Hi everyone! Konnichiwa! My name is Kat McDowell, I'm a singer-songwriter born in
Japan and raised in New Zealand. Today I’m visiting Socratica Studios to talk to you
about harmony.
To show you how harmony works, let's use the
opening notes of my song “Human”.♫
It's just one of those days...I don't want
to get out of bed..." To hear the full version of this song, I made
a music video with Socratica. So come check it out on my channel later.
To start, let’s listen to the opening notes...♫
So...Nice and harmonious, right? But what
if we used different notes…♫
Oh, bleegh! Why does that sound so wrong, when the original sounded so good?
The reason is harmony. Every musical note is connected to a number
- its frequency. For example, the note “A” has a frequency of 440 hertz.♫
When I play this note, ♫ the air between us vibrates back and forth very quickly, 440
times each second! This causes your eardrum to vibrate, and your brain says, “Hey! That’s
an A!” So here’s the basic idea behind harmony.
Two notes sound good together ♫ when their frequencies form a simple fraction. For example, the notes
C and G sound good together. ♫ And their frequencies are in the ratio 3 to 2.
I know, I know, it's not exactly. The ratio is really, really close to 3-to-2, it’s
just a tiny bit off. Most people can’t hear the difference. The reason why it’s not
exactly 3-to-2 is a story for another day.
The notes C and F also sound good together. ♫ The ratio of their frequencies is 4 to 3.
Another simple fraction, another pleasant sound.
Ooh! Listen to this pair. C and C! ♫ The ratio of their frequencies
is 2-to-1. That's the simplest fraction yet! .
But get ready. Listen to C and C# together. ♫ Eeeeuw. A more complex fraction and
a terrible sound.
The rules of harmony work with more than two notes. Listen to the chord of C, E and G. ♫
Nice, yes? Because this chord has 3 notes, what you're really hearing is 3 pairs of notes
at the same time:
C and E… E and G…
And C and G…
The ratios of these notes are 5-to-4… 6-to-5… and 3-to-2...
Now brace yourselves. Here’s a chord that sounds…pretty gross. ♫ Eeesh!
To understand why this sounds terrible, let's look at the fractions.
The ratio between C and D is 9-to-8. The ratio between D and G# is 45:32.
And the ratio between C and G# is 8:5.
No wonder it sounds awful to listen to these 3 fractions all at once! ♫
So far, we’ve been playing all these notes at once.
But you can also play them separately, too - Harmony still works the same way! ♫
And even some of the more complicated fractions have their place, too. In my song "Human,"
I do have a complex fraction snuck in there. See if you can catch it: ♫
...did you catch that chord? It was used as a passing chord. But..it was nice, it added
some flavour to it. So I hope you learned a little about harmony
today - why music sounds good, why it doesn't sound good...
And if you want to hear the rest of this song, make sure you visit my channel so you can
hear the song "Human."
Thank you so much to Socratica Studios for having me today. And I hope maybe I can come
back sometime soon! I guess that's up to you and how many likes you put in here. Ask for
me back in the comments below, and who knows, they might have me back! {whispering} Please
do that! I want to come back!
♫ And now, if you want to hear the rest of this song - no fractions, just music - make sure
that you come to my channel and hear the rest of this song.
♫ "It's just one of those days I don't want to get out of bed
I just want to curl up Make sure you come over
and subscribe to my channel, my channel, oh yeah!
Bye!