What gives the trumpet its clarion ring and the tuba its gut shaking oompah-pah? And what makes the trombone so jazzy? Al Cannon shows how these answers lie not in the brass the instruments are made of, but in the journey that air takes...

An orchestra fills an opera house with music, but a singer’s voice soars above the instruments. Its melody rings out across thousands of patrons— all without any assistance from a microphone. How is it possible that a single voice can be...

Using the harmonic series we can build an infinitely long bridge. It takes a very long time though. A faster method was discovered in 2009.

In this tutorial I show how I synthesized the sound of hydrogen for the "Sound of Hydrogen" video using mathematica - it's a little technical, but you've been requesting it!

Join us and discover the harmonic series, or overtone series. This music theory lesson begins with a fundamental note and explains how to derive the overtones from that note that comprise the harmonic series. The video uses the...

The standard orchestra did not become established until the Classical period but the Baroque orchestra was well under development and this video explores how the orchestra got underway during the Baroque period in Italy, France and...

Random things

A humorous look at the mathematics behind infinite series.

Music is made by sound waves. The objects that make those waves make complex waves. Which create what we call Harmonics. Today we look at some Music Physics and get an intro to the Harmonic Series.

Did you know that all musical intervals can be expressed using some basic math? Today we talk about some of that math.

Power Series | Power Series & Interval of Convergence: Example 3

Series | Alternating Series Test (with Conditional/Absolute Convergence): Examples 1 & 2

Transposing instruments are confusing and frustrating, and their very existence seems absurd. A few years ago, I made a video about how to deal with transposing instruments, but today we’re here to talk about why we have transposing...

A look at why G Sharp and A flat historically were two different pitches

Season 3, Episode 21 - Two Minute Music Theory The third installment in our Building Chords Series. Today we look at building all types of Seventh Chords, which are extensions of the basic triad.

Season 3, Episode 22 - Two Minute Music Theory The third installment in our Building Chords Series. Today we look at what happens when the chord isn't stacked like it normally is. When notes aren't in their normal position, we call that...

Since I released the Intro to the Harmonic Series video, I've gotten a lot of questions asking what you can do with it. So, I thought we might look at a practical application of it, Writing and Voicing Chords.

Series | The Direct Comparison Test with 2 Examples

Series | Convergent p-Series: 4 Examples

Series | Alternating Series Test (with Conditional/Absolute Convergence): Examples 4 & 5

An unexpected application of the harmonic series

Series | Proof That the Harmonic Series Diverges