Andrzej Rakowski

Recognition of notated melodies by possessors and nonpossessors of absolute pitch

Musically trained listeners compared a notated melody presented visually and a comparison melody presented auditorily, and judged whether they were exactly the same or not, with respect to relative pitch. Listeners who had absolute pitch showed the poorest performance for melodies transposed to different pitch levels from the notated melodies, whereas they exhibited the highest performance for untransposed melodies. By comparison, the performance of melody recognition by listeners who did not have absolute pitch was not influenced by the actual pitch level at which melodies were played. These results suggest that absolute-pitch listeners tend to rely on absolute pitch even in recognizing transposed melodies, for which the absolute-pitch strategy is not useful.

Poststimulatory pitch shifts for pure tones

Changes in the pitch of a short tone pulse (25 msec, 1000 HZ), following a leading tone, were measured at various leading-tone frequencies and for various time intervals between the leading tone and the tone pulse. The results show that poststimulatory pitch shifts away from the pitch of the leading tone are significant and reproducible. It is suggested that poststimulatory pitch shifts may influence the results of various psychoacoustic experiments on pitch perception.

Prevalence of absolute pitch: a comparison between Japanese and Polish music students.

Comparable large-scale surveys including an on-site pitch-naming test were conducted with music students in Japan and Poland to obtain more convincing estimates of the prevalence of absolute pitch (AP) and examine how musical experience relates to AP. Participants with accurate AP (95% correct identification) accounted for 30% of the Japanese music students, but only 7% of the Polish music students. This difference in the performance of pitch naming was related to the difference in musical experience. Participants with AP had begun music training at an earlier age (6 years or earlier), and the average year of commencement of musical training was more than 2 years earlier for the Japanese music students than for the Polish students. The percentage of participants who had received early piano lessons was 94% for the Japanese musically trained students but was 72% for the Polish music students. Approximately one-third of the Japanese musically trained students had attended the Yamaha Music School, where lessons on piano or electric organ were given to preschool children in parallel with fixed-do solfège singing training. Such early music instruction was not as common in Poland. The relationship of AP with early music training is discussed.

Loudness level versus sound‐pressure level: A comparison of musical instruments

Loudness levels (LL) of musical scale segments played pianissimo and fortissimo were predicted for 11 orchestral instruments, using Zwicker’s and Stevens’ Mark VI procedures for loudness calculation. The results show that the dynamic LL range of musical instruments depends not only on the dynamic sound‐pressure level range, but is also influenced by changes in the spectral envelope that accompany the dynamic gradations of sound. As the sound is played louder, its bandwidth extends to high frequencies, and the increase in sound‐pressure level (SPL) is greater for the high partials than for the low ones. Due to spectral loudness summation, the changes in spectral envelope with playing level enhance the dynamic LL range of the sound. As a consequence, for most instruments the dynamic LL range in a given pitch register is larger than the dynamic SPL range in that register. The difference between the two ranges was found to be greatest for brass instruments and for the clarinet, and approached about 6 dB in certain pitch registers.

A psychophysical pitch function determined by absolute magnitude estimation and its relation to the musical pitch scale

A psychophysical pitch function, describing the relation of perceived magnitude of pitch to the frequency of a pure tone, was determined by absolute magnitude estimation. Pitch estimates were made by listeners with relative pitch and by absolute pitch possessors for 27 tones spanning a frequency range of 31.5-12,500 Hz in 1/3 octave steps. Results show that the pitch function, plotted in log-log coordinates, is steeper below 200 Hz than at higher frequencies. It is hypothesized that the pitch functions bend may reflect the diversity of neurophysiological mechanisms of pitch encoding in frequency ranges below and above 200 Hz. The variation of the functions slope implies that pitch distances between tones with the same frequency ratios are perceived as larger below 200 Hz than at higher frequencies. It is argued that this implication may apply only to a purely sensory concept of pitch distance and cannot be extended to the perception of musical intervals, a phenomenon governed by musical cognitive principles. The results also show that pitch functions obtained for listeners with relative and absolute pitch have a similar shape, which means that quantitative pitch relations determined for both groups of listeners do not differ appreciably along the frequency scale.

Absolute magnitude estimation of pitch

The pitch of 24 pure tones covering a frequency range of 63–12 500 Hz in 1/3‐oct. steps was measured by absolute magnitude estimation. The tones were presented monaurally at a loudness level of 60 phons. Tone duration was 1 s. Sixteen music students, not possessing absolute pitch served as subjects. The experiment was carried out in individual listening sessions. The subjects were instructed to assign a number to the tone in such a way that their impression of how large the number was matched their impression of the pitch of the tone. The results show that the pitch function plotted in log–log coordinates against frequency is considerably steeper below than above 250 Hz. A similar shape of the pitch function was found in a previous study in which narrow‐band noises were used [A. Rakowski, Proc. Fechner Day ’97, pp. 91–96]. It is hypothesized that the change of the pitch function steepness at 250 Hz may also be observed in the perception of musical intervals. Intervals in low pitch registers may be perceiv...

Musicians’ tendency to stretch larger‐than‐octave melodic intervals

Four musicians experienced in identifying musical intervals, but not possessing absolute pitch, tuned a pure‐tone oscillator in individual sessions to obtain various melodic intervals with a standard pure tone 500 Hz. Within a single task the standard and variable tones were interchanging until the intended value of a melodic musical interval was obtained. Stimuli were presented via earphones at a loudness level 50 phons. An isosonic filter was used to maintain equal loudness of tones. The variable oscillator was set at either very low or very high frequency at the beginning of each task. The range of 3 octaves above and 2 octaves below standard was investigated and each subject tuned each of the 60 musical intervals within this range 10 times. The sequence of tunings within each octave was quasirandom. The results are presented as mean deviations of each interval from its equally tempered value. The dispersion of results as well as intersubject and intrasubject variability is shown. A tendency appears to...

Sensory dissonance of two‐tone complexes

Sensory dissonance, a basically unpleasant auditory sensation related to amplitude or frequency modulation of sound, is an element of a broader concept of musical dissonance. The present study was carried out to determine the magnitude of sensory dissonance produced by beats in two‐tone complexes. The method of absolute magnitude estimation was employed for scaling. The measurements were obtained for tone frequencies ranging from 32 to 4000 Hz and beat frequencies ranging from 2 to 2000 Hz. The results show that at beat frequencies higher than 20 Hz, sensory dissonance is equivalent to roughness. The beat frequency at which the maximum of roughness and of sensory dissonance is observed increases with the frequency of the low tone in a complex, ranging from 20 for a 32‐Hz tone to about 100 for a 4000‐Hz tone. At beat frequencies lower than 20 Hz, sensory dissonance is produced by audible fluctuations of loudness. The effect of loudness fluctuations on sensory dissonance is most pronounced in the range of l...

Loudness levels of orchestral instruments.

The loudness levels of nonpercussive orchestral instruments were calculated from 1/3‐octave‐band sound pressure levels using Zwicker’s method, as well as Stevens’ Mark VI and Mark VII procedures. The sounds measured were scale segments played pianissimo and fortissimo in various pitch registers. Calculated for bowed instruments, the bassoon, and the oboe, the loudness of scales performed at a constant playing level is nearly invariant in different pitch registers. In contrast, for the flute, clarinet, and brass instruments, the loudness level markedly increases with increases in pitch. Zwicker’s method generally yields higher values of loudness level than both of Stevens’ procedures. The differences between Zwicker’s and Stevens’ phons are more pronounced in the low‐pitch registers than in the higher ones. Moreover, due to specific spectral characteristics of musical sounds, for most instruments the dynamic range of loudness predicted by Stevens’ procedures is larger than the corresponding range predicted...

Post‐stimulatory pitch shift and its dependence on signal parameters

The pitch of a short tone pulse may change if the pulse is immediately preceded by a filtered noise [A. Rakowski and A. Jaroszewski, Acustica 31, 326–329 (1974)], or a tone [W. M. Hartmann and B. J. Blumenstock, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 60, S40(A) (1976)]. The pitch shift of a tone pulse is usually away from the pitch of a preceding stimulus (“pitch repulsion”), but shifts towards the pitch of a leader have also been observed [L. S. Minick, R. Elmasian and R. Galambos, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 58, S83(A) (1975)]. In the present work the dependence of the effect on frequency difference and time interval between a leading and a probe tone, as well as on the duration and level of both tones has been investigated. The effect is non‐monotonic and exists even when the duration of both leading and probe tone is 25 ms. It is suggested that Post‐stimulatory Pitch Shift may influence the results of various psychoacoustic experiments involving comparisons of pitch and may also explain some aspects of musical practice.