Another fascinating compositional technique using overtones is using them to increase the fatness of chords. I went to my music teacher’s big band concert & felt that some of the chords the band played would literally shake the whole venue & vibrate my whole body. It was truly breathtaking. I asked him about it later & he told me that the way he did that was by making horn voicings that followed the overtone series. What happens is that the vibrations coming out from the horns would sympathetically vibrate the other horns & in turn make them even louder & fatter sounding. Truly fascinating stuff & there is still so much more to explore!

It makes it impossible to take my eyes off the video even for a moment. you are such a genius and got a humor! I’ll be your fan! Thanks

4:50 Pipe organs use this stack of overtones nicely. Not only pipe organs have different sound at different octaves, but some larger ones may also have several special transposed sounds at fifths, thirds, sevenths etc. What people recognize as 'pipe organ sound' is simply those several sounds stacked at mostly octaves and fifths being played together.

The instrumentation that Ravel used for that statement of the first theme in Bolero is in principle the same as a register in pipe organs known as the "Cornet." This is a voice known in organs since the early Baroque, and used in several countries. But, unlike Ravel's use of such timbrally diverse instruments, the organ uses five sets of pipes of all similar timbre, normally what is called "flute" tone. These five sets -- "ranks" -- are tuned to the first five harmonics of the unison pitch, which are designated 8', 4', 2-2/3', 2' and 1-3/5.

"Why have you paused the video so long" 😂Got me there! Already familiar with this but this is definitely the best explanation I've heard. Also, the Frequency to Pitch is great thank you

I love your dedication to pronouncing words in their original language

Composing with 12 semitones is like choosing 12 singular number points in a dense real number interval. There are uncountably Infinitely many possibilities.

I'm a composer and producer, i'm gonna start experimenting with the overtone series, to create new sounds. Thank you, this video is very inspiring.

0:20 I knew within a billionth of a second that this was Bolero by Ravel. LOVE that piece.

I knew the first example from Bolero but that's just because I was so puzzled by that sound when I was listening to it and I couldn't figure it out, I heard that there was flute but what on earth gave it that strange metallic tone ? - So I bought the score and found out - just another example of Ravel's genius.

This also helps in a mixing environment. If you have two instruments competing for the same sonic space, taking out the overtones of one will make the other stand out, as the overtones "imply" the fundamental's existence. Awesome video!

My second video in a row.. i am so in love…totally blown away 😱💘🔥🪦

I feel like many orchestral composers before the modern era of computers and synths are the O.G. sound designers! Without realizing what it was, I grew to love this technique in my music production, layering different types of oscillators on a synth, layering subtractive synths with samplers, layering different types of guitars, or layering them altogether to create totally new tonal instruments, layering drums for creative new timbres (how about fattening up a snare drum with a filtered door slam and a soda can being opened?). While that last example is less tonal, the point is, I and many music producers do this layering instinctively because it sounds cool and it's really fun. For many years I had no idea I had been playing around with manipulating the overtone series, albeit in a less informed way than Ravel. Now that I've gotten further into writing orchestral music, I really look forward to putting this knowledge to work for me, approaching orchestral and acoustic instruments like a sound designer! 🤓

One rather cool effect is hearing the harmonics (overtones) added one by one by a computer to hear how each one changes the timbre. I wrote a program to do that back in high school. I should see if I can dig it up.

I never knew this about Bolero's melody. Very eye-opening! Earned a subscription for such a fantastically succinct and well-structured lesson.

Great video, just want to add that real instruments also have inharmonic overtones, which are overtones that do not fit in the overtone series. These are a crucial part to many instruments' tonal color, for example bells have very significant inharmonic overtones which gives them that eerie complex tone. Gongs are on the extreme end where inharmonic overtones can even dominate the harmonic ones

I've always thought that musicians should know the basics of the physics of sound. Where overtones come from, how sound combines from different sources, how sound travels, how cents are defined, how to tempre chords yourself, etc. The best part is that it would not require calculus or high level math, it can be a stand alone course that I think helps all musicians. I noticed a difference in how I played after I researched this kind of thing anyways. It also made music theory easier but music theory should probably be taught first.

Great info! ❤

Amazing. Thank you.

Wow. I LOVE this video. Thank you!

This blew my mind. Thank you so much

This is great. Thank you 🎼🎵💜

I am 69 yrs. old. Still have a lot to learn. Thank You.

this is awesome

Thank you!

Incredible video, blew my mind. You deserve way more subs!

amazing video!! subscribed

Brilliantly explained.

Great video!

This is, just as you promised, mindblowing. The quickest sub I ever did

thanks for sharing that cool site, also great vid.

This video was incredible, thank you so much!

Very interesting. Thank you. Nice production work as well.

Fantastic presentation, and such a useful program linked!

This is a cool video! I also really like your frequency to pitch calculator.

Really like your teaching style, thanks for the helpful video

Just subscribed! Love it ❤

"Why have you paused the video for so long?" Just brilliant. So brilliant.

A genius indeed

I finally got some pitches! Thanks!

this is so cool

Cool stuff. I like it.

I use the overtone series a lot in my music!!

This is one of my long-time favorite subjects. I think that A.I. is going to work wonders with it.

holy shit this is so cool

Beautiful video. What is the outro music?

Man, I am so into music and all what relates to!! Buddhists say that the world was created from sound. The physics of sound must be respected and composers must deeply understand these physical relationships of sound to create beauty in music.

Cudnie ❤🎉

Очень интересно! Ставлю лайк и подписываюсь на канал! Такого контента ещё нигде не видел. Давай больше примеров, когда композиторы соединяли несколько инструментов и получался один гибридный (ну, для слушателя, во всяком случае)

Ok this is epic

2:28 Note to myself: The fifth overtone is not a minor third, that’s a fifth (from the root note!) when he said “minor third” he meant the interval between the fourth and fifth overtone. Minor thirds (talking from the root/diatonic scale) don’t appear initially in the overtone series until the 19th harmonic. And that’s why a minor chord sounds sad, they don’t “exist” in nature. Extra note: the root is also called fundamental and that is because it’s the lowest frequency that it can physically vibrate, not less. Reminder: Hz is the unit measure of how many vibrations occur per second.

such a great exposition! Thank you! I wondered if there's any situation where one can truly hear a pure fundamental without any harmonics, somehow I doubt it even in an anechoic chamber the listener still has those resonances occurring within their ears so even though the room would not be resonating in the series the person's body would be and perhaps even the speaker element producing the sound would also produce its own harmonics to a certain degree.

Oh interessant!!

Clarinet is a special case that deserves an explanation.

"15 minutes of orchestration without music." Ravel on Bolero

Excellent introduction, thanks ! I would recommend every person who wants to go further to read "Tuning, Timbre, Scale, Spectrum" of William Sethares

I’m a musician (with uToob channel) who sees a color-shape for each note. D is orange. D major is also an intrinsically happy key, as in Hayden’s “Sunrise Symphony.” D can bring happiness. But sound can also heal. Medics apparently use the 11th harmonic (the 11th overtone) to pair with the root note, and this sound can be used to shatter kidney stones, or even cure a disease, say, a disease in the blood in alternative medicine. Etc etc. Anyway, Towards the end of my father’s life, he would cry out in his sleep. One night he cried out in a dream. I stood up, startled, then thought to play cry on the piano. It was a D note. I ran to his room, hoping to ask him about his dream. What was the secret to D? What was the secret to happiness? Brimming with excitement, I stirred him a bit and asked “Dad, dad, what were you dreaming?” He looked up at me, groggily, and said “eleven.” Then he turned around and went back to sleep.

it's crazy how there are two piccolos because one piccolo is loud enough

My third of a brain cell cannot comprehend this, great vid

I think a similar effect to the hybrid instrument happens with distorted electric guitar. It's a well-known "paradoxical" effect that when you EQ out the low frequencies of the electric guitar (whether it's in a recording or live on stage), the band begins to feel even more bass-heavy and powerful overall. Perhaps because the electric guitar becomes the overtone series of the bass guitar or something.

So is this the same sequence of notes you would get on a brass instrument if you played as many as possinle with one valve combination?

The last two instruments in your video were: digeridoo and human whistling. Would you believe I almost guessed the four instruments correctly? I heard 5. I thought there was a snare drum being brushed.

What would the overtone spectrograph for the "hybrid instrument" look like?

Could you program your overtone generator for different instruments? This would be a really great tool for Violinists, especially jazz violinists who have to learn the difference between a C# and a Db, but also what a Blue note is. I would definitely by an App for my smart phone.

Math nerd here… you showed an image of the spectral analysis of a couple instruments. It’s important to understand that spectral analysis like that uses the fast Fourier transform, and that the FFT algorithm takes a sample size of n2 (that is, n to the power 2), and that the sample size of the algorithm is what determines the fundamental frequency which appears in the overtone series in the spectrum image, not the actual musical note you are analyzing. It’s a good enough approximation for doing EQ visualizations, but if you want to analyze a an instrument’s harmonic series, the math isn’t sufficient and the spectral image isn’t mathematically “correct”. You need a “slow” Fourier transform, and you need to set the sample size as equal to the half wavelength of the note you are analyzing. I know this because I ran into this exact problem when writing software to replicate the sound of musical instruments using additive synthesis. It’s a rather pedantic observation for me to point out, but if you want an accurate measurement of the harmonic series of an instrument, it’s an important distinction to make.

5:39 very cool point here! we can't get truly get away from the harmonic series because whenever we produce a note (fundamental) it will always resonate and produce our harmonic series in order of the strength of each succeeding note. It's just a fact of our universe. A burning question for me is when and where did this series originate? I've asked physicist and astrophysicists but so far the unsatisfying answer is "it's just there". I have my ideas and they are not anything to do with religion. Would love to hear anybody else's ideas.

I guessed Oboe and bassoon for the bolero melody Also I’m a bass trombonist have been for 8 of the 10 years I’ve been playing trombone Love from Sweden

Question: Does Overtone applies also for Virtual Orchestra sample library? Ex. East west Hollywood Orchestra?

please make a video on spectralism!

Fantastic video, what are some other possibilities with the overtone series and orchestration? Could you point me to some examples?

4:23 Note that the trombone is an octave lower than the rest.

I've been long wondering whether this is the only example of orchestral writing that uses this technique. Are there other examples (except for the pipe organ non-octave stops). A related technique is the power chord. I sometimes omit the third of a major chord on the piano, letting the overtone fill in the missing third (albeit it's a bit lower than the third in the equal temperament).

Is this music used in Army Men RTS? 😮

Nice video. 'Hertz' is usually pronounced like 'hurts' though. I am an electrical engineer so I have used the term for decades. 🙂

As someone who does microtonal music, I use the harmonic series all the time, even in equal-tempered tunings. Example: Usually we think of 6:5 and 7:6 as two kin Usually we think of 6:5 and 7:6 as two kinds of minor thirds, and 8:7 and 9:8 as two kinds of major seconds… but what if 7:6 and 8:7 were the SAME? This yields a new interval, half the size of a perfect fourth. Here is a 19-tone equal temperament piece using that “semi-fourth”: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/gp6qnrShmcvLoGQ.htmlsi=DE323MKvMP-Gzk1N

Literally 1984

i see the major 3rd, 5th, minor 7th, 9th, 11th, etc. so a dominant chord is the most consonant?

0:42 Wow, it's quite surprising I can count there are 4 instruments playing the melody, but I can't really recognize all of them.

I already did that a lot time ago and i was right then i guess

the only problem my friend, is that this iception of the harmonic series of the other notes present in the harmonic series of the fundamental note, could only be in perfect alignment if the are tuning in the ratios of the intervals of the harmonic series itself. Because Equal Temperament intervals doesnt match the intervals of the harmonic series, I know the difference is only cents, but that creats beating. But I understand the point, and is very interesting the concept of having a Fractal of many harmonic series in ONE.

1:30 "fifty five HËÆAUÜTHS"

You get slapped 55 times in the face and it really HERTZ!

to understand harmony and melody one should study the cycle of thirds, 7ths and so on

Would it make sense, for practical purposes, to round down the overtone series, up to say, the 9th overtone? What would be the usefulness of a =I= F (+51 cents) in orchestrating a passage in C?

Celeste (Sell-est), no CH involved

Baroque/Natural trumpet says hi.

Look carefully at the image you give at 4:22 - it undercuts and contradicts what you previously say. Try to align the lines of the overtones and you will find that the gap is wider for the trombone than the other instruments. It's slightly hard to work out the y-axis. It seems to be almost, but not quite linear (if it were linear, then all the overtones if integer multiples of the fundamental, would be equally spaced, which they obviouly aren't. But even compared to each other, the overtones don't line up. Not only the trombone but also the violin, once you get to about the 8th oveetone, is noticeably "off" compared with the spectra for oboe and flute

What is the geometric meaning of |octave|⅕|¼|⅓|? I think easier in terms of space.

Sounded like an organ and block flute xd

5:30 I can clearly hear the piccolos though

Its funny i did guess two flutes, maybe 3, at least one piccolo 😅

Heyatz

Normally I can follow music theory tutorials on KZfaq pretty easily, this went right over my head I am completely lost. I don’t understand what the composer did special in that song.

Well, with electronic instruments all those downsides are pretty much gone. I'm gonna try it out

In the beginning; there was Ionian.

2:41 *11th overtone not 10th, 11 is the consonant tritone

Huh, first time I've heard someone pronounce hertz as h(e)arts and not hurts

Overtones + Undertones

This is a good explanation, but i don't get why you say the overtones order wrong while the visual charts are correct. You said they decrease the interval as octave, 5th, 4th, 3rd and so on, and thats not the case. The first overtone is an octave, second is a 5th, third is another octave, forth is a major 3rd, fifth is another 5th, sixth is a minor 7th, seventh is another octave, eighth is a major 2nd and so on. Your program aparently shows this correct overtone order as well in the images, so i don't get why you speak them differently. Is there a reason for that? Anyway, nice video! Edit: Found the reason, you are not mentioning them in the order that the overtones happen (like images show), but rather in the ratios order from smaller to bigger.

Using the word "color" wrong. Color, is the freq. By "sound color," you mean "timber." This is pretty basic. Sound has color, like the rainbow, but not everyone has "perfect pitch." "Tone," refers to the variation of timber, as in "warm." Stronger amplitude of overtones, would be "brightness," as in "bright" or "dull."