“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.” Nikola Tesla
“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.” Plato
Understanding the basics of music and sound is essential to be a great music producer. With an understanding of what sound is and a grounding in music theory, you will think about music and music production differently. Prepare to be blown away.
What is music?
Music is organized sound. Sound is the vibrations of molecules of air at various speeds or as we call it, frequencies. If you arrange sound to follow a pulse or a beat, et voila, music. Without a pulse your music will sound like a cacophony of noise. This maybe pleasant or very unpleasant.
Imagine a car crash! Wait a minute. No that's pretty horrible.
Try a timber yard...in the jungle. In fact, listen to it.
This classic 90's break beat track by Coldcut and Hexstatic, Timber, uses all the sounds from you might find in a standard timber yard to make a really unique rhythm. In this case it is, sadly, it is referencing timber production in the rain forests. However, keep watching this song turns into something beautiful.
So, firstly, what is sound?
Sound is vibrations traveling through air (or another medium) that are herd by an animal or human and thus are audible. The vibrations are created by a displacement of the air around the sound source caused by a burst of energy. This could be the energy released from a bolt of lightening or the bowing of a stretched violin string. Humans harness, trap and stimulate these vibrations within ingenious inventions such as; strings stretched over a hollow chamber (a violin) or long polish tubes (a flute).
Musical sound, as opposed to noise, are vibrations that excite the harmonic series into being (more about this later). Much like the enchanting ripples in a pond on a warm summers day, sound spreads out from the source in waves losing energy as it goes.
We've all rocked out to vibrating air as I like to think about it sometimes. Sound pushed out of the speakers causes the air in front of them to vibrate, which then causes the air in front of them to vibrate, which then causes the air in front of them to vibrate … and so on until it reaches your ear. Kind of like a mexican wave of vibrating air molecules. After that your ear does, well lets just say for now, some biological magic and converts these vibrations into electrical signals which is in turn, interpreted by your brain. WOW.
The Frequency. How do we measure sound?
The rate we hear these air molecules vibrating determines the pitch at which we hear them. So a slow moving vibraton/wave is heard as a low pitch/tone and a fast moving sound vibration or wave is heard as a high pitch. This is measured by how many cycles of a wave (think of this as how fast the air molecules are 'wibbling') occurs each second and is called, funnily enough, the frequency.
Every sound has its own frequency (and multiples of frequencies but lets no confuse things for now). Think about having a body of water and you have a ball. You keep pushing the ball down and pulling it come back up, and repeating. This will generate waves. If you move the ball faster you will have to put in more work or energy. But moving the ball faster will generate waves more often or at a higher frequency.
Regular repeating sound vibrations produce what we recognize as tones and ultimately, music. The generation of a sound wave is caused by oscillating (moving back and forth) source, like the cone body of the speaker moving back and forth on your sub woofer or the string of your guitar moving after you pluck it. A fast moving source will require more energy, and the wave generated will be at a higher frequency and therefore be a higher pitch and a higher energy level than a slow one generated by a slow moving source. This is why thinner strings on a guitar make higher notes. It is easier to make them vibrate faster. You need to use more energy to make the fat strings vibrate.
The range of sound humans can hear starts at the low frequency of 20 waves or cycles per second to 20,000 cycles per second. We refer to them as 20hz or 20,000hz named after the German physicist Heinrich Hertz.
Understanding and knowing about frequency is an essential part of being an excellent music producer but not necessarily an excellent musician. You must be able to identify all the different areas of the frequency spectrum in order to EQ your music. Where each instrument and sound sits in your soundscape and how you shape it in the final production will set you out as a producer. This is fundamental. Understanding frequency and EQ is not to be overlooked.
If you want to know more and are interested in working with me get in touch on the contact page. Until then, read more, always be learning and listen to everything.
Thanks to Jason Rosewell, Pawel Czerwinski for 2 of the pictures.
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