When two notes are an octave apart, one has double the frequency of the other yet we perceive them as being the same note – a “C” for example. Why is this? Readers give their take This question has a ...

Anyone who has sat in a theater in the 90s and heard the THX Deep Note knows the feeling. Before a movie even begqn, the room ...

Previous correspondence on this topic refers to the different patterns of overtones that enable us to distinguish one instrument from another. This isn’t the only factor involved. Many years ago when ...

Since the invention of the semiconductor-based transistor, designers have been putting in great efforts to create electronic musical instruments. Though such instruments may not be able to completely ...

Western ears consider a pitch at double the frequency of a lower pitch to be the same note, an octave higher. The Tsimane’, an indigenous people in the Bolivian Amazon basin, do not. “If you only test ...

Sound is something of an ephemeral phenomenon, existing in the moment that vibrations travel through the air. Those vibrations also exhibit distinct patterns, depending on frequency, which can be ...

[Stanislaw Pusep] has gifted us with the Pianolizer project – an easy-to-use toolkit for music exploration and visualization, an audio spectrum analyzer helping you turn sounds into piano notes. You ...

The mathematical rules for creating musical harmony may be more malleable than thought. Western music theory traditionally holds that chords sound most pleasant when they contain notes separated by ...