Thursday, April 21, 2011

Harmony: It's all physics!

Picture by KMLA Orchestra
Music is beautiful, emotional, and enjoyable. It also becomes extremely complex. Even looking at the basics of things such as music theory, the average viewer can become as lost as a first grader trying to learn Advanced Calculus. But let's try and simplify music a little bit first.

To say it bluntly, music is simply variations of pitch and volume. Where it gets complex is when you start adding things such as harmony. Simplified, harmony is when two or more notes are played and they simply sound nice together. Harmony is used in many forms of music, so chances are you know what it sounds like. But what creates this sound when looking at it from a physics perspective?

In physics you learn(ed) that different notes have a related frequency. From a physics point of view, what correlations do two harmonizing notes have with each other when viewing their frequencies? Are there any specific formulas or ratios that make a tear-jerking or powerful chord? Do some research on harmony and share any ratios, formulas, or facts on harmony. ALSO, see if you can find a visual representation of harmony at work, preferably a graph of the waves.
Posted by Gorudu93 at 9:30 AM

7 comments:

  1. roseDesireApril 21, 2011 at 9:38 AM

    This is a relation of notes I found for a C major chord:
    C – 1
    D – 9/8
    E – 5/4
    F – 4/3
    G – 3/2
    A – 5/3
    B – 17/9
    I was also able to find a pretty good picture that represents two different chord; one that sounds good and one that doesn't. They're on this website: http://www.musicmasterworks.com/WhereMathMeetsMusic.html. Many of these ratios look to be highly complex, so it's obvious that Pythagoras was a pretty smart guy to discover these beautiful ratios.

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  2. rubyApril 24, 2011 at 3:58 PM

    According to a major chord has a frequency ratio of 4:5:6, a minor chord 10:12:15, a diminished chord 160:192:231, a seventh chord 20:25:30:36, a minor seventh 10:12:15:18, a major seventh 8:10:12:15. This site also lists the number of half steps between notes in each chord.

    This site has a few graphs of sine waves in different chords. http://www.jimloy.com/physics/harmony.htm

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  3. rubyApril 24, 2011 at 4:00 PM

    Sorry the first url didn't post for some reason, it was http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/chords.html

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  4. sciencegeek101April 26, 2011 at 9:06 AM

    The chord major has a half step of 4-3, and the ratio 4:5:6. The chord minor has a half step of 3-4 and the ratio 10:12:15. The chord diminshed has a half step of 3-3 and a ratio of 160:192:231. The chord the 7th has a half step of 4-3-3 and a ratio of 20:25:30:36. The minor 7th has a half step of 3-4-3 and a ratio of 10:12:15:18. The chord 7th major has a half step of 4-3-4 and a ratio of 8:10:12:15. (same thing as Ruby but I added the half step bewteen notes)

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  5. SNICKERSApril 26, 2011 at 1:01 PM

    Physics has a lot to do with music. To have consance, you want to have a 1:2 ratio.

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  6. Gorudu93April 27, 2011 at 9:50 AM

    roseDesire, great post! The link you posted was very informative. Ruby, your second link was a fantastic little piece of information. The rest of you, it's cool to see the ratios written out. They really do get pretty complex, but if you notice the major chords seem pretty simple. Can anyone find a wave pattern of a major and a minor chord? It would be cool to compare the two side by side...

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  7. Brian BearssJune 1, 2011 at 2:10 PM

    Thanks to all who commented on this post!

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