As someone who also plays and listens to jazz, I and many of my friends have experienced this relevant phenomenon: You get more and more desensitized to harmonic dissonance and want more of it. You start out liking simpler voicings with less extensions, and end up loving the sound of a C13(b9 #11). This probably goes hand in hand with the fact that you learn to hear standard jazz harmony, you recognize the patterns and progressions. It's not necessarily the case that you end up desensitized to dissonance in general, but you learn to decode the particular dissonances of the tradition, and understand them as part of something larger - Although I have on more than one occasion joked around with friends by blindly pressing keys on the piano to test the hypothesis that anything is a cool voicing. The same can be said of melody. For the layman, complex bebop phrases are too complex to be meaningful, but once you recognize hundreds of common fragments and licks, as well as hearing the progressions and probably knowing the standard, you aren't hearing 1000 pieces of information, you're hearing 20 larger pieces of information, so it becomes meaningful.
To me harmonic dissonance invokes feelings. Music should be used to represent the world. And the world is not always harmonious. In the case of the death metal band Gorguts. Which I recommend particularly the Colored Sands album. The dissonance makes it feel surreal because of how extremely well organized it is. Like some sort of completely otherworldly musical architecture. Like a beautiful but hostile alien planet.
@@miles6524 imperial triumphants drummer is an absolutely ridiculous virtuoso. I imagine if I wasn't a drummer I would hear his playing as being chaotic and wild but its really ridiculously micro organized and easly the most percise and intricate part of their music.
@@eriktippie978 Idk what yall are Talking about But i like clowncore Their albums “van” and “toilet” are unironically the best musical experiences i’ve had, right above listening to aerosmith’s sweet emotion for the first time peaking on my first joint. I find it Genius the way in which they shat on the piano, then played the most mindblowing sax solo ever Even the parallel-parking dickpicking bass solo, the driver made it into a beautiful performance, genuinely musically enjoyable, somehow. I also like dj beck & domi, it’s like multidimentional music, feels synesthesic Also Jacob collier(i think that’s his name, i heard he’s the clowncore drummer as well and somehow involved in KNOWER as well) If i know more jazz i can’t remember. Feels like i jumped through a window into jazz territory, But i like it Anyway, anyone could give out the Classic jazz songs, But what are *your* favorite performances/pieces? What solo do you think is the quintessential solo? Considering what i’ve said about myself, What would you yourself want to make me listen to? Something weird, exquisite, in any way you find interesting. Not even good or bad, But something undeniably brilliant in your judgment Just not something that requires basic knowledge of music theory to understand Why people that understand it like it i play the guitar But havent got a clue about the diference between major and minor Keys beyond the feeling it evokes. I know 1 pentatonic scale and the rest is muscle memory, improvisation, just vibes, really I want music to feel it, not to think about its musical logic anyway, jazz reccomendations plz?(anyone reading this too, please feel free to send whatever it is you like) And Sorry to bother, feel free to ignore me completely and go on with your conversation that i won’t even pretend to be interested in, just Why not bring it up right here where some jazz enthusiasts seem to be hanging out today, right?
Man, this is really one of the most interesting physics video i have ever seen, yet it is so simple. It actually got me interested the same way a Veritasium or a Kurzgesagt video would, just being composed of your drawings and the script. You deserve serious recognition.
Great video, bird. Another important factor that was not mentioned is that our love for music is tied to our love for recognizing patterns. In order for the activity to be rewarding the patterns need to become more complicated over time. After all, 10x10 puzzles are a head scratcher for babies. So it's natural for people with more musical experience to enjoy more elaborate and ambiguous harmonies.
I mean, low entropy is literally about patterns. One factor though that'd be interesting to see is a more psychological or emotion perspective of it all. I've alwayd thought that we like music for the patterns, but also becaude they relate to stories, which can help in surviving in the hunter-gatherer time. Listening to stories, learning about the world remotely, often by imagination, and music aids the imagination a lot.
@netunof Not sad at all, different strokes for different folks. Some are into visual arts more than musical arts, others still are interested in other facets of life. It would be absurd if all were music connoisseurs, it's just one part of life.
I don't think it is correct, seems to me like a filterbank. If they were transforming into frequency domain there would be no more time information in the following signals - but the video shows processing of the time domain sine waves later on.
It’s rare to to get a video on my Home Screen that takes a stab at addressing such a fundamental question about music. The point you make about Ewe drumming and jazz has validity and is insightful. I sense something similar about abstract art and the appeal it has for wealthy people who live sanitized and orderly lives amidst pristine surroundings. Wild entropy contained within a 2 dimensional rectangular frame on their pristine white wall adds a stimulating and digestible bit of visual contrast they can accept without being overwhelmed. I love the fact our inner ear does Fourier transforms so we may interpret harmony. The ear mechanism has amazing abilities which you touched on in this video. Nice work.
This is one of the coolest channels I've discovered this year. Keep going man; math has definitely been growing on me and you're showing me just how applicable it is
As a neuroscientist and passionate musician I have always struggled balancing the analytical, physical properties of music (discovered by Pythagoras) and the emotional, story-telling nature that it has carried since we have existed. You sir, have provided the key between both worlds! Thank you for sharing such depth of knowledge! I have one suggestion - this video has so much depth I feel it could be broken into chapters, for people who do not know about physics, electricity it is complex and feel that the jumps could be "chunked" or simplified in layman's (?) terms? Bless you and thank you again for such amazing information. You are an inspiring teacher!
This is genuinely one of the best videos I have ever seen. It combines physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, music, all combined to explain a single topic. It's freaking beautiful
As a jazz musician and Science Student this video was made for me, keep up the great content, I love to see the application of scientific knowledge to everyday topics.
can't be a musician and a scientist. musicians have to be epistemologists in order to music. how the hell are you going to jazz music when your head is full of being right about things.
@@sweezlesquee Upvote for recommending Zenon to jazz-heads, haha, nice. I agree, if you get off on complexity, there's a whole new world waiting for you.
@@atomictravellerPeople are multifaceted and can experience the world in ways that on the surface can seem contradicting but really show a depth of understanding. Point is I think a statement like, one cannot be both a musician and a scientist to be such a limiting and close minded statement. I can’t speak for others, but for myself I have the goal of sonifying specific quantum phenomena like quantum decoherence. I take T1 values (which on an IBM Quantum device, T1 refers to the relaxation time of going from a state like |1> to |0> in a matter of microseconds) and I map these microsecond values directly to Hertz. I don’t consider time and frequency being reciprocals for the mapping since the purpose of the sonification aims to be in a range that humans can easily hear without pain. i.e. it’s a direct mapping of microseconds to Hertz. The purpose of sonification is to have an audible way to “hear” quantum decoherence. Hence it being called “The Sound of Quantum Decoherence”, which is the museum exhibit I’m fleshing out. I do this research for a national laboratory when at its core it’s music related. While I’m a scientific research, I still play music! In fact, and this doesn’t “make” me a musician but I went to music school and am finishing a degree in oboe performance now. I love jazz, I learn standards, I jam with my friends, I arrange, I compose, I get called for gigs on my main instrument oboe but also trumpet, and I’ve been paid for music before and love music so I consider myself, a musician and a scientist. This was an excuse to research-dump as opposed to trauma-dump, hope there was something of value in there.
As a jazz musician, physics student and mathematician, my mind was blown in the most enjoyable, entertaining, relevant way...i am truly impressed and i cannot truly put into words how astonishing this was 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯
I don't make jazz, but I absolutely love how it plays with harmony and expectation. I wouldn't consider myself a jazz aficionado but I do know that good jazz knows where and when to break "the rules" and the "fundamentals" of jazz can be applied to any genre of music... Which leads me to this video. Idk why I like jazz or feel the need to put jazzy elements on my tracks but it can be fun :D
I think that is why I like jazz - it confounds my expectations. How much I like a piece probably has something to do with how much my expectations are confounded; too much and I'm just listening to noise, too little and it's just a bit boring. But I love country too - I love both genres equally. I couldn't think of a more predictable music (in the main) than country. I don't understand what's going on here. It's probably psychological. Jazz is the harsh encouragement of Dad and country is the warm hugs of Mum? Dunno 🤷♀️
As someone who was in band (jazz and marching) in high school; and went from chemical engineering to computational math in undergrad; and is aiming toward grad in biomed, this video truly maximizes the entropy of my neurons producing seratonin and dopamine :D.
Amount of ramifications that hit my brian when you introduced the concept of deeper meaning in information with higher entropy is outstanding. Thank you for that and keep the good work man! You've earned a subscriber! Cheers
You really brought together a lot of different domains of knowledge, into one video with something to say, but said it with many wide ranging topics. This was pretty deep
That was SO COOL. Maybe, it's just because I'm an electrical engineer who has been fascinated with music, the brain and signal processing... so, WOW, the brilliant connection between these!
As a telecommunications engineer/jazz pianist this tickled a lot of my own neurons! Thank you for the video. Also I didn't know there was a threshold involved with hearing (but I guess it makes sense)
As a hearing care professional and music creator I can say this is the best video I have ever seen in my entire life. I am amazed about everything. You are a multi talent! Thank you very much to share this with us.
I wanted to say something, but i think you already said everything. So, i'll just say that this video was so well produced and developed that it almost made me cry. I hope i can almost cry with another masterpiece of yours in the future.
Ever since I was a kid I’ve loved jazz and abstract art. I think it’s the “human element” more than anything that pleases my brain. It’s the idea that: when there are no rules, when you don’t really accept there being order and rules, you see some of the most creative and personal expressions. You stop chasing perfection, and you start just creating freely. With the knowledge it won’t be for everyone but someone out there will connect with what you’re making.
No historical evidence exists to tell us exactly who sang the first song, or whistled the first tune, or made the first rhythmic sounds that resembled what we know today as music. But researchers do know it happened thousands of years ago. Humans used different noises to express fear or joy. These sounds, along with some of the sounds they heard from animals, such as birds' chirping, might have led them to make music. When people began to use tools, for instance to pound grains, they may have done so in a rhythm, or a regular pattern. Music emerged to help people coordinate their movements while they engaged in productive activities. [NIEonline; The Conversation] 2:31
This is one of the best videos I've seen lately. The person who composed it is interested in and conversant with many different fields such as evolutionary biology of humans, neurophysiology, music theory, etc. I would love to be that intelligent, but I guess I can become that way through exposure! Anyway, my personal take is that the beauty of jazz is indeed a learned taste and that once you hear some unusual chords, they give you an emotional experience that you can't get with more common chords and intervals. I have many jazz recordings along with my more popular music recordings, and some of them are so weird that I don't listen to them that often -- others I listen to frequently. One thing that gets in the way of my going deeper into jazz is that I like tunes I can sing or play on instruments. Since I'm not a musician, I don't have time to learn enough to reproduce jazz tunes in my head well enough to sing them or play them on piano or guitar!
I don’t really understand that either. I suppose some people won’t go out of their way to listen to jazz but jazz isn’t that offensive to listen to, most people can see the appeal
@@MnemonicHeadTrip If we're going anecdotal anyway, I'd have to disagree. Most acquaintances I've heard comment on jazz, would rather it be turned off or changed.
I am a huge jazz fan (post-bop, fusion, avant-garde), but I am even a bigger fan of classical music from post 1950 up through the present. You know, the atonal, dissonant, 'thorny ' sounding stuff. Elliott Carter, Ligeti, Penderecki, Charles Wuorinen, etc. I've always had a hard time putting into words why I like it so much. I believe this video nails it.
Have you tried listening to free improv? It doesn't always hit the mark, but when it does, it spontaneously emulates the best of avant-garde jazz and modern classical. One "just" needs a great deal of patience, attention and curiosity.
I think the idea of music training our brains for understanding more and more subtle or ambiguous aspects of language and communication is fascinating. As an avid listener of almost entirely jazz and classical music I think this music appeals to me because of the uncertainties and ambiguities. Real people don’t spell their thoughts, motivations, and emotional states out like it’s a root position C major triad. Behind even just a few words is an incredible amount of ambiguity and nuance. Jazz is fun to listen to because it is music that gets very close to simulating the subtly of communicating with real people, even more so by extremely democratic call and response playing that is the dna of the music. While it is easy to get sucked up in the harmonic complexity of jazz. A huge part of the music is interpreting melody and possibly even defying or frustrating harmony for the sake of melody. Trane’s playing is just as dense with information in how he plays solely the melody to I want to talk about you as his solo on giant steps or countdown.
This is a great video. The other day I was trying to introspect on my appreciation of music. I had a hypothesis that my enjoyment of music was based on the level of complexity I experienced in deciphering the patterns. Music that I could just grasp with a bit of effort, i.e. music in my Zone of Proximal Development to use the Piagetian term, stimulates my brain the most and feels the best to me. Naturally, my familiarity with a particular piece or style of music will affect my ability to process the information and therefore my level of enjoyment. If the music is too foreign or too predictable, I find I lose interest.
Very true! I don't think that complexity is what makes it interesting though. I believe that anything unexpected is what makes it interesting, as something simple that ocassionally has something unexpected thrown in will still be interesting.
I still think perceived complexity (as separated from just complexity) is but a single dimension of the need for- and love of music. We need more than that sweet spot challenge. We need preferred aesthetics as well. Tied to past experiences, the bias of our life. Intensely simple and familiar music can still touch you beyond anything if it can worm itself into your aesthetic bias. You're not deciphering anything there. You may also have set up this limit of losing interest when something is "foreign" or "predictable" yourself. And it's actually not a real reflection of your capacity of enjoyment, but a barrier that prevents you from even allowing the music to be deciphered at all.
As a musician, linguistic and acoustical engineering. I can tell that this video is very accurate and very well made. There are many courses here summarized in just one video, bravo! One idea would be to know how we react to human speech regard to accents and languages, keep working
Amazing and complex concept that you made so easy to understand. I’ve found myself more and more interested in jazz as the years have gone by and have often tried to find an explanation of why it’s so rewarding to listen to. I’ve had little success until now, and usually find myself explaining that I like it because it’s so much more complicated and ambiguous. You’ve basically made an argument saying just that, but with more to back it up XD. Thank you!! Instant subscribe.
7:10 that the cochlear seperates sounds based on frequency explains why so much music is written in voices seperated by pitch (soprano, alto, tenor, bass). It´s because a melody is more likely to be perceived as a melody if the sounds that make up the melody are close in pitch to one another as opposed to wildly jumping from the bass to the soprano and vice versa.
This is one of the most fascinating videos that I have been recommended, from a niche channel that deserves a lot more attention. I pray the algorithm monarch grants you more visibility.
Great video but a couple minutes in I noticed I could hear your tongue moving within your mouth as you spoke and... Having an accurate and realistic image of your mouth and tongue functioning in my head really freaked me out Keep up the cool content
It's called a lateral lisp. When speaking the sides of the tongue raise higher than normal, causing air to escape out through the cheeks instead of directly out of your mouth. It creates a 'wet' sound that's relatively unmistakable.
Im in third year engineering and I loved that this video emcompasses key concepts in some of the latest courses I've gone through: circuit analysis, biology of the cell, signals and systems, probability/statistics and my love for jazz and classical music, or the joint of the too thanks to Piazzolla for example.
havent even reached half way through the video but I am so impressed by the depth and span of the material being covered i am genuinely in awe. kudos to you mr bird.
6:17 In the "universal" pentatonic scale, the A has a ratio of 27/16 (which is 3^3/2^4, a very simple ratio), and not of 5/3. It forms a 9/8 whole tone from G, like the 9/8 whole tone from C to D. This is true in Chinese and Indian music - according to the musicological literature that I read - and I guess and bet that it goes for the pentatonic scale wherever it is found all over the world. If you have the possibility to check both kinds of A by ear, it will be clear that the "natural" A in the pentatonic scale is 27/16.
Oh, now that's really interesting. I found those ratios by calculating the closest reasonable fractions to equal temperament, and I ignored the adjustments in tuning that we make for chords and other tuning systems. But that adds a new dimension to the topic!
@@physicsforthebirds @andsalomoni dont know about chinese music but in indian classical, the super strong harmonic third emanating from the drone, makes the lower variety (5/3?) of the sixth more sensible. I know it makes sense to have a sixth that is the perfect fifth of the major second (hence 3*3*3) as perhaps the major pentatonic was realised from the first five notes of the circle of fifths. But the drone in Indian classical music (and the harmonic third coming from the base string) throws a lot of the predicted mathematics out of the window. So much so that the major seventh is the harmonic third from the perfect fifth and hence again about 12 cents lower than the ET one. Listen to a fine-tuned Tanpura and you will automatically sing the 5/3 sixth. xx
@@sagaa4143 The A=27/16 is the major second to the fifth (9/8 to G). The universal pentatonic is built as C D E plus G A, with A forming a 9/8 second to G. The tanpura usually plays the tonic and the fifth, so if the tonic is a C, and you take the strongest harmonics coming from the tanpura's C and G, you get C E G B D. The A is not present in the tanpura's drone, and the strong ("dominant") G calls for an A=27/16; the E is quite weak (and "far" from A) in comparison. A=5/3 is quite dissonant to G, not so much an A=27/16 to E. Listen to any performance of raag Bhupali (Bhupali = the pentatonic scale C D E G A), and you'll hear that they sing and play A=27/16, beyond any doubt. The A=5/3 is present in the Bilaval scale, when you derive it from Kalyan (Lydian) scale. Kalyan (=Bhupali plus F# and B) has A=27/16, make Kalyan start from G, rename G as C, and you get Bilaval (the Major scale) with an A=5/3. The Western Major scale, which can be formed by superposition of the perfect (harmonic) triads C E G, F A C, G B D, has an A=5/3 too (due to the F A C triad). But the "natural" A is 27/16.
@@andsalomoni I personally hear the harmonic third way more strongly then the perfect fifth harmonic. One would think theoretically the perfect fifth should be louder in the sound of the tanpura but it is the harmonic third instead. Or at least that is how I hear it. Would be happy to send a recorded clip of my own tanpura. This is one instance where reality turns out different from the theoretical predictions. In fact, so much so, the harmonic third also makes the major seventh lower than the ET seventh. ☺️
@@sagaa4143 I built a swaramandal (harp) which swaras must be tuned by ear (knowing the correct procedure for each scale), and a "lute" able to play all the matematically calculated swaras by itself, just by placing the movable frets in the right pre-calculated slots. The two instruments match perfectly. Bhupali's (and Kalyan's) A is 27/16, Bilaval's A is 5/3, and so on for all the swaras of all the scales, up to Todi's Eb, Shri's Db and Ab, Marva's Db, E, F# and B, etc. and if you compare them to actual Indian recordings, you hear that the swaras are right. The mathematical calculations are right because they are derived from the universal pentatonic's (Bhupali) basic intervals that sound right to the ear, plus a few simple rules that allow you to build all the other scales starting from Bhupali's structure (even without making calculations at all). I tune the swaramandal this way, and all the swaras come out right when compared to actual Indian music. The true source is the ear that recognizes the harmonic nature of sound and the natural Bhupali, and the mathematics follows, without contradictions.
This is a great video. As an extension, you could show how the combinations of frequencies make multi-dimensional chords with multiple ratios or Fourier Transformer (Vestibulocochlear nerve). The emotion of the sound is a function of timbre, multi-dimensional rational frequencies, and the total amplitude of the moment of sound in question. In other words, different chords make us happy or sad depending on the context and energy of the song.
15:07 By efficiency intentions I assume. In jazz the tonic + 3rd and 7th are the id for almost any chord. You can ommit the five, it sounds almost like the tonic. Then if the base plays the G, all you're left with is a Bb, to give it a little bit more of flavour, you add the major 9th, that A. It's not being misterious, it's elegant.
I usually don't write comments but this is one of the best, most interesting, most informing, well-thought-out videos I have seen in a long time. Fantastic job!
I like jazz music with the smooth, odd, sinister melodies. I’m a fan of synths and basslines and jazz tends to encompass a great deal of that especially in its offshoot genres like trip hop, fusion, funk, and downtempo, ambient Electronica.
Jazz is very similar to progressive metal, where all sorts of weird harmonies, polyrhythms, time signatures and timbres are played with a huge amount of dynamic variation. I find it super rewarding to listen to, even though I hated my favourite songs on first listen. Once my brain starts learning the songs and predicting the next bit, everything hits so hard and is just amazing to listen to. I feel like it's an exercise for auditory pattern recognition, and there's this things sort of like flow where the difficulty is high but so is your proficiency.
before i even start watching this, which i’m very excited to, i always find that if i have my jazz playlist going on in the background while i work all day, my brain gets awfully tired, more so then a usual work day. brains instinctively want to make sense of everything (im pulling this out of my ass idk if it’s true). i like to think it’s because my brain has to work extra hard when listening to jazz (or really anything that isn’t “easy listening”) because it’s trying to make sense of the chaos. and the amazing thing is, there is sense to it (“non-sensical”music i mean), idk what that sense is but i’ve slowly unlocked a gravitation towards more and more genres of music because it, day by day, makes sense to my brain. idk, pretty cool to think about and i think this idea of “exposing yourself to things that don’t inherently make sense in order to make more sense of the world because our brains naturally forms connections to force ourselves to like these non-sensical things/ideas” is inspiring ok now i’m gonna watch the video
I remembered to see some Harmonic Entropy, Generative Theory of Tonal Music (like Melodic Trees) and some really nice Regular Temperament Theory, there are really great stuff, but the reality and specially ethnomusicology is just extremely gigantic and extremely different stuff, as lots of anthropology research
I’ve been playing jazz saxophone for around 9 years now and just finished my bachelor’s in biology, and I genuinely loved the topics in this video. It scratched the surface of many questions I’d ask as I went through my classes trying to relate my career with my passions.
7:02 Hey, do you know what the bandwidth of the individual hair cells are (I am guessing in percentage of the centre frequency of the specific hair cell, rather than just in frequency. Cuz higher up I expect bandwith to increase) I wanted to compare that to what “psychoacoustic” experiments suggest is our limit of detecting different frequencies. I wonder if it is more or less the same.
Great question, I was actually going to put that in the video at one point! You're right, hair cells are logarithmically arranged so there are more for lower frequencies. We have about 3,500 inner hair cells, so the average spacing is about 5.7 Hz. Humans can perceive differences smaller than that, so my understanding is that we use other methods like beats and processing responses from multiple hair cells to figure it out.
I really appreciate you explaining just some of the math and physics behind sound and music. That’s primarily what I’m interested in, but it’s inspiring to hear someone talk about these subjects who clearly has a background in jazz and music. Like, you get it, and have an incredibly multifaceted understanding of Music and the perception of Music. Right like how many people only teach or preach one side of what you’re talking about? We need to address the musicians perspective, the neuroscience, physics, math perspective etc. It’s an over encompassing synthesis of information and understanding of Music so thanks!
As a musician and a composer, I find this video extremely interesting and eye-opening. It's like itch, that I even didn't now to be existed was scratch in an instant. Such a goooood feeling. Thank you for your eloquent explanations about the nature of musical things! I didn't think that's I would get something like this from this video. Totally unexpected! Thank you again!
The history of jazz is also very cool to learn, especially when the different forms of music that merged to create jazz are played seperate, and then we see how they are modified to link with eachother.
2:20 Premature comment, but the thing that immediately comes to mind is: I wouldn't say it is a by-product of our linguistic ability. More like a part of the audio-oriented communication system. It does seem to communicate emotion better than language sometimes can, for example. Ok back to the video ^^ Edit: Ok, so I conclude: Jazz is like white noise! 😂Did I do it right?
Fascinating video, my favourite part was the bit about the two alien signals and which one gives you more information. Really puts things into perspective!
Good video. Regarding the Gm7 example. It's not as mysterious as you might think... Jazz Piano books (from the 60s on) typically suggest playing 4-note rootless voicing in the right hand with the idea being that bass player (or your left hand) is already playing the root on the 1 so the chord players don't need to. One such example is the popular book by Mark Levine. The idea is to play the 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th in various inversions. A typical voicing for Gm7 would be F, A, Bb, D with the 7th as the lowest note in the right hand. Just using the A and Bb can be thought of as a shorthand for this voicing using just the 9th and (minor) 3rd; although it is somewhat ambiguous in terms of chord "function" because the 7th is missing (so you can't tell if the chord has tonic or dominant function unless the left). If you play shell voicings or guide ones in the left hand this would address the functional ambiguity because they typically include the 7th. A lot of music from this period and later doesn't really stick strictly to functional harmony anyway so in some circumstances the player might not be concerned about the ambiguity. Incidentally I don't recommend either this book or these voicings, but it's probably where the idea comes from
Blown away!! Subscribed within minutes of starting the video. I love learning about the brain, music, evolution, and physics. I never thought I would see one video, made by a ?"Physics channel"? that would hit them all and do it SO well. A genius writing job! Thank you!!
I've been saying for years now that my theory of music at it's core, and all art for that matter, and the reson that people criticize art so badly sometimes, is because they don't understand it's all about a balance of simplicity and complexity. Complexity can provide more information so it's more interesting but if it's too much it can be seemingly chaotic and uncomprehensible (and annoying), while simplicity could be boring to some, put leaves mental space for more powerful and deep emotions on that one simple beat or note or emotion or whatever. And everyone complaining about art just don't realize that it's their tastes that make them more sensitive to one or the other. Jazz musicians find pop and maybe rock music boring and simple but metal and hip hop (very different to each other but close enough to the former) bring a certain level of emotion or groove, respectively, to their relatively simple harmonies or rhythms that jazz usually doesn't. Even in visual arts, abstract art is ripped on because people don't realize that the simple shapes are supposed to have very complex meanings, whereas more traditional realistic art has a lot of detail up front which takes a lot of skill but not always as deep and *abstract* meaning behind it.
Actually all art is on this spectrum. All genres are some mix. But I want to make art that doesn't stay in one spot on the spectrum. That moves along, showcases all the possibilities, ect. If someone could do a little before me tho, just so I could hear, I wouldn't mind lol 😁
Very good video. I have begun to think lately that music (and dancing) are a cultural, small grouped bonding sessions. To me in a setting of 2 to 30 people in (even a) hunter gatherer society people learn each others actions and rhythms and voices. How well they obey the general rules or how well they stand out show to the others their roles in that society. Can they play well with others? How well can they adapt to new situations( perhaps while a rhythm change happens). Who do they copy (who is the main player, who has their dance moves stolen) and so on. Participating could be an invitation to sexual reproduction but it is not limited to it either.
Thank you for mentioning dance! In many languages and traditions the word for the music is the same as the word for the dance that goes with it, eg, waltz, ngoma, salsa, forro, samba, flamenco, etc. and the one does not exist without the other.
This video is beautiful! It also adds extra reasons to the list of why birds are the absolutely perfect mascots for these videos (and Yardbird Parker didn’t get his nickname for no reason) :)
Yes, however, back in the 1920's and 1930's jazz was dance music, so something akin to today's pop. Good jazz music carries this tradition. On the other hand it is interesting to point out that back then, there was basically jazz, pop (plays) and classical and that was basically it.
@@mrgabifour4 There was definitely a lot more music back then then just jazz, pop, and classical. There are countless folk music traditions like traditional appalachian music,, creole music, and even tejano music in the southwest. There is also the whole genre of religious music from church hymns, to spirituals and gospel music. People also sang working songs like with cowboy ballads, railroad and miners songs, which played into the folk tradition. There was a lot of cross pollination of these styles throughout the 20th century but all were distinct and listened too back then.
Yeah! Not everyone is accustomed to the simply put, chaos, that Jazz conveys. Even worse when you put it up with Jazz Fusion, which is my favourite genre. I remember presenting said genres to a couple of friends and their usual descriptions were along the lines of "Too Much Noise" and "Like someone trying to kill a cat inside a blender".
@@edmontoraptor yes, but music available to the masses it was really just Jazz, Blues, Classical. Pop/Westerners wasn't a genre by any means. It just meant popular songs/hits akin to how it's sometimes used today. Folk was there, but only in some areas & was mostly loccal.
@googlenazicompany5935 Jazz is definitely popular music. It's just not as popular ratio wise as it once was. When it comes the streaming consumption of Jazz & Jazz fused subgenres (Salsa, Bossa Nova, Lofi Hiphop, Jazz Hiphop, Jazz Fusion) there is a big audience of lovers. Simply people consume it without knowing. Plus just cause it's not consumed to the level of related genres (Hiphop, Rhythm & Blues, Rock'N'Roll, Pop etc) doesn't mean people will find it hard to listen to. Actual the mass influence jazz has shows the opposite that many like the genre & subgenres under it. The world likes jazz, it just doesn't have music figures that does stuff to keep listeners/internet personal eyes on them like Rock & Hiphop does.
My silly hypothesis: Music is enjoyable because the mathematics that define it are relevant to other areas of physics that involve oscillations... which may includes neural oscillations, since its just a physical process. But idk how to explain that part.... brains are pattern seekers, and there are patterns in the harmonic series that relate to emotions and phsyics as well... so its like a reflection of those things. Its like experiencing mathematics through our emotions, while also producing a sense of synaestheia since you can perform parralel processing in different regions of the brain. Like when you get tingles in your skin from music... its activating a pathway between your auditory centers, your emotional centers and your tactile centers... all sharing information. And it can create an immersive, multisensory experience where the boundaries between the senses blend together somewhat. If you really drift away, and get lost in music, its sort of like a mild psychedelic or a religious experience, in the way that mental boundaries begin to blur. Idk if any of this makes sense lol Not everyone experiences the synaesthetics of it as noticably (try meditating with it), i guess you could put it on a spectrum. But everyone is pretty much capable of it i think... I like music :D
As an electrical engineer the Fourier Transform is probably one of my favorite pieces if math. Its definitely a pain to do out by hand, but its implications and practical applications are nearly immeasurable for something that can be simply described as convering an audiofile back into sheetmusic. My biggest take away from this video is that the inner ear is just a physical fourier transformer. I'm partial jealous that i didn't come to the same conclusion despite knowing the biology of the inner ear being a series of hairs that respond to different frequencies.
How..? This channel seems targeted to my interests in every way. I love maths and physics, I'm a furry with a birb persona - so i also like drawn bird art. And I'm a musician and i couldn't survive without music. So.... Yeah xD love it 💓
6 minutes into this video, the nature of polyrhythms is explained and I realize why my brain works the way it does, my openness to entertain cognitive dissonance and question the deeper truths of our world come from my passion for the drums. 🤯🥁🖤
Immediate subscribe. This is such a cool study on harmony and physics. Now that i can explain it, the relationship between that entropic tension, plus the satisfaction of resolution, will always the most beautiful sound my ears can imagine.
What an absolutely amazing video. Stumbled upon your channel first time today and I can say with 100% certainty that I've never clicked the subscribe button this fast. Watched all of your uploads, eagerly waiting for the next one. Keep up the AMAZING work. It's absolutely hilarious that I get to watch this for free, especially when I find myself paying 30$ to watch Netflix originals.
I did not expect a video like this to be bring me back to EE school, complete with random processes and even seeing a circuit diagram. I just wish this video was twice as long as it is
![The moment we stopped understanding AI [AlexNet]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/UZDiGooFs54/mqdefault.jpg)
As someone who also plays and listens to jazz, I and many of my friends have experienced this relevant phenomenon: You get more and more desensitized to harmonic dissonance and want more of it. You start out liking simpler voicings with less extensions, and end up loving the sound of a C13(b9 #11). This probably goes hand in hand with the fact that you learn to hear standard jazz harmony, you recognize the patterns and progressions. It's not necessarily the case that you end up desensitized to dissonance in general, but you learn to decode the particular dissonances of the tradition, and understand them as part of something larger - Although I have on more than one occasion joked around with friends by blindly pressing keys on the piano to test the hypothesis that anything is a cool voicing. The same can be said of melody. For the layman, complex bebop phrases are too complex to be meaningful, but once you recognize hundreds of common fragments and licks, as well as hearing the progressions and probably knowing the standard, you aren't hearing 1000 pieces of information, you're hearing 20 larger pieces of information, so it becomes meaningful.
Yum
To me harmonic dissonance invokes feelings. Music should be used to represent the world. And the world is not always harmonious. In the case of the death metal band Gorguts. Which I recommend particularly the Colored Sands album. The dissonance makes it feel surreal because of how extremely well organized it is. Like some sort of completely otherworldly musical architecture. Like a beautiful but hostile alien planet.
@@adrianaslund8605 gorguts is insane but Imperial Triumphant would be best for a person who likes jazz to get into the dissonant side of metal
@@miles6524 imperial triumphants drummer is an absolutely ridiculous virtuoso. I imagine if I wasn't a drummer I would hear his playing as being chaotic and wild but its really ridiculously micro organized and easly the most percise and intricate part of their music.
@@eriktippie978 Idk what yall are Talking about But i like clowncore
Their albums “van” and “toilet” are unironically the best musical experiences i’ve had, right above listening to aerosmith’s sweet emotion for the first time peaking on my first joint.
I find it Genius the way in which they shat on the piano, then played the most mindblowing sax solo ever
Even the parallel-parking dickpicking bass solo, the driver made it into a beautiful performance, genuinely musically enjoyable, somehow.
I also like dj beck & domi, it’s like multidimentional music, feels synesthesic
Also Jacob collier(i think that’s his name, i heard he’s the clowncore drummer as well and somehow involved in KNOWER as well)
If i know more jazz i can’t remember.
Feels like i jumped through a window into jazz territory, But i like it
Anyway, anyone could give out the Classic jazz songs, But what are *your* favorite performances/pieces? What solo do you think is the quintessential solo?
Considering what i’ve said about myself, What would you yourself want to make me listen to?
Something weird, exquisite, in any way you find interesting. Not even good or bad, But something undeniably brilliant in your judgment
Just not something that requires basic knowledge of music theory to understand Why people that understand it like it
i play the guitar But havent got a clue about the diference between major and minor Keys beyond the feeling it evokes. I know 1 pentatonic scale and the rest is muscle memory, improvisation, just vibes, really
I want music to feel it, not to think about its musical logic
anyway, jazz reccomendations plz?(anyone reading this too, please feel free to send whatever it is you like)
And Sorry to bother, feel free to ignore me completely and go on with your conversation that i won’t even pretend to be interested in, just Why not bring it up right here where some jazz enthusiasts seem to be hanging out today, right?
Man, this is really one of the most interesting physics video i have ever seen, yet it is so simple. It actually got me interested the same way a Veritasium or a Kurzgesagt video would, just being composed of your drawings and the script. You deserve serious recognition.
I completely agree
Smart fella.
@@yeah8598 fart smella
Kursgesagt is propaganda.
I was waiting for the V Sauce music to start
Great video, bird. Another important factor that was not mentioned is that our love for music is tied to our love for recognizing patterns. In order for the activity to be rewarding the patterns need to become more complicated over time. After all, 10x10 puzzles are a head scratcher for babies. So it's natural for people with more musical experience to enjoy more elaborate and ambiguous harmonies.
I absolutely agree. Patterns and abstraction are central to the way we learn; that's why physicists like beautiful equations too
I mean, low entropy is literally about patterns.
One factor though that'd be interesting to see is a more psychological or emotion perspective of it all. I've alwayd thought that we like music for the patterns, but also becaude they relate to stories, which can help in surviving in the hunter-gatherer time. Listening to stories, learning about the world remotely, often by imagination, and music aids the imagination a lot.
@@TachyBunker wouldn't that give the complete story!
@netunof Not sad at all, different strokes for different folks. Some are into visual arts more than musical arts, others still are interested in other facets of life. It would be absurd if all were music connoisseurs, it's just one part of life.
@@TachyBunker stories are patterns we find in life
The part of this that blew my mind most was describing how our ears basically have a physical Fourier transform in them.
You know that your eyes do a Fourier transform as well (they have lenses)
I like the way that the noise floor is vital to understanding a signal. 🤯
I don't think it is correct, seems to me like a filterbank. If they were transforming into frequency domain there would be no more time information in the following signals - but the video shows processing of the time domain sine waves later on.
Good Video. It was well organized and high in entropy.
If it was well organized, wouldn't it be low in entropy?
@@diribigal I have to agree with you there. But hopefully the video is more informative than random noise!
@@diribigal prob exactly the joke mate
@@diribigal It contains high enough entropy to be informative, and low enough entropy to be well organized and not just random nonsense...
@@WarDimensionOfficial you mean vice versa right..low enough entropy to be informative etc. Right.
It’s rare to to get a video on my Home Screen that takes a stab at addressing such a fundamental question about music. The point you make about Ewe drumming and jazz has validity and is insightful. I sense something similar about abstract art and the appeal it has for wealthy people who live sanitized and orderly lives amidst pristine surroundings. Wild entropy contained within a 2 dimensional rectangular frame on their pristine white wall adds a stimulating and digestible bit of visual contrast they can accept without being overwhelmed. I love the fact our inner ear does Fourier transforms so we may interpret harmony. The ear mechanism has amazing abilities which you touched on in this video. Nice work.
That's an interesting point, I like that. Thanks for giving the video some thought!
that's a very common interpretation of art... that as catharsis. your interpretation reminds me of a mix of Adorno and Gasset
Thank you for typing that idea out :)
huh, i've never thought of abstract art (in the hands of rich ppl) in that way.
contrast and catharsis.
@@SamueleCastiglioni adorno HATED jazz
This is one of the coolest channels I've discovered this year. Keep going man; math has definitely been growing on me and you're showing me just how applicable it is
Same lol
As a neuroscientist and passionate musician I have always struggled balancing the analytical, physical properties of music (discovered by Pythagoras) and the emotional, story-telling nature that it has carried since we have existed. You sir, have provided the key between both worlds! Thank you for sharing such depth of knowledge! I have one suggestion - this video has so much depth I feel it could be broken into chapters, for people who do not know about physics, electricity it is complex and feel that the jumps could be "chunked" or simplified in layman's (?) terms?
Bless you and thank you again for such amazing information. You are an inspiring teacher!
I love the way how you animate the birds. They look so pretty. I am glad that yt sent me to your channel. And your voice is so calming.
I'm glad you liked it!
He needs to collab with Kurtzgesaght now lol
@@physicsforthebirds U hear that! When's the collab! 😁
@@mihailmilev9909 Maybe someday... It would be a bird reunion
This is genuinely one of the best videos I have ever seen. It combines physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, music, all combined to explain a single topic. It's freaking beautiful
I never thought about Jazz being an acquired taste but that honestly explains so much
As a jazz musician and Science Student this video was made for me, keep up the great content, I love to see the application of scientific knowledge to everyday topics.
can't be a musician and a scientist. musicians have to be epistemologists in order to music. how the hell are you going to jazz music when your head is full of being right about things.
Planck. Music, true learning and discovery aren’t so different.
@@atomictraveller bruh
@@sweezlesquee Upvote for recommending Zenon to jazz-heads, haha, nice. I agree, if you get off on complexity, there's a whole new world waiting for you.
@@atomictravellerPeople are multifaceted and can experience the world in ways that on the surface can seem contradicting but really show a depth of understanding. Point is I think a statement like, one cannot be both a musician and a scientist to be such a limiting and close minded statement. I can’t speak for others, but for myself I have the goal of sonifying specific quantum phenomena like quantum decoherence. I take T1 values (which on an IBM Quantum device, T1 refers to the relaxation time of going from a state like |1> to |0> in a matter of microseconds) and I map these microsecond values directly to Hertz. I don’t consider time and frequency being reciprocals for the mapping since the purpose of the sonification aims to be in a range that humans can easily hear without pain. i.e. it’s a direct mapping of microseconds to Hertz.
The purpose of sonification is to have an audible way to “hear” quantum decoherence. Hence it being called “The Sound of Quantum Decoherence”, which is the museum exhibit I’m fleshing out. I do this research for a national laboratory when at its core it’s music related.
While I’m a scientific research, I still play music! In fact, and this doesn’t “make” me a musician but I went to music school and am finishing a degree in oboe performance now. I love jazz, I learn standards, I jam with my friends, I arrange, I compose, I get called for gigs on my main instrument oboe but also trumpet, and I’ve been paid for music before and love music so I consider myself, a musician and a scientist.
This was an excuse to research-dump as opposed to trauma-dump, hope there was something of value in there.
As a jazz musician, physics student and mathematician, my mind was blown in the most enjoyable, entertaining, relevant way...i am truly impressed and i cannot truly put into words how astonishing this was 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯
i did not expect this video to have so many varying concepts from so many different fields of study lmao this is great
I don't make jazz, but I absolutely love how it plays with harmony and expectation. I wouldn't consider myself a jazz aficionado but I do know that good jazz knows where and when to break "the rules" and the "fundamentals" of jazz can be applied to any genre of music... Which leads me to this video. Idk why I like jazz or feel the need to put jazzy elements on my tracks but it can be fun :D
i agree jazzy stuff is fun
I think that is why I like jazz - it confounds my expectations. How much I like a piece probably has something to do with how much my expectations are confounded; too much and I'm just listening to noise, too little and it's just a bit boring.
But I love country too - I love both genres equally. I couldn't think of a more predictable music (in the main) than country. I don't understand what's going on here.
It's probably psychological. Jazz is the harsh encouragement of Dad and country is the warm hugs of Mum? Dunno 🤷♀️
I got here through dubstep by Teminite and Evilwave
I can get with Gypsy Jazz, but horns and the drums drive me nuts.
(I'm into Tech Death and have played drums for a long time.)
There are no "bad chords" - only unresolved chords. Cool video.
As someone who was in band (jazz and marching) in high school; and went from chemical engineering to computational math in undergrad; and is aiming toward grad in biomed, this video truly maximizes the entropy of my neurons producing seratonin and dopamine :D.
hmm interesting try smoking a joint and see what that does for your appreciation of jazz.
The messages from aliens example was really good. That helped make sense of jazz vs less complicated music
I love the way this video combines multiple subjects to understand a topic that has so many facettes
Amount of ramifications that hit my brian when you introduced the concept of deeper meaning in information with higher entropy is outstanding. Thank you for that and keep the good work man! You've earned a subscriber! Cheers
my "brian"
@@perfeitamente_normal it's because of the brianstorm
I hope Brian is ok
You really brought together a lot of different domains of knowledge, into one video with something to say, but said it with many wide ranging topics. This was pretty deep
Absolutly love this video - feels like reading a Wikipedia article and clicking on every linked word/article possible, just to go down even deeper
That was SO COOL. Maybe, it's just because I'm an electrical engineer who has been fascinated with music, the brain and signal processing... so, WOW, the brilliant connection between these!
As a telecommunications engineer/jazz pianist this tickled a lot of my own neurons! Thank you for the video. Also I didn't know there was a threshold involved with hearing (but I guess it makes sense)
Holy shit, what a great video. Randomly came across this on my feed and I can’t wait to see what else you put out
Thanks! I'm always trying to do better!
As a hearing care professional and music creator I can say this is the best video I have ever seen in my entire life. I am amazed about everything. You are a multi talent! Thank you very much to share this with us.
I wanted to say something, but i think you already said everything.
So, i'll just say that this video was so well produced and developed that it almost made me cry.
I hope i can almost cry with another masterpiece of yours in the future.
This is one the best content I've ever seen in my life. Resonating with many curiosities at once. Thank you bud, you have my deepest respect.
That is the most brilliant explanation I've heard about social perception of jazz music. Congrats, that's high end phd worth work !
Ever since I was a kid I’ve loved jazz and abstract art. I think it’s the “human element” more than anything that pleases my brain. It’s the idea that: when there are no rules, when you don’t really accept there being order and rules, you see some of the most creative and personal expressions. You stop chasing perfection, and you start just creating freely. With the knowledge it won’t be for everyone but someone out there will connect with what you’re making.
Seriously fascinating high quality video. This blends so many of my interests. Thanks man.
No historical evidence exists to tell us exactly who sang the first song, or whistled the first tune, or made the first rhythmic sounds that resembled what we know today as music. But researchers do know it happened thousands of years ago.
Humans used different noises to express fear or joy. These sounds, along with some of the sounds they heard from animals, such as birds' chirping, might have led them to make music. When people began to use tools, for instance to pound grains, they may have done so in a rhythm, or a regular pattern.
Music emerged to help people coordinate their movements while they engaged in productive activities. [NIEonline; The Conversation] 2:31
This is one of the best videos I've seen lately. The person who composed it is interested in and conversant with many different fields such as evolutionary biology of humans, neurophysiology, music theory, etc. I would love to be that intelligent, but I guess I can become that way through exposure! Anyway, my personal take is that the beauty of jazz is indeed a learned taste and that once you hear some unusual chords, they give you an emotional experience that you can't get with more common chords and intervals. I have many jazz recordings along with my more popular music recordings, and some of them are so weird that I don't listen to them that often -- others I listen to frequently. One thing that gets in the way of my going deeper into jazz is that I like tunes I can sing or play on instruments. Since I'm not a musician, I don't have time to learn enough to reproduce jazz tunes in my head well enough to sing them or play them on piano or guitar!
The main takeaway I have from this video is that apparently a lot of people consider jazz an acquired taste
Apparently. So he says.
That's more true of some kinds of jazz than others
Yeah I have no idea where this claim is coming from
I don’t really understand that either. I suppose some people won’t go out of their way to listen to jazz but jazz isn’t that offensive to listen to, most people can see the appeal
@@MnemonicHeadTrip If we're going anecdotal anyway, I'd have to disagree. Most acquaintances I've heard comment on jazz, would rather it be turned off or changed.
I am a huge jazz fan (post-bop, fusion, avant-garde), but I am even a bigger fan of classical music from post 1950 up through the present.
You know, the atonal, dissonant, 'thorny ' sounding stuff. Elliott Carter, Ligeti, Penderecki, Charles Wuorinen, etc.
I've always had a hard time putting into words why I like it so much.
I believe this video nails it.
Have you tried listening to free improv? It doesn't always hit the mark, but when it does, it spontaneously emulates the best of avant-garde jazz and modern classical. One "just" needs a great deal of patience, attention and curiosity.
As a neurophysiologist who plays jazz I really like this.
I think the idea of music training our brains for understanding more and more subtle or ambiguous aspects of language and communication is fascinating. As an avid listener of almost entirely jazz and classical music I think this music appeals to me because of the uncertainties and ambiguities. Real people don’t spell their thoughts, motivations, and emotional states out like it’s a root position C major triad. Behind even just a few words is an incredible amount of ambiguity and nuance. Jazz is fun to listen to because it is music that gets very close to simulating the subtly of communicating with real people, even more so by extremely democratic call and response playing that is the dna of the music. While it is easy to get sucked up in the harmonic complexity of jazz. A huge part of the music is interpreting melody and possibly even defying or frustrating harmony for the sake of melody. Trane’s playing is just as dense with information in how he plays solely the melody to I want to talk about you as his solo on giant steps or countdown.
At least for me, it's the rhythm that really helps to contextualize and gel the harmonic elements together.
This is a great video. The other day I was trying to introspect on my appreciation of music. I had a hypothesis that my enjoyment of music was based on the level of complexity I experienced in deciphering the patterns. Music that I could just grasp with a bit of effort, i.e. music in my Zone of Proximal Development to use the Piagetian term, stimulates my brain the most and feels the best to me. Naturally, my familiarity with a particular piece or style of music will affect my ability to process the information and therefore my level of enjoyment. If the music is too foreign or too predictable, I find I lose interest.
Very true! I don't think that complexity is what makes it interesting though. I believe that anything unexpected is what makes it interesting, as something simple that ocassionally has something unexpected thrown in will still be interesting.
I still think perceived complexity (as separated from just complexity) is but a single dimension of the need for- and love of music. We need more than that sweet spot challenge. We need preferred aesthetics as well. Tied to past experiences, the bias of our life. Intensely simple and familiar music can still touch you beyond anything if it can worm itself into your aesthetic bias. You're not deciphering anything there.
You may also have set up this limit of losing interest when something is "foreign" or "predictable" yourself. And it's actually not a real reflection of your capacity of enjoyment, but a barrier that prevents you from even allowing the music to be deciphered at all.
As a physics graduate and lover of jazz, this is my current favourite RUclips video
As a musician, linguistic and acoustical engineering. I can tell that this video is very accurate and very well made. There are many courses here summarized in just one video, bravo! One idea would be to know how we react to human speech regard to accents and languages, keep working
Amazing and complex concept that you made so easy to understand. I’ve found myself more and more interested in jazz as the years have gone by and have often tried to find an explanation of why it’s so rewarding to listen to. I’ve had little success until now, and usually find myself explaining that I like it because it’s so much more complicated and ambiguous. You’ve basically made an argument saying just that, but with more to back it up XD. Thank you!! Instant subscribe.
This is so great! I'm astonished how packed is this video with information from different disciplines. What a gem!
7:10 that the cochlear seperates sounds based on frequency explains why so much music is written in voices seperated by pitch (soprano, alto, tenor, bass). It´s because a melody is more likely to be perceived as a melody if the sounds that make up the melody are close in pitch to one another as opposed to wildly jumping from the bass to the soprano and vice versa.
i now know why i spent hundreds of hours studying bio, physics, and advanced maths in high school- it was to understand this video
This is one of the most fascinating videos that I have been recommended, from a niche channel that deserves a lot more attention.
I pray the algorithm monarch grants you more visibility.
Great video but a couple minutes in I noticed I could hear your tongue moving within your mouth as you spoke and... Having an accurate and realistic image of your mouth and tongue functioning in my head really freaked me out
Keep up the cool content
It's called a lateral lisp. When speaking the sides of the tongue raise higher than normal, causing air to escape out through the cheeks instead of directly out of your mouth. It creates a 'wet' sound that's relatively unmistakable.
ooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh ok, i thought it was mic sensitivity cos i hear the same thing when i speak sometimes, thanks for the explanation though!
Im in third year engineering and I loved that this video emcompasses key concepts in some of the latest courses I've gone through: circuit analysis, biology of the cell, signals and systems, probability/statistics and my love for jazz and classical music, or the joint of the too thanks to Piazzolla for example.
Extremely underrated video
I absolutely love this channel, it's a crime how few subscribers you have. This is the most intuitive physics lesson I've watched. Great job, man.
I never thought of chords from entropy point of view. Great video!
havent even reached half way through the video but I am so impressed by the depth and span of the material being covered i am genuinely in awe. kudos to you mr bird.
6:17 In the "universal" pentatonic scale, the A has a ratio of 27/16 (which is 3^3/2^4, a very simple ratio), and not of 5/3. It forms a 9/8 whole tone from G, like the 9/8 whole tone from C to D. This is true in Chinese and Indian music - according to the musicological literature that I read - and I guess and bet that it goes for the pentatonic scale wherever it is found all over the world.
If you have the possibility to check both kinds of A by ear, it will be clear that the "natural" A in the pentatonic scale is 27/16.
Oh, now that's really interesting. I found those ratios by calculating the closest reasonable fractions to equal temperament, and I ignored the adjustments in tuning that we make for chords and other tuning systems. But that adds a new dimension to the topic!
@@physicsforthebirds @andsalomoni dont know about chinese music but in indian classical, the super strong harmonic third emanating from the drone, makes the lower variety (5/3?) of the sixth more sensible. I know it makes sense to have a sixth that is the perfect fifth of the major second (hence 3*3*3) as perhaps the major pentatonic was realised from the first five notes of the circle of fifths. But the drone in Indian classical music (and the harmonic third coming from the base string) throws a lot of the predicted mathematics out of the window. So much so that the major seventh is the harmonic third from the perfect fifth and hence again about 12 cents lower than the ET one. Listen to a fine-tuned Tanpura and you will automatically sing the 5/3 sixth. xx
@@sagaa4143 The A=27/16 is the major second to the fifth (9/8 to G). The universal pentatonic is built as C D E plus G A, with A forming a 9/8 second to G.
The tanpura usually plays the tonic and the fifth, so if the tonic is a C, and you take the strongest harmonics coming from the tanpura's C and G, you get C E G B D. The A is not present in the tanpura's drone, and the strong ("dominant") G calls for an A=27/16; the E is quite weak (and "far" from A) in comparison.
A=5/3 is quite dissonant to G, not so much an A=27/16 to E.
Listen to any performance of raag Bhupali (Bhupali = the pentatonic scale C D E G A), and you'll hear that they sing and play A=27/16, beyond any doubt.
The A=5/3 is present in the Bilaval scale, when you derive it from Kalyan (Lydian) scale.
Kalyan (=Bhupali plus F# and B) has A=27/16, make Kalyan start from G, rename G as C, and you get Bilaval (the Major scale) with an A=5/3.
The Western Major scale, which can be formed by superposition of the perfect (harmonic) triads C E G, F A C, G B D, has an A=5/3 too (due to the F A C triad).
But the "natural" A is 27/16.
@@andsalomoni I personally hear the harmonic third way more strongly then the perfect fifth harmonic. One would think theoretically the perfect fifth should be louder in the sound of the tanpura but it is the harmonic third instead. Or at least that is how I hear it. Would be happy to send a recorded clip of my own tanpura. This is one instance where reality turns out different from the theoretical predictions. In fact, so much so, the harmonic third also makes the major seventh lower than the ET seventh. ☺️
@@sagaa4143 I built a swaramandal (harp) which swaras must be tuned by ear (knowing the correct procedure for each scale), and a "lute" able to play all the matematically calculated swaras by itself, just by placing the movable frets in the right pre-calculated slots.
The two instruments match perfectly.
Bhupali's (and Kalyan's) A is 27/16, Bilaval's A is 5/3, and so on for all the swaras of all the scales, up to Todi's Eb, Shri's Db and Ab, Marva's Db, E, F# and B, etc. and if you compare them to actual Indian recordings, you hear that the swaras are right.
The mathematical calculations are right because they are derived from the universal pentatonic's (Bhupali) basic intervals that sound right to the ear, plus a few simple rules that allow you to build all the other scales starting from Bhupali's structure (even without making calculations at all).
I tune the swaramandal this way, and all the swaras come out right when compared to actual Indian music.
The true source is the ear that recognizes the harmonic nature of sound and the natural Bhupali, and the mathematics follows, without contradictions.
Fantastic video, and what a great new nerdy channel I've found, you've earned a sub. cant wait to dig into other videos!
This is a great video. As an extension, you could show how the combinations of frequencies make multi-dimensional chords with multiple ratios or Fourier Transformer (Vestibulocochlear nerve). The emotion of the sound is a function of timbre, multi-dimensional rational frequencies, and the total amplitude of the moment of sound in question. In other words, different chords make us happy or sad depending on the context and energy of the song.
15:07 By efficiency intentions I assume. In jazz the tonic + 3rd and 7th are the id for almost any chord. You can ommit the five, it sounds almost like the tonic. Then if the base plays the G, all you're left with is a Bb, to give it a little bit more of flavour, you add the major 9th, that A. It's not being misterious, it's elegant.
I usually don't write comments but this is one of the best, most interesting, most informing, well-thought-out videos I have seen in a long time. Fantastic job!
I like jazz music with the smooth, odd, sinister melodies. I’m a fan of synths and basslines and jazz tends to encompass a great deal of that especially in its offshoot genres like trip hop, fusion, funk, and downtempo, ambient Electronica.
Jazz is very similar to progressive metal, where all sorts of weird harmonies, polyrhythms, time signatures and timbres are played with a huge amount of dynamic variation. I find it super rewarding to listen to, even though I hated my favourite songs on first listen. Once my brain starts learning the songs and predicting the next bit, everything hits so hard and is just amazing to listen to. I feel like it's an exercise for auditory pattern recognition, and there's this things sort of like flow where the difficulty is high but so is your proficiency.
I have to do this with all music. Nothing impresses me on first listen.
before i even start watching this, which i’m very excited to, i always find that if i have my jazz playlist going on in the background while i work all day, my brain gets awfully tired, more so then a usual work day. brains instinctively want to make sense of everything (im pulling this out of my ass idk if it’s true). i like to think it’s because my brain has to work extra hard when listening to jazz (or really anything that isn’t “easy listening”) because it’s trying to make sense of the chaos. and the amazing thing is, there is sense to it (“non-sensical”music i mean), idk what that sense is but i’ve slowly unlocked a gravitation towards more and more genres of music because it, day by day, makes sense to my brain. idk, pretty cool to think about and i think this idea of “exposing yourself to things that don’t inherently make sense in order to make more sense of the world because our brains naturally forms connections to force ourselves to like these non-sensical things/ideas” is inspiring
ok now i’m gonna watch the video
I remembered to see some Harmonic Entropy, Generative Theory of Tonal Music (like Melodic Trees) and some really nice Regular Temperament Theory, there are really great stuff, but the reality and specially ethnomusicology is just extremely gigantic and extremely different stuff, as lots of anthropology research
I’ve been playing jazz saxophone for around 9 years now and just finished my bachelor’s in biology, and I genuinely loved the topics in this video. It scratched the surface of many questions I’d ask as I went through my classes trying to relate my career with my passions.
7:02 Hey, do you know what the bandwidth of the individual hair cells are (I am guessing in percentage of the centre frequency of the specific hair cell, rather than just in frequency. Cuz higher up I expect bandwith to increase)
I wanted to compare that to what “psychoacoustic” experiments suggest is our limit of detecting different frequencies. I wonder if it is more or less the same.
Great question, I was actually going to put that in the video at one point! You're right, hair cells are logarithmically arranged so there are more for lower frequencies. We have about 3,500 inner hair cells, so the average spacing is about 5.7 Hz. Humans can perceive differences smaller than that, so my understanding is that we use other methods like beats and processing responses from multiple hair cells to figure it out.
I really appreciate you explaining just some of the math and physics behind sound and music. That’s primarily what I’m interested in, but it’s inspiring to hear someone talk about these subjects who clearly has a background in jazz and music. Like, you get it, and have an incredibly multifaceted understanding of Music and the perception of Music.
Right like how many people only teach or preach one side of what you’re talking about? We need to address the musicians perspective, the neuroscience, physics, math perspective etc. It’s an over encompassing synthesis of information and understanding of Music so thanks!
As a musician and a composer, I find this video extremely interesting and eye-opening. It's like itch, that I even didn't now to be existed was scratch in an instant. Such a goooood feeling. Thank you for your eloquent explanations about the nature of musical things! I didn't think that's I would get something like this from this video. Totally unexpected! Thank you again!
The history of jazz is also very cool to learn, especially when the different forms of music that merged to create jazz are played seperate, and then we see how they are modified to link with eachother.
Someone going from jazz to Shannon entropy within 10 minutes is ✨exactly✨ in my niche, holy hell
Blown away by this video. I love the connection between music and information theory. Subscribed.
This is an amazingly informative video . I can see that a lot of work went into it and can say it was well worth it. Keep it going!
Thanks! that means a lot!
you have the “it” factor. something about your videos and your timing and editing and music and perspective is just…damn. great work bird
2:20 Premature comment, but the thing that immediately comes to mind is:
I wouldn't say it is a by-product of our linguistic ability. More like a part of the audio-oriented communication system. It does seem to communicate emotion better than language sometimes can, for example.
Ok back to the video ^^
Edit: Ok, so I conclude: Jazz is like white noise! 😂Did I do it right?
It's intentional white noise😁
Fascinating video, my favourite part was the bit about the two alien signals and which one gives you more information. Really puts things into perspective!
As a person who likes jazz i can confirm this is a certified Bop
Life isn't all butter notes, you gotta learn to find the meaning in chaotic situations, and chillness in turmoil.
Amazing video, D E F G E C D
Good video.
Regarding the Gm7 example. It's not as mysterious as you might think...
Jazz Piano books (from the 60s on) typically suggest playing 4-note rootless voicing in the right hand with the idea being that bass player (or your left hand) is already playing the root on the 1 so the chord players don't need to. One such example is the popular book by Mark Levine. The idea is to play the 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th in various inversions. A typical voicing for Gm7 would be F, A, Bb, D with the 7th as the lowest note in the right hand. Just using the A and Bb can be thought of as a shorthand for this voicing using just the 9th and (minor) 3rd; although it is somewhat ambiguous in terms of chord "function" because the 7th is missing (so you can't tell if the chord has tonic or dominant function unless the left). If you play shell voicings or guide ones in the left hand this would address the functional ambiguity because they typically include the 7th. A lot of music from this period and later doesn't really stick strictly to functional harmony anyway so in some circumstances the player might not be concerned about the ambiguity.
Incidentally I don't recommend either this book or these voicings, but it's probably where the idea comes from
Blown away!! Subscribed within minutes of starting the video.
I love learning about the brain, music, evolution, and physics. I never thought I would see one video, made by a ?"Physics channel"? that would hit them all and do it SO well. A genius writing job! Thank you!!
I've been saying for years now that my theory of music at it's core, and all art for that matter, and the reson that people criticize art so badly sometimes, is because they don't understand it's all about a balance of simplicity and complexity. Complexity can provide more information so it's more interesting but if it's too much it can be seemingly chaotic and uncomprehensible (and annoying), while simplicity could be boring to some, put leaves mental space for more powerful and deep emotions on that one simple beat or note or emotion or whatever. And everyone complaining about art just don't realize that it's their tastes that make them more sensitive to one or the other. Jazz musicians find pop and maybe rock music boring and simple but metal and hip hop (very different to each other but close enough to the former) bring a certain level of emotion or groove, respectively, to their relatively simple harmonies or rhythms that jazz usually doesn't.
Even in visual arts, abstract art is ripped on because people don't realize that the simple shapes are supposed to have very complex meanings, whereas more traditional realistic art has a lot of detail up front which takes a lot of skill but not always as deep and *abstract* meaning behind it.
Ofcourse it is possible to have a mix of both which is what I hope to finally get myself to do at some point 😁😅
Actually all art is on this spectrum. All genres are some mix. But I want to make art that doesn't stay in one spot on the spectrum. That moves along, showcases all the possibilities, ect. If someone could do a little before me tho, just so I could hear, I wouldn't mind lol 😁
@@mihailmilev9909 Try some avant garde, like Mr.Bungle or Cardiacs
@@lucy-elizakezia1830 what's that?
A lot of abstract art is used for money laundering too.
These youtube shorts are getting so good. For some reason, this is the 3rd YT "short" that is actually a full lenght video that I'm watching.
Very good video. I have begun to think lately that music (and dancing) are a cultural, small grouped bonding sessions. To me in a setting of 2 to 30 people in (even a) hunter gatherer society people learn each others actions and rhythms and voices. How well they obey the general rules or how well they stand out show to the others their roles in that society. Can they play well with others? How well can they adapt to new situations( perhaps while a rhythm change happens). Who do they copy (who is the main player, who has their dance moves stolen) and so on. Participating could be an invitation to sexual reproduction but it is not limited to it either.
Thank you for mentioning dance! In many languages and traditions the word for the music is the same as the word for the dance that goes with it, eg, waltz, ngoma, salsa, forro, samba, flamenco, etc. and the one does not exist without the other.
Love the lick reference at 2:34 (the notes)
That's not a wrong note, you just lack confidence. -Jacob Collier
This video is beautiful! It also adds extra reasons to the list of why birds are the absolutely perfect mascots for these videos (and Yardbird Parker didn’t get his nickname for no reason) :)
Wait... Jazz is an acquired taste? literally everyone I know unironically enjoys some form of jazz, even if it's not their favorite.
Yes, however, back in the 1920's and 1930's jazz was dance music, so something akin to today's pop. Good jazz music carries this tradition. On the other hand it is interesting to point out that back then, there was basically jazz, pop (plays) and classical and that was basically it.
@@mrgabifour4 There was definitely a lot more music back then then just jazz, pop, and classical. There are countless folk music traditions like traditional appalachian music,, creole music, and even tejano music in the southwest. There is also the whole genre of religious music from church hymns, to spirituals and gospel music. People also sang working songs like with cowboy ballads, railroad and miners songs, which played into the folk tradition. There was a lot of cross pollination of these styles throughout the 20th century but all were distinct and listened too back then.
Yeah! Not everyone is accustomed to the simply put, chaos, that Jazz conveys. Even worse when you put it up with Jazz Fusion, which is my favourite genre.
I remember presenting said genres to a couple of friends and their usual descriptions were along the lines of "Too Much Noise" and "Like someone trying to kill a cat inside a blender".
@@edmontoraptor yes, but music available to the masses it was really just Jazz, Blues, Classical. Pop/Westerners wasn't a genre by any means. It just meant popular songs/hits akin to how it's sometimes used today. Folk was there, but only in some areas & was mostly loccal.
@googlenazicompany5935 Jazz is definitely popular music. It's just not as popular ratio wise as it once was. When it comes the streaming consumption of Jazz & Jazz fused subgenres (Salsa, Bossa Nova, Lofi Hiphop, Jazz Hiphop, Jazz Fusion) there is a big audience of lovers.
Simply people consume it without knowing. Plus just cause it's not consumed to the level of related genres (Hiphop, Rhythm & Blues, Rock'N'Roll, Pop etc) doesn't mean people will find it hard to listen to. Actual the mass influence jazz has shows the opposite that many like the genre & subgenres under it.
The world likes jazz, it just doesn't have music figures that does stuff to keep listeners/internet personal eyes on them like Rock & Hiphop does.
One of the coolest RUclips videos I’ve ever found. Keep up the good work
My silly hypothesis:
Music is enjoyable because the mathematics that define it are relevant to other areas of physics that involve oscillations... which may includes neural oscillations, since its just a physical process.
But idk how to explain that part.... brains are pattern seekers, and there are patterns in the harmonic series that relate to emotions and phsyics as well... so its like a reflection of those things.
Its like experiencing mathematics through our emotions, while also producing a sense of synaestheia since you can perform parralel processing in different regions of the brain.
Like when you get tingles in your skin from music... its activating a pathway between your auditory centers, your emotional centers and your tactile centers... all sharing information. And it can create an immersive, multisensory experience where the boundaries between the senses blend together somewhat.
If you really drift away, and get lost in music, its sort of like a mild psychedelic or a religious experience, in the way that mental boundaries begin to blur.
Idk if any of this makes sense lol
Not everyone experiences the synaesthetics of it as noticably (try meditating with it), i guess you could put it on a spectrum. But everyone is pretty much capable of it i think...
I like music :D
i like weed, introducing me
Same here. 👍🎹
As an electrical engineer the Fourier Transform is probably one of my favorite pieces if math. Its definitely a pain to do out by hand, but its implications and practical applications are nearly immeasurable for something that can be simply described as convering an audiofile back into sheetmusic.
My biggest take away from this video is that the inner ear is just a physical fourier transformer. I'm partial jealous that i didn't come to the same conclusion despite knowing the biology of the inner ear being a series of hairs that respond to different frequencies.
0:02 no it not
Miles Davis’ answer to what makes a bad musician: “wrong notes”
This video was way better than anything I have expected
How..?
This channel seems targeted to my interests in every way.
I love maths and physics, I'm a furry with a birb persona - so i also like drawn bird art. And I'm a musician and i couldn't survive without music.
So.... Yeah xD love it 💓
So TLDR: i subbed xD
I need more avians in my feed lol
nigga
Wtf is a birb persona
6 minutes in the video and I already think this is, in a sense, the best video in RUclips history
6 minutes into this video, the nature of polyrhythms is explained and I realize why my brain works the way it does, my openness to entertain cognitive dissonance and question the deeper truths of our world come from my passion for the drums. 🤯🥁🖤
Immediate subscribe. This is such a cool study on harmony and physics.
Now that i can explain it, the relationship between that entropic tension, plus the satisfaction of resolution, will always the most beautiful sound my ears can imagine.
There’s a line from “The Mighty Boosh” that goes something like: “No one likes jazz except for science teachers and the mentally ill.”
7:40 i just realized i’d been watching this video outside of fullscreen
Wait humans like jazz?
this is by far the best content i've seen in a long time
ya like jazz?
What an absolutely amazing video. Stumbled upon your channel first time today and I can say with 100% certainty that I've never clicked the subscribe button this fast.
Watched all of your uploads, eagerly waiting for the next one.
Keep up the AMAZING work.
It's absolutely hilarious that I get to watch this for free, especially when I find myself paying 30$ to watch Netflix originals.
Salvatore Bonafede is a jazz pianist from Palermo, Italy. That's the pianist that the saxophonist was talking about at 14:46.
Jazz is a huge umbrella. Covers so many genres. It's a spectrum.
I did not expect a video like this to be bring me back to EE school, complete with random processes and even seeing a circuit diagram.
I just wish this video was twice as long as it is
As soon as he mentioned Fourier series I knew we were in for a ride!