HUMS1008 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Critical Band, Absolute Pitch, Amusia
16 May 2018
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HUMS1008 – Lecture 3: Perception: from sound to music (Wednesday, 14th March)
Plan
- The basic music signal (psychoacoustics)
o The cochlea pith, loudness, timbre, and complex tones
- Combination of tones and the critical band
o Harmony, consonance, dissonance, and critical band
- Rhythm, pulse, eat and meter
The cochlea: the organ of hearing
- From playing to hearing
o Musical sounds are usually produced by hitting, scraping or blowing something
which is then set into vibration
o A lot happes to the “soud of usic from this point before it reaches, and
becomes processed by the brain
o Much pre-processig happens in the organ of hearing, the cochlea
- sound enters the ear canal and hit the tympanic membrane which transfers the sound o the
cochlea
pitch
- created by air moving and the particles being displaced
- e.g. the strings of a guitar is plucked, causes the air to move and thus the particles are
displaced, making a certain pitch
- particles of air vibrating at a rapid speed enters ear and can produce a sensation of sound
- vibrating particles need to vibrate about 20 times per second before being perceived as a
steady tone as
- as the number vibrations icreases, e perceie a icrease i pitch
- highest pitch that a human can hear is 20,000Hz
- humans cannot hear pitches that are the results of vibrations faster than 20,000 per second.
just noticeable difference : can distinguish frequencies lower than 3 Hz
- humans cannot hear differences in pitch if it is less than 3 Hz - just noticeable frequency
-
pitch perception
- Double the frequency vibrations in the physical world to increase one octave
- Two component theory of musical pitch
o Spiral that has notes on it (c-B)
- Octave equivalence increases of one octave – doubling of the frequency of vibration
- Usually perceived in categories , called pitch chroma
o In most western music there are 12 repeated In each octave
- Relative vs absolute pitch
o Absolute rare, but depends on how it is defined
Congenital amusia
- Not everyone perceives pitch with the same acuity
- toe deaf people exhibit deficits in pitch discrimination
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Hums1008 lecture 3: perception: from sound to music (wednesday, 14th march) The basic music signal (psychoacoustics: the cochlea pith, loudness, timbre, and complex tones. Combination of tones and the critical band: harmony, consonance, dissonance, and critical band. Highest pitch that a human can hear is 20,000hz. Humans cannot hear pitches that are the results of vibrations faster than 20,000 per second. just noticeable difference : can distinguish frequencies lower than 3 hz. Humans cannot hear differences in pitch if it is less than 3 hz - just noticeable frequency pitch perception. Double the frequency vibrations in the physical world to increase one octave. Two component theory of musical pitch: spiral that has notes on it (c-b) Octave equivalence increases of one octave doubling of the frequency of vibration. Usually perceived in categories , called pitch chroma. In most western music there are 12 repeated in each octave. Relative vs absolute pitch: absolute rare, but depends on how it is defined.
