ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Distortion

Distortion is like when someone says something but their voice sounds all funny and weird. It's like the sound waves that make up the person's voice get squished or stretched out in a way that makes it sound different than it should.

Imagine you have a toy car with really big wheels, and you try to drive it on a road that's bumpy and full of rocks. The wheels might start wobbling or bouncing around in a way that makes the car go all over the place instead of driving smoothly. That's kind of like what happens with sound waves when they get distorted - they start bouncing around in weird ways that make the sound different than it should be.

When you listen to music, there are different types of instruments and sounds that make up the song. Sometimes, when those sounds get too loud or they're not recorded properly, they can get distorted. It's like the sound waves are trying to be too big or too powerful, and they end up getting squished or stretched out in a way that makes it sound weird or fuzzy.

In some cases, people intentionally use distortion as an effect in music. They might want the guitar to sound really gritty and rough, so they use a distortion pedal to make the sound more distorted. It's kind of like adding spices to your food to make it taste different - adding distortion to music can make it sound different in a cool way.

So, distortion is when sound waves get messed up and start sounding different than they should be. Sometimes it can happen by accident, and sometimes people use it on purpose to create cool effects in music.