Laurel vs Yanny

[mbruno]

I think the answer is the overtones. Here's a fun one

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...el-debate.html

[FLATROCK HILL]

Yeah Ree, Yeah Ree
That's what I hear. Am I alone in a phonematic universe?

Yes Bertram, you're hitchhiking through the galaxy without a ride in sight!

[FLATROCK HILL]

I think the answer is the overtones. Here's a fun one

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...el-debate.html

And yet another: https://digg.com/2018/brainstorm-or-green-needle

How to make your Kentucky 150 say "Loar". You just have to believe.

[gschmidt]

I hear Laurel plan as day. I called my 12 y/o daughter over and in my disbelief she said Yanny.

If I listen real close, I can start to hear both. Yanny sounds like a high whisper to me and Laurel is lower. My daughter said the exact opposite. Interesting stuff.

[LostVenture]

I'm 100% with Drew.
And you read that comment correctly no matter what anyone says.

[MikeEdgerton]

If you want to hear them both...

[George R. Lane]

I hear Laurel and my wife hears Yanny. It is no wonder my wife never hears what I am saying to her.

[mrmando]

I can't hear anything but my dogs are going nuts.

[mgap]

I hear Laurel
My wife hears Yanny
My son hears Yarry
But I am right and they are wrong.

[bratsche]

I hear Laurel plan as day. I called my 12 y/o daughter over and in my disbelief she said Yanny.

If I listen real close, I can start to hear both. Yanny sounds like a high whisper to me and Laurel is lower. My daughter said the exact opposite. Interesting stuff.

Am I the only one who is completely on the fence here? I hear them both simultaneously, a trebly "yanny" and a baritone-y "laurel", both clear as a bell....

Listening on my PC with a $5 Panasonic headset, FWIW...

bratsche

[Bertram Henze]

I guess this effect is related to the long known Shepard tone...

[Bill Kammerzell]

When everyone knows it was Laurel and Hardy all along.

[Bill Kammerzell]

I hear Laurel and my wife hears Yanny. It is no wonder my wife never hears what I am saying to her.

In my case, mine couldn't care less.

[Bill Kammerzell]

I honestly have not taken this "test." As a rule, I'm running too fast in the wrong race anyway.

[Mark Gunter]

I guess this effect is related to the long known Shepard tone...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsBanpBQj0k

Actually, a more apt comparison would be the tritone paradox, sort of a spinoff of the Shepherd tones. People who hear two successive instances will disagree on whether they hear an ascending pattern or a descending pattern.

Do they go up in pitch, or down in pitch? You decide:



When I listen to examples, I always hear an ascending movement - even though my ear can detect a sort of descending bass line. But not everyone will interpret these tritones the same! These are based on Shepherd tones.

[Dave Sheets]

Blaise.Douros got it- the NY times put up a demo

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...el-debate.html

[lflngpicker]

I hear Yanny every time-- and I am left handed. Does that mean anything? LOL

[Bertram Henze]

Actually, a more apt comparison would be the tritone paradox, sort of a spinoff of the Shepherd tones. People who hear two successive instances will disagree on whether they hear an ascending pattern or a descending pattern.

Do they go up in pitch, or down in pitch? You decide:



When I listen to examples, I always hear an ascending movement - even though my ear can detect a sort of descending bass line. But not everyone will interpret these tritones the same! These are based on Shepherd tones.

I hear descending movement on samples #1, #2, #3 and ascending on #4. You're right, this is closer to the Yarry conundrum.

[vetus scotia]

This is quite striking: https://vimeo.com/34749558

And here is the explanation of Shepard tones: https://vimeo.com/34749754

[mandroid]

Its Yanni , not yanny https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui1xToRSoQw

[bratsche]

Not Yanni! Yanni rhymes with Johnny. Yanny rhymes with Danny.

bratsche

[mugbucket]

I was listening via a radio talk show this morning with only the left earbud in and clearly heard yanny. After plugging the right earbud in, it was clearly laurel. Now all I hear is laurel, no matter what combination used.

Weird.

[apple]

Yeah Ree, Yeah Ree
That's what I hear. Am I alone in a phonematic universe?

You're not alone except what I hear is "Yelly, yelly."

[Jess L.]

I listened to it ten times and all I heard was "laurel". ...

Same here. Even when trying really hard to listen for other interpretations, all I hear is Laurel. Using $14 headphones on a laptop, the exact same stuff I use to mix all my YouTube music videos... (hmm, maybe that's part of my problem! Lol).

Next time my playing sucks, I will tell the audience they are just not hearing it correctly ...

Lol!

Although, now that I think of it, I actually have heard performers say basically that same thing when audiences don't go wild over some tune or other that the performer is trying to present... performer devolves into lecturing the audience about the proper way to 'appreciate' certain types of music blah blah etc., essentially they were blaming the audience for being stupid and uninformed about the 'correct' way to hear the music, when in fact the music just wasn't very appealing on a whole bunch of different levels. Understandably, that attitude from performers never went over too well with me... seemed like such performers were 'preaching to the choir' or performing for other musicians in that particular specialty niche genre, rather than playing stuff an actual normal audience might enjoy. But I digress.

A surprising trivia tidbit about this thread:

In only 4 days this thread has accumulated 41,922 views, must be some sort of new world's record? Or has the MandolinCafe page-counter gone wonky? Does the 41,922 include the probably-numerous automated search-engine-bot hits too (I got tons of those on my pages when I used to have my own website years ago), or does MandolinCafe filter out the searchbots somehow?



I didn't even click on this thread until today (the title "Laurel vs Yanny" didn't mean anything to me so I just skipped the entire thread, figured it couldn't have been anything interesting with such a non-alluring title), but today I noticed the 41,922 views and I did something I usually avoid, I went into 'lemming' mode (follow the crowd) to see what everyone else was looking at. Interesting stuff.

[Bertram Henze]

I didn't even click on this thread until today (the title "Laurel vs Yanny" didn't mean anything to me so I just skipped the entire thread, figured it couldn't have been anything interesting with such a non-alluring title),

This topic has been all the rage on social media (like its predecessor, the black/blue vs. gold/white dress) already, apparently, so I guess everybody was curious what this would develop into here on the Cafe.
I often open threads with mysterious titles out of curiosity, since I like the challenge of finding out what the problem is (as a consultant, that is a key skill I have to keep up - many people are not good at stating their objective in a clear and simple way).

Oh, and I have listened to the mystery word via a number of different audio devices (from mobile speaker all the way to earplugs), and I tend to hear the more "laurel" the better the transmission quality is. I also must admit that "laurel" is one of those blurry words that are easily misheard (that couldn't happen with, e.g., "stiletto").