I’ve been training my ears using the Golden Ears program (or more recently, with my personal patch, which you can create on Ableton), for a few months now.
The program starts by boosting or cutting certain frequency ranges in various musical genres, which you try to guess at.
In the process, you build familiarity with the qualities that each frequency range tends to bring out. You also get a sense of how individual instruments sound when boosted at these ranges.
Now, I’m no expert at this. But I’ve noticed certain common patterns in how I perceive instruments, which might simplify the process of classifying what we hear.
Okay, let’s try this again.
We want to understand what we’re hearing, in order to know what parts of the sound need improvement, yes?
But in practice, the novice gets confused with terms like ‘tubby’, ‘boxy’, ‘bloated’, and so on. What’s worse, these qualities often only apply to a specific instrument type.
So, I present my diagram for a super-simplified understanding of the different frequency ranges of ANY instrument:
Before you start getting confused all over again, let me explain each part in more detail:
1. Edge
The edge is the lowest audible part of an instrument – if this frequency range is cut, you won’t be able to hear anything below it.
Instead, the lowest part of the sound might seem weaker, or ‘pinched’ a bit.
If this pinched quality is more pronounced, I might call it the bottom of the sound instead, just to give me another layer of detail to work with.
2. Body/Fundamental
This is where the depth, power, and primary tone of an instrument comes from – it’s the loudest part of an instrument (in actual, not perceived volume).
Think of it this way: You know in many pop songs, the lead’s voice is overdubbed multiple times to create harmonies, but the overdubs are kept relatively quiet? You can hear a good example of this in Elle Goulding’s Anything Could Happen.
Those doubled voices are like the harmonics, while the fundamental, or main melody, is the loudest version of Elle’s voice we can hear.
If boosted too much at this range, the instrument (or voice) becomes muddy or clips. If overly cut, it can sound weak or distant.
I find it difficult to break this section into smaller pieces, but I sometimes mention if a boost or cut is affecting the harmonics as well.
3. Harmonics
If the fundamental is the loudest tone we can hear, the harmonics are, well… Pretty much everything else.
More exactly, it’s every other sound you can hear from that instrument that has a tone.
This can cover a pretty wide range, so I tend to break it down into lower and upper harmonics, and sometimes mid-harmonics as well.
When low harmonics are cut, the instrument will sound scooped – like the lowest and the highest parts can be heard, but there’s this weird hole in the middle.
If the middle harmonics are cut, the sound may still sound scooped, but with more bass-y parts clearly audible.
Or it may sound slightly veiled, like it’s coming through a blanket or curtain – except a quieter top end, like the sizzle of the cymbal, should still be easily heard.
When boosted, there can be a ‘hard’ or ‘harsh’ quality to the sound – like someone is slamming the piano keys too hard for example.
Cutting the top of the harmonics veils the sound even more. There can be a loss of clarity in vocals, and a distant or darker quality in other instruments.
While this may sound similar to when the body is cut, you should still be hearing the fundamental tone coming through strong.
Boosting this range can create harshness, brightness, or clarity – it depends on the instrument, really.
4. Top Edge/Air
This range is where the presence of an instrument is felt. Boosting here creates a sense of space around the instrument – as though it were being played on top of a mountain, for example.
Cutting this range – like cutting the bottom edge, means you will lose the highest-pitched sounds of the instrument – you won’t be able to hear anything higher.
The result is the instrument will sound somewhat enclosed, but not as muted as cutting in the higher parts of the harmonic range.
So there’s my quick n’ dirty way to classify what parts of an instrument you’re hearing, which hopefully makes it easier for you to make more detailed evaluations later on.
Have fun!
Credits:
‘Blue and white light digital wallpaper’ by Adinarayana rao Rayavarapu on Scopio
‘Brown wooden hole with hole’ by Peter Jantsch on Scopio
‘Melancholic pianist playing piano near blue wall’ by Anastasia Kolchina from Pexels
‘Water Fountain on Brown Brick Wall’ by Ethan Medrano from Pexels
‘Woman Playing Electric Guitar on Top of Rock Formation’ by Stephanie Souza from Pexels