The role of timbre in the memorization of microtonal intervals
Rafael Ferrer Flores · 2007
The aim of this thesis was to determine if timbre has any effect in the memorization of melodic intervals. For this purpose, a test was developed in which 23 subjects heard an interval, and after 7 seconds of silence were played three options from which they had to select the original interval. The sound samples composing each target interval, had one control and three degrees of timbral modification. Such modifications consisted in altering the original partial structure of the sound samples. Spectral Modelling and Additive Synthesis techniques were used to realize these modifications. Results suggest that is possible to enhance or impair the ability of extracting cues for memorizing intervals by altering timbral structure.