AllAboutSound
Some special sounds …
Here’s an example of sounds created with electronics. We’ll start with a single sine wave (16 seconds), just to give you an idea …
And here is a picture of many sine waves, changing frequencies and amplitudes, that together create an instant spectrum that is performed on a trumpet.
And that sound, the first sound of a composition by Dexter Morrill in 1975, is followed by computer variations of trumpet sounds …
More …
Joel Chadabe’s A Touch of Africa is performed by Bruno Spoerri, saxophone, Reto Weber, hand drum, Jan Williams, percussion, and Chadabe, synthesizer.
If you have read this book, we’d be very pleased to post your sound or composition (please not longer than 7 minutes) for others to hear. Send your sound, with a few words, to editor@intelligentarts.net.
You’re in New York today listening to a song from San Francisco. Recorded ten years ago. Is that a flute in the orchestra? Or is it a truck turning the corner? Waves at the beach last summer. Well, whatever you do, or hear, knowing about sound will connect you to the world!
Joel Chadabe, composer, author, educator, pioneer in electronic music, has developed instruments, written a book, travelled, performed, talked with students, and listened to the world.
And this book is about the sound of music. Any sound. Any music.
It’s a basic explanation of sound and how sound can be high or low, loud or soft, here or there, generated by instruments and orchestras and electronics and traffic jams.
You’ll read about the time domain, how sounds mix together to make one complex sound maybe with reverberations or echoes.
You’ll read an explanation of the difference between analog and digital waveforms, and sampling, and different approaches that are used in synthesizers.
You’ll understand the concept of a spectrum, and how different spectra produce different sounds from melodies to noise, and how you might understand noise.
Having understood the nature of sound, you’ll understand how you hear sound and how your ear works. Pitch, for example, is one measure of what you hear. How do you distinguish high and low sounds?
And you need to recognize the source of a sound. How do you recognize a violin from a trumpet? More, you need to recognize danger and friendship.
In general, you recognize the world around you largely by your recognition and understanding of sound.
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Everyone! Listen to the world!
“Wow! It’s a wonderful book! I‘ll recommend it to all my students!” — Barry Greenhut, Adjunct Professor, NYU
“I read this book just as I am writing a textbook for my students here at Shenzhen University, China. In It’s about Sound, so much precious information is introduced in a natural and even fun way. This is an excellent way of understanding digital audio. Beyond that, it is a wonderful initiation to getting to hear the world.” — Marc Battier, Professor Emeritus, Sorbonne University; Professor, Shenzhen University, China
(These are the first comments and the first readers.)