Finding perceptual dimensions of Styrian harmonica sounds (vor Ort)
* Presenting author
Abstract:
A common vocabulary is helpful for describing instrumental sounds, especially when discussing the impact of refinements in the construction on the perceived sound of an instrument. This study tries to find such a vocabulary for describing the sound of Styrian harmonicas using a repertory-grid-like procedure. First of all, recordings of different harmonicas have been made. Therefore a variety of defined melodic patterns (from single tones to short melodies) was played on each instrument. In a first experiment, for each recorded melodic pattern a pairwise comparisons of all harmonicas was conducted. For each pair, the listeners first made a dissimilarity judgement and then described the acoustic attribute which dominates the perceptual difference by a personal construct. Evaluating the dissimilarity ratings by multidimensional scaling showed a perceptual space with 5 relevant dimensions. Based on the harmonized personal constructs of all listeners 5 acoustic attributes were selected. For each of these attributes, the different harmonicas were rated in a MUSHRA-like experiment. The results of this second experiment are used to train computational models, which aim at predicting how the perceived sound of an instrument is affected by constructional refinements.
