The inside scoop on low frequency sound in music: An explanation of how low frequency sounds can have a positive or negative effect on you.
As a musician, one of my favorite genres is electronic music. The first electronic music ever made was made in the 1930s by a Russian man named Leon Theremin. He built an electronic device that used two antennae to create sound waves – one antenna to control the pitch and another to control the volume. This device has come to be called the Theremin, named after its inventor.
Another early developer of electronic music is Karlheinz Stockhausen, who used magnetic tape to record sounds and then play them back at different speeds to create new pitches. His most famous piece is Gesang Der Jünglinge (1955), which features the voice of a 12-year-old boy singing over synthesized music that goes up and down in pitch as well as in volume (the “melody”).
Electronic music grew out of these experiments with recording technology, but it also came from other sources such as musique concrète (music made from natural sounds) and minimalism (a style where there is no melody or harmony; just rhythm). Electronic music has many different forms including ambient, techno
Unfortunately, the music industry has to cater for the lowest common denominator and there is a lot of ‘rot’ in the market. The current trend for hard-hitting bass lines may come from the fact that most people listen to music on laptop speakers or earbuds, which are not capable of reproducing low frequency sounds.
The result is an overly boosted bass line which gives a false sense of what the piece of music should sound like when played on a better system. This is a consequence of the way our ears work: if we cannot hear certain frequencies then our brains tend to boost them when listening at lower volume levels.
There are some interesting articles online which describe how low frequency sound can have a positive or negative effect on you, depending on whether it is played in your left ear or right ear. I won’t go into detail here but I recommend reading up on this if you are interested in electronic music composition!
Low frequency sound is a topic that has been debated for decades. Ever since the first electronic music was produced, people have been experiencing and arguing about low frequency sound in music.
One of the first instances of low frequency sound in music was produced by Jean Michel Jarre in his “Oxygene” album, featuring a track called “Oxygene Part 4”. In this song he uses a synthesizer to produce an extremely low frequency note (16 Hz) throughout the entire 7 minute duration of the song. This caused many people who were listening to the album on their car stereo’s to report feeling dizzy and nauseous whilst listening to the song. This was due to the fact that 16 Hz is below the range of human hearing, and so can only be perceived by one’s body through vibration.
Whereas some people do not like this effect, others enjoy it greatly and seek it out in their music. It has been said that listening to extremely low frequencies can have a positive effect on your body (such as relieving stress), but this has not been confirmed scientifically.
Any sound that has a frequency below 20Hz is considered to be a Low Frequency Sound. This includes what we consider to be the lowest musical note on the piano, which is the A0 at 27.5Hz. The lowest note on a standard guitar (without using a bass guitar) is an open E string at 82.4Hz.
In terms of human hearing, you can’t detect anything below 20Hz but you can certainly feel it. If you’ve ever been to a live concert or used a subwoofer in your car, you know exactly what I’m talking about. A subwoofer gives off the low frequency sounds that makes your chest “thump” or your seat “rumble”. If you have the volume turned up really loud and you’re sitting next to the speakers or subwoofers, you may even get a vibration in your lungs!
So why are low frequency sounds so important? Well, they’re not always important… but when they are, they can make or break your music!
Sound is vibrating air. The sound waves that we hear travel through the air from the sound source to our ears. When you listen to music, the sound waves vibrate your eardrum, which vibrates the bones in your middle ear, which vibrates the fluid in your inner ear, and then it gets converted into an electrical signal that is sent to your brain.
Bass is a low frequency sound. It’s measured in Hertz or Hz, and has a frequency range between 20-300Hz. Bass travels longer distances than high frequencies as a result of having more energy. You can feel bass frequencies more than you can hear them and they resonate better at lower frequencies because they are felt by other parts of your body besides your ears.
The effects of bass and sub-bass frequencies are generally positive for humans. Most people associate positive feelings with deep bass beats and rhythms because of the way our bodies react to them. Low frequency sounds cause vibrations that we feel physically which often stimulates certain parts of our brains. This stimulation can enhance our moods, increase our attention spans and give us an overall sense of well being depending on the type of bass we listen to.
There is an interesting frequency range that lies between about 16 and 60Hz. The lower portion of this range is below the range at which humans can perceive sound; however, it can be felt. A low-frequency rumble from a large subwoofer playing in a car or club could conceivably make it hard to see, or even lead to nausea. The higher portion of the range is known as infrasound and the lower portion as ULF (Ultra Low Frequency).
This “felt” sound has become more common in modern music with the popularity of modern technology. It’s not uncommon for an electronic bass line, synth bass, or drum machine to play notes around 40Hz. There are even some synthesizers that now have built-in subharmonic oscillators, which generate news pitches one octave below the original pitch played.
The most common question regarding this frequency range is: “Does it affect me?” Although there are many studies on the effects of infrasound on humans, there are no conclusive answers to date. Some people report feeling extremely anxious when exposed to this frequency range for long periods of time, while others claim no adverse effects at all. However, whether you feel its effects or not, something is definitely going on down there!
A low frequency sound, often referred to as an infrasound, is a sound that is lower in frequency than 20 Hz (Hertz) or cycles per second, the “normal” limit of human hearing. Hearing becomes gradually less sensitive as frequency decreases, so for humans to perceive infrasound, the sound pressure must be sufficiently high. The ear is the primary organ for sensing infrasound, but at higher levels it is possible to feel infrasound vibrations in various parts of the body.
The study of such sound waves is sometimes referred to as infrasonics, covering sounds beneath 20 Hz down to 0.001 Hz. This frequency range is utilized for monitoring earthquakes, charting rock and petroleum formations below the earth, and also in ballistocardiography and seismocardiography to study the mechanics of the heart. Humans can use infrasound to perceive distant events. Infrasound may cause feelings of awe or fear in humans.
The use of infrasound by animals has been studied widely. Some marine animals such as whales, dolphins and seals have been shown to use its communicative properties. Its effects on humans are also being studied: some people report feeling vibrations from large subwoofers or other powerful sources of low-