Perception of musical interval tuning
Donald E. Hall · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1983
Pairs of tones have been generated under computer control and presented to musically trained subjects through headphones. Musical relevance is increased by using filtered pulse waves rather than sines. The stimulus intervals are harmonic (both tones heard simultaneously) rather than melodic. These intervals are mistuned in varying amounts in the vicinity of each traditional musical interval (e.g., around the 3:2 frequency ratio for the perfect fifth). Judgments of the relative degree of perceived mistuning are recorded and analyzed; although related to judgments of “dissonance,” these differ in significant ways. From the results we can infer relative ability to detect mistuning of different interval species. We find important differences from the traditional “consonance rank” ordering, and point out some implications for theories of keyboard tuning.