Why does Western music divide the octave into 12 different notes? Why not 13, or 19 or 24 notes? For such a simple sounding question, the answer is actually a tangle of history, physics and human preference. Get ready for some serious music theory!
Thank you to Modartt for gifting me a copy of their amazing Pianoteq software. Find out more here: https://www.modartt.com/pianoteq
Thank you to Fred Scalliet for adding French subtitles to this video!
Sources:
Gamelan Music: https://youtu.be/UEWCCSuHsuQ
12Tone talking 12TET: https://youtu.be/ZOLRvbPURXQ
Where does the 12-tone scale come from: https://youtu.be/CFbG-8eYKJU
Audio Spectrum (AdminOfThisSite): https://youtu.be/qNf9nzvnd1k
Perception of Octaves: https://www.quantamagazine.org/perceptions-of-musical-octaves-are-learned-not-wired-in-the-brain-20191030/
Playable Harmonic Series: https://alexanderchen.github.io/harmonics/
Octave circularity in the auditory brain: http://www.neuroscience-of-music.se/eng7.htm
An extra special thanks goes to Vidad Flowers, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Bruce Mount, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channel’s Patreon saints! 😇
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