A mathematical idea i guess?

[hajdulak]

OK, so there's this thing with chords I'm curious about.
Hope someone could try this or... I'm just too lazy to do it myself.

Let's say you've got a chord. Any chord.

You take an average of all the note frequencies in the chord, generate a sound with that frequency and play it along with the chord.
Now, will it sound pleasant to the ear?

And because I'm a fan of badly drawn diagrams, here is one.


Discuss why and why not below, or even try that at home.

[whyterabbyt]

OK, so there's this thing with chords I'm curious about.
Hope someone could try this or... I'm just too lazy to do it myself.

Im just too lazy to give you an answer.

[schnapsglas]

As a mathematician, I can say with authority: short answer: no. long answer: sometimes.

And not really a mathematical problem, since you are taking the average. Even if you get something more sophisticated such that you have sqrt(2) to be the middle of an octave, you get a tritone.

Because chords are in fact ratios, it is true that you get the fifth if you take an octave and just do an average, but it can get really screwed up once you have something like that.

Beyond that, I am too lazy to say why it won't work well for something like that.

[hajdulak]

OK, so there's this thing with chords I'm curious about.
Hope someone could try this or... I'm just too lazy to do it myself.

Im just too lazy to give you an answer.

Beyond that, I am too lazy to say why it won't work well for something like that.

To laymen, software development is something akin to wizardry. Neither time, nor effort are involved. If software is missing features they want, or has bugs, it is solely because someone has been too lazy to wave their magic wand.

[Meffy]

Someone's irony detector isn't switched on.

[schnapsglas]

OK, so there's this thing with chords I'm curious about.
Hope someone could try this or... I'm just too lazy to do it myself.

Im just too lazy to give you an answer.

Beyond that, I am too lazy to say why it won't work well for something like that.

To laymen, software development is something akin to wizardry. Neither time, nor effort are involved. If software is missing features they want, or has bugs, it is solely because someone has been too lazy to wave their magic wand.

Do your own computations. It's way too long to justify the reasoning.

[schnapsglas]

Someone's irony detector isn't switched on.

Is it mine? I'm don't come with a factory irony detector...

Anyway, paypal me $5, and I will give you a clear answer how this works.

[Meffy]

Unless you misconstrued whyte's sig as non-ironic, it's not you.

[vurt]

"pleasant" to who's ear?

[Meffy]

"pleasant" to who's ear?

Octavia the cello-playing pony approves of this post.


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@hadjulak: Until you try it for yourself, you'll never know, will you? Stop being lazy and try. Tell us what you find, and give examples.

Doing is the best way to learn.

[Gamma-UT]

If you detune the C5 by 2.50424Hz, it'll sound rubbish but daffodils will grow one inch taller if you play it to them.

[vurt]

i hear something akin to coconuts?

[Meffy]

i hear something akin to coconuts?

Ponies applaud LOUDLY. It's amazing she can play cello so well, considering the hooves.

[edit] BTW, that's not supposed to be a sarcastic "slow clap." I was too lazy to go into PS and change the frame timing.

[Sendy]

There's a fairly aggreed upon standard for whether two frequencies will sound "pleasant" together or not.

http://nedwaves.com/blog/110928_bandwidth/

This page has a famous diagram from On the Sensation of Tone graphing "roughness" based on the amount or absence of beating between the frequencies.

Whether this roughness or pleasantness is desirable or not I suppose depends on any given context.

[JumpingJackFlash]

You take an average of all the note frequencies in the chord, generate a sound with that frequency and play it along with the chord.
Now, will it sound pleasant to the ear?

In equal temperament, probably not to many people, because the average frequency is likely to clash with at least one of the notes of the chord (in a triad, it would obviously be the third).

But like everyone else had said; it depends on many things, not least the person who is listening. The ear has no problem accepting clashes (seventh chords being a good example), the mind only perceives them to be "bad" when they fall outside of cultural norms.

So, the actual mathematics matters not (take the major third in equal temperament for another example). Of far more relevance is culture and context.

If it's not what you expect and it's not what you're used to, then you're likely to think it sounds "bad". To someone else, or in another context, the same thing might sound "good".