Audible Qualities
Casey O’Callaghan · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2007
Audible qualities depend upon physical properties ordinarily attributed to waves. The event view, however, holds that sounds are not waves. This chapter argues that the best candidates for the physical bases of pitch, timbre, and loudness are properties of medium-disturbing events. Periodicity, spectral composition, and intensity all may be attributed to sounds understood as events. A periodicity theory of pitch is outlined, loudness constancy explained, and a source-based account of timbre proposed.