonance? It is a physical relationship between the tones in music. Tones that are simple ratios of each other sound consonant. That is, for example, a 400hz tone with a 300hz tone. That’s a 4:3 ratio. For every four cycles of one sound, there are 3 of the other. These will sound cinsonant together because they line up frequently.
By comparison, a 141:100 ratio is not a simple ratio, nor is it close to a simple one. So these will sound dissonant together.
If you’re singing and you miss a note by a tiny bit, our ears cover a bit and will agree with it and think it sounds fine, if not perfect. But if you sing too far off, rather than a nice simple ratio, you sing an ugly ratio, and it sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s even possible to miss a dissonant note and sing a consonant one by accident. If someone does this when singing a song you know, it’ll sound wrong even though it is consonant.
Almost all music has some dissonance in it. Some dissonance is gentle. Some is grating. Some is invigorating!* Some won’t even feel dissonant, but it might be an unexpected note or chord that adds some color or feeling to the music. Most is in between. You can’t just mash random keys on a keyboard together, because you’ll hit a lot more dissonant notes than sounds good together.
But dissonance used wisely gives you a feeling of tension. Tension is good. And then, usually, but not always, the song may resolve that tension by shifting to notes that are more consonant, and this will release that tension and feel good. Not all music is structured like this, of course, but most is.
For an example of some extremely dissonant music made to sound quite beautiful, here is Eric Whitacre, who writes choral music that uses a lot of chords that have a bunch of “wrong” notes – but he does this to great effect in this cover of a familiar song, which itself has quite a bit of dissonance in it too:
For an example of some invigorating or whimsical dissonance, listen to the Simpsons theme song. When. They sing “the SIMPsons”, that “simp” is a dissonant note that would be out of key in the major scale. If they sang the “right” note, it would sound a lot more boring. The bass line also uses that same dissonant interval too.
I see two interpretations of your question, without understanding your knowledge level. Out of key could be referring to notes that are not in the scale or key the music is in. The alternative would be e.g. If the singer is attempting to sing the correct note but misses.
So the word you may be looking for is diatonic, which would be a note that is in the current key.
Music that is only consonant tends to be pretty boring. For example, a lot of children’s music uses only consonant, diatonic notes. There is nothing wrong with this, per se, but a lot of the things that make music interesting are when your expectations are broken. The song Mary Had a Little Lamb is a very good example of a song that has no dissonance in it. It goes up and down the major scale in a pleasant and completely unsurprising way.
Now, what is consonance and dissonance? It is a physical relationship between the tones in music. Tones that are simple ratios of each other sound consonant. That is, for example, a 400hz tone with a 300hz tone. That’s a 4:3 ratio. For every four cycles of one sound, there are 3 of the other. These will sound cinsonant together because they line up frequently.
By comparison, a 141:100 ratio is not a simple ratio, nor is it close to a simple one. So these will sound dissonant together.
If you’re singing and you miss a note by a tiny bit, our ears cover a bit and will agree with it and think it sounds fine, if not perfect. But if you sing too far off, rather than a nice simple ratio, you sing an ugly ratio, and it sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s even possible to miss a dissonant note and sing a consonant one by accident. If someone does this when singing a song you know, it’ll sound wrong even though it is consonant.
Almost all music has some dissonance in it. Some dissonance is gentle. Some is grating. Some is invigorating!* Some won’t even feel dissonant, but it might be an unexpected note or chord that adds some color or feeling to the music. Most is in between. You can’t just mash random keys on a keyboard together, because you’ll hit a lot more dissonant notes than sounds good together.
But dissonance used wisely gives you a feeling of tension. Tension is good. And then, usually, but not always, the song may resolve that tension by shifting to notes that are more consonant, and this will release that tension and feel good. Not all music is structured like this, of course, but most is.
For an example of some extremely dissonant music made to sound quite beautiful, here is Eric Whitacre, who writes choral music that uses a lot of chords that have a bunch of “wrong” notes – but he does this to great effect in this cover of a familiar song, which itself has quite a bit of dissonance in it too:
For an example of some invigorating or whimsical dissonance, listen to the Simpsons theme song. When. They sing “the SIMPsons”, that “simp” is a dissonant note that would be out of key in the major scale. If they sang the “right” note, it would sound a lot more boring. The bass line also uses that same dissonant interval too.
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