VIDEO LESSON 01 – THE HARMONIC SERIES & EQUALISATION (E.Q.) (Architectures of Music)

Here I show the spectral make-up of ‘harmonic’ sounds (sometimes called ‘musical’ sounds, a term I dislike). Using a sample of a male choir singing a single long tone, the spectral components of the sound are revealed through a demonstration of the 3 basic parameters of E.Q. (equalisation), a studio tool that is used to shape timbre, or ‘tone colour’), which include ‘centre frequency’, ‘gain’, and ‘Q’ (quality factor). This is used to introduce the harmonic series, which will be an important reference point for many of the following videos.