Comparison of five perceptual timbre spaces of violin tones of different pitches
Jan Štěpánek, Zdeněk Otčenášek, Alois Melka · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1999
Violin timbre was studied for five tone pitches (H3, F ♯4, C5, G5, D6). A set of violin tones played on different instruments was recorded in an anechoic room. The recordings were subsequently manipulated to weaken an influence of tone transient parts on the perception. Two pair listening tests in headphones were performed for each pitch: timbre dissimilarity scaling test and spontaneous verbal description of timbre dissimilarities. A perceptual timbre space was constructed from the results of dissimilarity scaling test for each pitch using the multidimensional scaling method. Projections of verbal descriptions into the perceptual spaces enabled their external interpretation. Some perceptual attributes and pairs of attributes of violin timbre were established (‘‘narrow,’’ ‘‘rustle,’’ ‘‘soft’’–‘‘sharp,’’ ‘‘dark’’–‘‘bright,’’ ‘‘clear’’–‘‘blurred’’) based on correlation analysis of word occurrence frequencies on individual tones and on comparison of word projection coordinates in perceptual spaces. Comparing the results for five studied pitches it was possible to pronounce the hypothesis of salient violin timbre dimensions.