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You don't need a new universe. You just need a species that hears sounds a little differently. We won't like listening to their music, but it'll be really great

You don't need a new universe. You just need a species that hears sounds a little differently. We won't like listening to their music, but it'll be really great for them.

gnulinux 4y ago
This may or may not be true. In fact, it seems unlikely to me your claim is true. In nature, sounds produce harmonics i.e. when two objects collide they usually create waves of frequency f, 2f, 3f, 4f... in various (usually exponentially decreasing) weights. It's very rare to find pure sounds (i.e. only f frequency) in nature. The interval between f and 2f is an octave apart (1:2 ratio); the interval between 2f and 3f is a perfect fifth (2:3 ratio). So, when you actually hear a sound, you actually hear an octave and a fifth too, and how dominant this octave and fifth changes the "timbre" of the sound. This way, you know the source of the sound independent of the frequency. For example, both a violin and a piano can produce the note A4 at 440Hz, but anyone can easily determine if it's a piano or violin. The reason is, when a piano produces A4, it sounds not only just 440Hz but also 880Hz and 1320Hz etc... too and the relative volume of 880Hz and 1320Hz will be different than that of violin. Your brain automatically interprets these volume weights as "timbre" and the fundamental frequency 440Hz as "pitch". Consequently, in order for your brain to be able to process the timbre of a sound it needs to find octaves and fifths between each fundamental note it hears. This means there might be something universal about octave and fifth (and other decreasingly consonant intervals such as major third etc...). Maybe we "understand" music because our brain is hard-wired to search for octaves and fifths in all sounds, in order to analyze timbre and in order to process spoken language. If this hypothesis is true, maybe an alien species could have octave/fifth/major third based music too! (if they have music at all, of course)
- jacquesm 4y ago
  There is also the shape of the individual waveforms to take into account a piano has a more or less sinusoidal wave and a violin is more of sawtooth (due to the stickslip of the bow moving across the string(s)).
  - ajuc 4y ago
    You're saying the same thing - the combined sawtooth wave is just the sum of all the sinus harmonics.
  - gnulinux 4y ago
    Is it not true that the shape of the waveform (sinusoidal, saw-like etc) is created by the relative weights of each harmonic? E.g. if you take any random sound wave, Fourier-transform it, you'll find the weight of each harmonic. Or are you saying there is a separate quality to sound waves that can cause their shape to be different even if each harmonic has the same relative weight with respect to the fundamental?
    - abstrakraft 4y ago
      Yes, this quantity is the relative phase of the harmonics, although the human ear is generally considered to be insensitive to phase.
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        The human ear is insensitive, but the human ears are not. Or, more accurately, the human brain is not.
- ssalazar 4y ago
  > This means there might be something universal about octave and fifth There is! At least for the kinds of instruments that are conventionally used in Western music. The harmonic series arises naturally from the physical properties of a string or wind instrument (e.g. violins, guitars, pianos, flutes, brass, organs, etc). As a very rough description of the physical phenomena, the tones we hear arise from a full spectrum, atonal excitation (like a pluck or a reed flapping) bouncing back and forth along the length of string or tube, which is basically a one-dimensional "waveguide". Frequencies that are aligned with the harmonic series naturally reinforce themselves, in the same way that putting energy at the top of the arc of a playground swing has more of an effect than in the middle. Notably, musical instruments that are not strings or tubes, or more general sound-producing bodies, have more complicated patterns of sound waves dispersing through them, and don't typically follow the harmonic series. Pitched percussion, drum heads, or bells have more complicated harmonic spectra than the standard harmonic series (as they are generally thought of as 2D or 3D waveguides where cancellation/reinforcement patterns are less straightforward), as do less musically conventional sounds like knocking two rocks together or striking an arbitrary surface.
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago
Eh, I think you'd need a new universe, as it's a pretty basic principle of math: 3^12 ~= 2^19 You can take two long strings of equal length (A & B), and pluck them, and they'll make the same sound. Then you can take scissors cut string A in half, and it'll sound different. (This is an octave.) Then you can cut string B into thirds, and it too will sound different. If you pluck both of your new strings at the same time, you'll find they sound quite nice together (the difference between these two is called a "fifth"). And after 12 rounds of cutting string B into thirds, and 19 rounds of cutting string A in half, you'll happen to have a string from each group that are almost identical in length and pitch. But it won't line up exactly! They'll be about 1.4% different in length, which roughly works out to a quarter-semitone difference in pitch (i.e. 1/4th the distance from one piano key to the next).
- tshaddox 4y ago
  But who says the creatures need to perceive sound in such a way that the harmonic series has sensory significance? To be honest I’ve never seen a compelling evolutionary explanation for why “hearing the harmonic series” developed in the first place. It obviously seems useful to be able to perceive sounds generated by (roughly) harmonic oscillators, since those occur naturally for various reasons, but why octave equivalence?
  - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago
    I don't think you need to imagine "creatures" - there are humans on earth whose culture's music doesn't have the concept of octaves, let alone fifths. All the real action in their music is in its rhythmic complexity. But my comment was in reply to this statement specifically: > Somewhere there is a perfect universe where 12 fifths form an octave. For this to be true, I think you'd indeed need a new universe where 3^12 = 2^x, where X is a whole integer.
    - tshaddox 4y ago
      I'm not talking about explicit notions of octaves and octave equivalence, although those do exist in very many musical traditions and appear to be extremely widespread in musical traditions where tones have names (if not ubiquitous—I'm not aware of any exceptions). I was referring to the claims that octave equivalence is in some sense hard-wired in the human brain, or sometimes claimed to be all or many mammalian brains. I'm not qualified to evaluate these claims or even whether how well-accepted they are among experts, but such claims do seem to pop up all over the place when discussing music perception.

You don't need a new universe. You just need a species that hears sounds a little differently. We won't like listening to their music, but it'll be really great for them.

gnulinux 4y ago

This may or may not be true. In fact, it seems unlikely to me your claim is true. In nature, sounds produce harmonics i.e. when two objects collide they usually create waves of frequency f, 2f, 3f, 4f... in various (usually exponentially decreasing) weights. It's very rare to find pure sounds (i.e. only f frequency) in nature. The interval between f and 2f is an octave apart (1:2 ratio); the interval between 2f and 3f is a perfect fifth (2:3 ratio). So, when you actually hear a sound, you actually hear an octave and a fifth too, and how dominant this octave and fifth changes the "timbre" of the sound. This way, you know the source of the sound independent of the frequency. For example, both a violin and a piano can produce the note A4 at 440Hz, but anyone can easily determine if it's a piano or violin. The reason is, when a piano produces A4, it sounds not only just 440Hz but also 880Hz and 1320Hz etc... too and the relative volume of 880Hz and 1320Hz will be different than that of violin. Your brain automatically interprets these volume weights as "timbre" and the fundamental frequency 440Hz as "pitch". Consequently, in order for your brain to be able to process the timbre of a sound it needs to find octaves and fifths between each fundamental note it hears. This means there might be something universal about octave and fifth (and other decreasingly consonant intervals such as major third etc...). Maybe we "understand" music because our brain is hard-wired to search for octaves and fifths in all sounds, in order to analyze timbre and in order to process spoken language. If this hypothesis is true, maybe an alien species could have octave/fifth/major third based music too! (if they have music at all, of course)

jacquesm 4y ago
There is also the shape of the individual waveforms to take into account a piano has a more or less sinusoidal wave and a violin is more of sawtooth (due to the stickslip of the bow moving across the string(s)).
- ajuc 4y ago
  You're saying the same thing - the combined sawtooth wave is just the sum of all the sinus harmonics.
- gnulinux 4y ago
  Is it not true that the shape of the waveform (sinusoidal, saw-like etc) is created by the relative weights of each harmonic? E.g. if you take any random sound wave, Fourier-transform it, you'll find the weight of each harmonic. Or are you saying there is a separate quality to sound waves that can cause their shape to be different even if each harmonic has the same relative weight with respect to the fundamental?
  - abstrakraft 4y ago
    Yes, this quantity is the relative phase of the harmonics, although the human ear is generally considered to be insensitive to phase.
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      The human ear is insensitive, but the human ears are not. Or, more accurately, the human brain is not.
ssalazar 4y ago
> This means there might be something universal about octave and fifth There is! At least for the kinds of instruments that are conventionally used in Western music. The harmonic series arises naturally from the physical properties of a string or wind instrument (e.g. violins, guitars, pianos, flutes, brass, organs, etc). As a very rough description of the physical phenomena, the tones we hear arise from a full spectrum, atonal excitation (like a pluck or a reed flapping) bouncing back and forth along the length of string or tube, which is basically a one-dimensional "waveguide". Frequencies that are aligned with the harmonic series naturally reinforce themselves, in the same way that putting energy at the top of the arc of a playground swing has more of an effect than in the middle. Notably, musical instruments that are not strings or tubes, or more general sound-producing bodies, have more complicated patterns of sound waves dispersing through them, and don't typically follow the harmonic series. Pitched percussion, drum heads, or bells have more complicated harmonic spectra than the standard harmonic series (as they are generally thought of as 2D or 3D waveguides where cancellation/reinforcement patterns are less straightforward), as do less musically conventional sounds like knocking two rocks together or striking an arbitrary surface.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago

Eh, I think you'd need a new universe, as it's a pretty basic principle of math: 3^12 ~= 2^19 You can take two long strings of equal length (A & B), and pluck them, and they'll make the same sound. Then you can take scissors cut string A in half, and it'll sound different. (This is an octave.) Then you can cut string B into thirds, and it too will sound different. If you pluck both of your new strings at the same time, you'll find they sound quite nice together (the difference between these two is called a "fifth"). And after 12 rounds of cutting string B into thirds, and 19 rounds of cutting string A in half, you'll happen to have a string from each group that are almost identical in length and pitch. But it won't line up exactly! They'll be about 1.4% different in length, which roughly works out to a quarter-semitone difference in pitch (i.e. 1/4th the distance from one piano key to the next).

tshaddox 4y ago
But who says the creatures need to perceive sound in such a way that the harmonic series has sensory significance? To be honest I’ve never seen a compelling evolutionary explanation for why “hearing the harmonic series” developed in the first place. It obviously seems useful to be able to perceive sounds generated by (roughly) harmonic oscillators, since those occur naturally for various reasons, but why octave equivalence?
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago
  I don't think you need to imagine "creatures" - there are humans on earth whose culture's music doesn't have the concept of octaves, let alone fifths. All the real action in their music is in its rhythmic complexity. But my comment was in reply to this statement specifically: > Somewhere there is a perfect universe where 12 fifths form an octave. For this to be true, I think you'd indeed need a new universe where 3^12 = 2^x, where X is a whole integer.
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    I'm not talking about explicit notions of octaves and octave equivalence, although those do exist in very many musical traditions and appear to be extremely widespread in musical traditions where tones have names (if not ubiquitous—I'm not aware of any exceptions). I was referring to the claims that octave equivalence is in some sense hard-wired in the human brain, or sometimes claimed to be all or many mammalian brains. I'm not qualified to evaluate these claims or even whether how well-accepted they are among experts, but such claims do seem to pop up all over the place when discussing music perception.