Calculating the Harmonic Series – a New Tool for Musicians, Singers and Acoustic Enthusiasts

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Recently, in one of my 432 Hz discussions, it would have been helpful to have the tone names and frequencies of the overtones to hand. The

So I programmed myself a suitable tool (with AI help) that I find super practical. The new tool is now available on my special page, with which you can calculate the first 32 partials of a tone – in a matter of seconds!

The special thing about it:

  • Freely selectable concert pitch frequency: perfect for historically informed music, experimental tunings or individual applications.
  • Notation in both systems: The results appear in both German and American notation.
  • Exact frequencies and cent deviations: Recognize the differences to equal temperament immediately.

The tool is flexible and intuitive: you can enter either the frequency (e.g. 432 Hz) or the note name (e.g. “E”) as the keynote. The compact table then shows you all the relevant details.

There is also a second tool that allows you to calculate intervals between any frequency pairs in cents. Together, these two tools make analysis and comparisons incredibly fast and precise – ideal for singers, composers, choir directors and sound researchers!

I use the tool myself to quickly determine tone names and frequencies in relation to changing concert pitch frequencies. What used to involve a lot of manual calculation or copying from VoceVista is now done by this tool in just a few clicks.

Try it out.

PS: Let me know what creative ideas or applications you come up with using this tool!

-> The Harmonic Series

Why Does Choral Music Sound So Good?

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I was very happy about this video from Barnaby Martin. It is a wonderful introduction to the basics of my → Choral Phonetics. In this video he shows why formants are so important for intonation.

Choral phonetics uses our hidden ability to perceive resonances in the vocal tract as pitches (→ hearing test). And it trains a special fine motoricity of the tongue to control these resonances and to adapt the timbre to chords. This know-how enables singers to tune resonances just as precisely as their vocal tones. This turns timbre into a musical instrument. Choir sounds, as they can be heard in the video, become controllable.

What otherwise requires many years of experience and voice training for choristers can be achieved much faster with the knowledge of choral phonetics. Choir singers and conductors usually learn the necessary vocal techniques in just a few days and can develop them into a retrievable skill set within half a year. This refines not only intonation and homogeneity in the ensemble, but also the carrying capacity and lightness of the voice.

Besides, Barnaby Martin has a great talent to explain complex musical phenomena in a simple and entertaining way. Be sure to subscribe to his YouTube channel “Listening In”, there are a lot of first-class videos about the effects of musical sounds.Among other things I recommend his video about the completely crazy intonation movements that Jacob Collier uses in his choir pieces. Guys, choral phonetics is slowly becoming mainstream :)!