Perceptual Processes in Orchestration

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meghan Goodchild ◽  
Stephen McAdams
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Scene Analysis ◽  
Scene Analysis ◽  
Auditory Grouping ◽  
Musical Scores ◽  
Auditory Scene ◽  
Music Research

The study of timbre and orchestration in music research is underdeveloped, with few theories to explain instrumental combinations and orchestral shaping. This chapter will outline connections between the orchestration practices of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and perceptual principles based on recent research in auditory scene analysis and timbre perception. Analyses of orchestration treatises and musical scores reveal an implicit understanding of auditory grouping principles by which many orchestral effects and techniques function. We will explore how concurrent grouping cues result in blended combinations of instruments, how sequential grouping into segregated melodies or stratified (foreground and background) layers is influenced by timbral similarities and dissimilarities, and how segmental grouping cues create formal boundaries and expressive gestural shaping through changes in instrumental textures. This exploration will be framed within an examination of historical and contemporary discussion of orchestral effects and techniques.

scholarly journals Auditory Scene Analysis and the Perception of Sound Mass in Ligeti’s Continuum

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chelsea Douglas ◽  
Jason Noble ◽  
Stephen McAdams
Keyword(s):  
Threshold Value ◽  
Auditory Scene Analysis ◽  
Scene Analysis ◽  
Perceptual Unit ◽  
Threshold Values ◽  
Pitch Organization ◽  
Auditory Grouping ◽  
Auditory Scene ◽  
The Individual

Sound mass has been an influential trend in music since the 1950’s and yet many questions about its perception remain unanswered. Approaching sound mass from the perspective of auditory scene analysis, we define it as a type of auditory grouping that retains an impression of multiplicity even as it is perceived as a perceptual unit. Sound mass requires all markers of the individual identities of sounds to be deemphasized to prevent them from splitting off into separate streams. Seeking to determine how consistent listeners are in their perception of sound mass, and whether it is possible to determine sound parameters and threshold values that predict sound mass perception, we conducted two perceptual studies on Ligeti’s Continuum. This piece consists of an extremely rapid, steady stream of eighth-note dyads with no tempo changes. We addressed the claim by Ligeti and others that the fusion into a continuous texture or sound mass occurs at ca. 20 attacks/s, hypothesizing that other factors such as pitch organization, emergent rhythm, timbre, and register would affect this value. A variety of factors were found to affect sound mass perception, suggesting that the threshold value is not absolute but varies according to principles of auditory scene analysis.

Attention effects on auditory scene analysis: insights from event-related brain potentials

2014 ◽  
Vol 78 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mona Isabel Spielmann ◽  
Erich Schröger ◽  
Sonja A. Kotz ◽  
Alexandra Bendixen
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Scene Analysis ◽  
Scene Analysis ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Auditory Scene

scholarly journals Intelligibility Redux

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Zayaruznaya
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
School Culture ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Auditory Scene Analysis ◽  
Scene Analysis ◽  
Multiple Texts ◽  
Human Ability ◽  
Auditory Scene ◽  
Choir School

The medieval composers of polytextual motets have been charged with rendering multiple texts inaudible by superimposing them. While the limited contemporary evidence provided by Jacobus’s comments in theSpeculum musicaeseems at first sight to suggest that medieval listeners would have had trouble understanding texts declaimed simultaneously, closer scrutiny reveals the opposite: that intelligibility was desirable, and linked to modes of performance. This article explores the ways in which 20th-century performance aesthetics and recording technologies have shaped current ideas about the polytextual motet. Recent studies in cognitive psychology suggest that human ability to perform auditory scene analysis—to focus on a given sound in a complicated auditory environment—is enhanced by directional listening and relatively dry acoustics. But the modern listener often encounters motets on recordings with heavy mixing and reverb. Furthermore, combinations of contrasting vocal timbres, which can help differentiate simultaneously sung texts, are precluded by a blended, uniform sound born jointly of English choir-school culture and modernist preferences propagated under the banner of authenticity. Scholarly accounts of motets that focus on sound over sense are often influenced, directly or indirectly, by such mediated listening.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document