Except for bells. Those have a minor overtone structure. Though they did experiment with major third bells, which actually made them lose much of their character and sound rather dull and empty. Not a great succes.

"The piano's out of tune" - Jacob Collier, every talk ever

Not satisfied with just playing all instruments, Jacob has now decided to play Physics

i dont think me and my trumpet are ready to have baby notes yet.

A person more musically talented than JC could probably: - sing from 10 to 20.000 Hz - sing 5 notes at the same time - identify a note before it's even played

You hear those little baby notes inside? Everyone has those... Thats what makes the universe work, or somethin -Jacob Collier 2021

Evidence of extraterrestrial life on Earth:

Jacob: "Hear all those baby notes inside?" Me: "I'll trust you."

I’m convinced homie has never learned a thing in his life he’s just always known it all.

Mongolian throat singing. It's like your throat starts playing the missing fundamental from the harmonic sequence you are trying to hit ... Absolutely amazing

This seems really complicated, but it’s actually the entire basis of classical singing - The reason that opera singers don’t use microphones, while others do, is not because they have more breath or power. Classical technique actually manipulates the mouth and tongue to strengthen certain overtones, which allow the sound to carry further and access “ring” in the voice!

“The piano is out of tune. That’s another masterclass.” Piano be like: “sign me up cap.”

He speaks so fluently about music theory. He references so many different topics casually, im not sure if i could follow even 30min of his performances

"You can't sing two notes at once" **Mongolian throat singing has entered the chat**

in very simple English: It is very rare that we only hear one pitch in nature. Most of what we call sounds are made up of many different pitches. Jacob is talking about periodic sound: Periodic sound is what tones are made up of. It is the opposite of aperiodic sound. The difference between these two is: Aperiodic sound is made up of pitches that do not have a specific interval between each of the pitches. In other words, the pitches are arbitrary. Periodic sound is made up of pitches that have the same absolute interval between each of the pitches. This interval is the pitch we perceive the sound to be at. Let's say we have a tone that has four pitches: 100 HZ 200 HZ 300 HZ and 400 HZ. Between each of these pitches, there is 100 HZ, so this is the pitch we perceive for the overall sound. This sound we call the 'fundamental' in acoustics and the 'tonic' in harmonic analysis. In most cases, the fundamental is there in the tone, but we can also leave it out if its 'overtones' are there. 'Overtones' are the pitches above the fundamental that are spaced out by the exact interval that is the fundamental. If this is too abstract, you can think of the fundamental as a lego brick. Adding overtones to the fundamental is just like placing the same type of lego brick on top of the original one (the fundamental). By putting lego bricks on top of each other, we can also see how we get the different intervals of music by adding the overtones to the fundamental pitch: Putting one lego brick on top of another, we increase the size of the lego figure by 100%. This corresponds to the octave. One octave above 100 HZ is 200 HZ. When we add the third brick, we get an increase of 50%. This corresponds to the fifth. One fifth above 200 HZ is 300 HZ. By the fourth brick we get 33,33333333%. This corresponds to a fourth. One fourth above 300 HZ is 400 HZ. (also the second octave of 100 HZ) By the fifth brick we get 25%. This corresponds to a major third. One major third above 400 HZ is 500 HZ. By the sixth brick we get 20%. This corresponds to a minor third. One minor third above 500 HZ is 600 HZ. (also the third octave of 100 HZ) What Jacob also talks about is formants. To know what formants are, you need to know that sounds are made up of two things: 1) vibrations in the air (what we describe in HZ) 2) The space they occur in Formants are a property of the spaces that sounds occur in. Different spaces have different shapes and different shapes amplify different overtones. This is why different instruments sound different. It is also why different vowels sound different. Because the instruments have different shapes and because we change the way our mouth is shaped when say different vowels. Our mouths are like very pliable instruments. It is also why different instruments can play different harmonics. For instance, string instruments can play all the harmonics. Flutes can also do that because they are a tube that is open at both ends. But clarinets can't do that because they close at one end when you play them. Saxophones can also play all the harmonics, but they also close at one end. But they are not cylindrical, they are conical. This is also why saxophones sound different to clarinets and why they blend very well with strings (and flutes when they play more quietly): because they all have all the overtones in their sound. The advantage of the clarinet is that when you blow hard, you actually reach the second overtone instead of the first, and when you blow even harder, you reach the fourth, while on the saxophone you only reach the first and second overtone this way. This means that the range of the clarinet is very large. It can play many, many tones more easily than the saxophone. This is because our tuning system in Western music is built so all the notes have the same distance between them, but this means that the overtones of the notes are not in tune. So the saxophone player has to adjust very high notes a lot because they are based on very high overtones. But in the past when we had not invented keys (the metal bits that are pressed to open holes in the instrument but are closed when unpressed (the opposite of tone holes)), the clarinet was a very limited instrument because a lot of notes were missing because you could not play the octave by blowing hard.

Anyone else also lowkey found it impressive when he casually sang the same note in two different timbres to imitate a Vibraphone and Violin

Man explains and demonstrates the basics of timbre and teases the concept of just intonation

"There are an infinite number of harmonics" - Jacob Collier obviously still believes in Newtonian physics

“And this concludes my presentation of your planet.” - Alien Musician

"You can't sing two notes at once." Lalah Hathaway: _"And I took that personally."_

There are some sounds that don’t follow the harmonic series, and most of those sounds people would consider harsh and dissonant, despite being almost the same to other similar sounds. Difference is with most sounds they follow a waveform that you can use a Fourier transform to get the harmonics in the harmonic series that you see, but with things that don’t follow the harmonic series don’t follow a simple waveform since it’s mathematically impossible to create one that can’t be simplified into the harmonic series. Instead it has a waveform that changes each cycle by a different cycle that doesn’t match the any power normal waveform. You can actually use amplitude modulation to frequency shift all the harmonics in a sound down by the same amount, ruining all the ratios in a sound, turning a normal sound into something completely different and other worldly. It’s also possible to produce sounds with minor harmonic series instead of major ones, but those also are commonly considered to sound weird. It’s crazy how imprinted the harmonic series is in our minds that any deviation sounds far different and almost wrong to us.

There was a time I was singing an F5 in head voice and the note indicator indicated two consistent alternate notes : F5 and F6. I could feel that my vocal chords were producing a dominant lower frequency and a higher overtone at the same time. The harmonics of it gave the note a more "steely edge" I would say

"Oh, this is how the universe works. Neat. Anyway ... the piano is out of tune." - Jacob probably.

This man is a musical alien

That piano’s like “wtf bruh, I thought we were cool…”

Sound like Huur-Huut Tu or other bassthroat/mongolian song, i love those baby notes!

Of course he also masters overtone singing...

Technician: Tunes Piano Jacob: I'ma 'bout to end this mans whole career

"you can't sing two notes at once" Anna-Maria Hefele: *triggered*

I heard a person sing a normal note, a throat note, and add a note with harmonics it to it. It was chilling.

"The piano is out of tune but that's a different masterclass" You see, he's right, but the way he says it simply means that I didn't know about it at all

I studied the harmonic series a lot in school as a music theory major. Something that blew my mind is that you could select any harmonic above a fundamental, build the harmonic series from that harmonic (as if it’s the new fundamental), and those new harmonics would match up perfectly with the upper, upper harmonics of the original fundamental 🤯

Arent these just called overtones Edit: Title change 👍

Jacob: you cant sing two notes at once Beatboxer: what do you mean? We do polyphonic all the time.

Thank you for your explanations for this video and others and ones to come. Inspiring.

This guy is like an extra eccentric version of a music Bob Ross.

I'm beatboxer and we use a double voice usually if someone what can check two-h or stich it's not overtone like Jacob did, it's a different technique that produces more than 2 notes actually

My cat found this video very interesting.

The first 6 seconds is such an amazing demonstration of harmonics!!

beatboxers: HOLD MY BEER

I don’t think Jacob has ever taken a music class in his life and he just pushed keys on a piano until he achieved nirvana

This guy might be the most genius musician that has ever existed.

There is an auditory illusion where a tone is played and then another tone and you’re asked if the following tone was higher or lower. If it’s a basic tone and ratio, then it can be perceived as certain things. But the thing about notes for those of us aware of fundamentals and partials is that the fundamental is for the most part the lowest tone of a stack, and that defines the note, not the upper tone. Of course, an exception is if you have a weak additional tone kinda snuck in there. But for the auditory illusion, it’s kind of silly haha

That's so weird but also so cool, damn I need more overtone singing content

Truly interesting content, but too short video...

I want to be inside this man's mind just to take a look at how it works.

This is called "NG-technique". There are also the L-technique (the same as in Tuvan Sygyt Style) and the J-technique. NG is the best for amplifying the lower overtones, while the L and J can make you amplify more than 10 overtones. You can actually climb the overtone series up to the 16th partial (I've made it to the 24th) :-)

I can sing 2 notes at the same time. Its called polyphonia. Its always a fixed interval, (major fourth, i.e. if i sing a F3, i can add a C3 below it) i can't change it, although ive learned to turn it on and off while i sing, and it happened from me breaking smthg in my adam's apple while choking on food when i was younger. Idk if anything actually broke broke, but i felt a loud crack when i finally managed to cough and my voice changed ever since. At first i thought i only lost range - almost half an octave on the high end - but after a few weeks i accidentally did a vocal power chord, and have been exploring and using it ever since

His majesty starts discussing music, shifts into biology with a touch of geography, and finally into philosophy

I’ve actually learned how to do overtones and they are super fun

I have no idea about the music creation whatsoever with no exception to this man - still got recommended his videos and keep them watching.

"Hey Jacob what DAW do you use?" "All of them"

I'm very surprised he got timbre and formants mixed up. Comparing a violin to a xylophone playing the same note and them having different formants is just dead wrong. Formants are phonetic and vocal based sounds. Timbre is the quality and character of a sound.

It's not that complicated guys, it's just the way he presented it

Lloyd: hey wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world? ***sings harmonics**

When aliens come to Earth in the year 5000+, Jacob's literature/music would be the start of how we understood the aliens.

Question for the musicians: in Spain you learn all this is in the conservatory when you are a teenager (12-18), it's basic harmony... now I leave in another country and they don't teach music theory at all, I have no idea why (!). How is it in your country? Is it really uncommon that musicians know these things? No need to say, I love JC and how he shares all these concepts with music lovers :-)

Of course, if anyone outside of Tibet (or the Harmonics Choir) can emulate Tibetan throat singing, it’s Jacob. This guy is a musical badass.

0:01 when you're 6 years old at the doctors, and he needs to check your throat

Jacob saying the piano is out of tune is like my dad saying he was the only one who wasn't out of step in his high school marching band.

It’s funny hearing people like him say,” and see a harmony is just a major third” and proceeds to play it. Little does he know not one person in the audience has perfect pitch and they just believe him without actually hearing any notes

he’s conflating formants with overtones/timbre here, a formant is a spectral band of high energy, a sound can have many formants which consist of more than one overtone and contribute to the sound’s timbre

I love watching this guy try to put an acid trip into words…

"The piano is out of tune" That's the coolest thing I have ever heard!

was expecting him to sing two notes at once

Not me trying this and miserably failing.

"owwwaaaanhhh" - plays the piano note "nah, mine is correct, the piano is out of tune, i can't be"

0:47 i cannot get enough of his violin impression 😂😂😂

I understand that the shape of the wave in addition to the overtones does much to account for the tone. While a flute produces a rounder waveform more similar to a sine wave, a violin will produce something more like a sawtooth wave.

A major chord exists within every sound. 🤯

I discovered how to do this when I was little; I think most people could probably do it if they just knew about it but it’s really fun

Jacob: the pianos out of tune Everyone: it’s digital-

The piano is out of tune, I’m not

I don’t hear it. Is there a way to learn to hear overtones?

Mind blowing. I remember Avi from PTX achieving this God Tier vocal skill.

Jacob's the worst nightmare of every piano tuner

We were drawn to singing in thirds - specifically major thirds - because dissonance is a threat. If you're swimming in the ocean, waves rolling past you on a regular interval are easy to swim in. Even if they get larger, you can handle them much easier if they're coming at you in a regular interval. Having them come at you at seemingly random intervals puts you in danger much more quickly. They'll fatigue you and, if the water is churning enough, they can actually pull you apart after a while. The Earth's atmosphere is a "liquid" just like the oceans but less dense and the cells in your ear that handle hearing are existing in that liquid. Dissonance is when you have sound waves that are not in sync with each other....and that's a threat to the cells in the ear so, we're naturally not going to like intervals that aren't Major.

Overtone singing isn't really singing two notes at once, it's just causing the overtone of the note you're singing to resonate loudly. There ARE techniques to sing two notes at once though. Lalah Hathaway for example, 6:17 of this video kzfaq.info/get/bejne/Zrl6fMqFscuUmJc.html

Jacob always comes across as a guy who went to Nepal for a year, but instead of learning to meditate he played the piano

I like to watch him explain things I completely don't understand yet

The piano is actually out of tune 😂😂😂

He sounds like he's yawning every time he speaks, no offense.

The legendary sequel to “you cant play 2 Notes at once”

“That’s what makes the universe work or something” My new favourite quote

The poncho wearing genius has done it again!

You can't sing two notes at once! Turan throat singers: hold me beer.

Philosophy under music, love it!

This guy always look like he is a spiritual guide or leader of a hippie cult and he is just giving music theory expos lol.

That mouth violin was tighter than rush-hour traffic.

Beatboxer: Well yeah....

00:01 He sounded like a didgeridoo then 😂

That's so cool! Actually, I am can sing three notes at once, each with similar projection. but the intervals between the notes are always fixed, no matter how low or high I sing. the intervals are something like a half step, and then also a minor third over the first note. (thankfully i also have perfect pitch)

beatboxers like showgo-ima end this man's whole career

I love how he called overtones "baby notes", I'm gonna use it now

"Does anybody else find it freaky that Zoidberg is singing harmony with himself?"

Imagine when he starts singing microtonal overtones and defies physics

There is also consideration that there are non sinusoidal elements to a fundamental frequency and harmonic series that influences the tone.

i had to check my guitar, which i tune by ear... bro's natural C note was spot on in tune with mine. Astounding...

I guess figuring this out comes more naturally to those with absolute pitch than to the rest of us without it.

Lalah Hathaway : "Hold my beer son"