The C Major Chord Is LITERALLY Out Of Tune

Note to self: Don't ever try to make a "light overview video" of a topic that gets THIS in-depth ever again. I hate math. 😂😂😂Whatever this was fun and I find this whole thing utterly FASCINATING.

I love how obvious the difference is to some people, and how literally imperceptible it is for others.

its okay, everything i play is out of tune

I am immune to your math magic debuff for my ears cannot differentiate the two versions of the C chord.

Pianist: discovers just intonation String players: “first time?”

Plays the chord Plays the chord again “Crazy right?”

I will say, it's a shame that you don't have them play back to back for comparison. I had to download the audio into audacity to strip out your talking to actually hear the difference between the chords. Apparently, speech resets my musical context, well enough to not hear any difference between those tuning systems, at least. It would have been a good idea to have the chords play back to back within a short enough time frame, to give everybody the best chance of hearing the difference

What if the real C major chord was the friends we made along the way?

1:01 - C Major Triad 1:09 - True C Major Triad

Not a single time did you play the two back to back without a gap or talking in it

The first C maj is Chonggggg. The second one is Changggg.

I think part of the reason people can't hear the difference is because it's on a piano. If it were a sine wave or another instrument we'd be a lot less accustomed to already hearing it in exact ¹²√2 tuning every day, rather than hearing the tuning commas/rubs.

It’s not just a theory. My professor, Dr. Ron Borror, taught us to tune to Just Intonation as a trombone ensemble. We also memorized the pitch variations of the overtone series so we could make minute adjustments in slide position to stay in tune when playing with equal temperament instruments. Correcting pitch with the slide instead of the embouchure results in a fuller more sonorous sound

Hey Charlie, I'm a physicist and a musician and I loved your video and I'd like to add some things: That little rub you in our ears when 2 tones are in tune you mentioned at the beginning is actually called a beat, it happens when the sounds interfere and generate periodic modulation of the amplitude (volume) of the resulting sound (it kinda goes whoa whoa whoa periodically very quickly). When the frequencies are to close the resulting sound modulates to quickly and out of sinc with both original frequencies causing certain discomfort to the ear, but when the bellies of the waves align (like with the harmonic series) it results in a modulation that's in sinc with the natural frequencies, that's why its so nice to hear. Love your videos.

Yup...10+ years outta music school and... Yeah, my ears still don't work.

Literally... every chord is out of tune in equal temperament. That's why (at least, the harmony director) there's a button on keyboards to make it pure. It lowers major 3rds and raises *perfect 5ths (and minor 3rds?) Thanks, @rome8180

It’s not out of tune, it’s jazz

me when the c major chord is out of tune

I remember noticing this when i was young playing the guitar, thinking that my guitar was broken. I tried tuning it so that a certain chord would sound perfectly in tune, but then everything else was terrible. It was then that my school music teacher taught me about equal temperament and I've been depressed ever since

I originally learned music on the cello, where, like the human voice, we subtly tune by ear as we play, and when I learned guitar, where the notes are fixed in place, all the chords always sounded just a little out of tune to me, and it frustrated me to no end until I learned about this sort of stuff a few years ago.