roederer - the physics and psychophysics of music - an introduction 4e (springer, 2008)

The Physics and Psychophysics of Music An Introduction Fourth Edition Juan G. Roederer The Physics and Psychophysics of Music An Introduction Fourth Edition 123 Juan G. Roederer Geophysical Institute University of Alaska Fairbanks, AK 99775-7320 USA jgr@gi.alaska.edu ISBN: 978-0-387-09470-0 e-ISBN: 978-0-387-09474-8 DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-09474-8 Library of Congress Control Number: 2008937029 c  2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Cover credit: Organ: Groote Kerk, Haarlem (The Netherlands) Photo by the author Infant: EEG measurements of brain reactions to music Photo courtesy of Laurel Trainor, McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind, McMaster University, Canada Printed on acid-free paper springer.com Dedicated to the memory of my dear parents, who awakened and nurtured my love for science and music Preface This introductory text deals with the physical systems and biological processes that intervene in what we broadly call “music.” We shall analyze what objec- tive, physical properties of sound patterns are associated with what subjective, psychological sensations of music. We shall describe how these sound patterns are actually produced in musical instruments, how they propagate through the environment, and how they are detected by the ear and interpreted in the brain. We shall do all this by using the physicist’s language and his method of thought and analysis—without, however, using complicated mathematics. Although no previous knowledge of physics, physiology, and neurobiology is required, it is assumed that the reader possesses high-school educationand is familiar with basic aspects of music, in particular with musical notation, scales and intervals, musical instruments and typical musical “sensations.” Books are readily available on the fundamentals of physics of music (e.g., Benade, 1990; Pierce, 1983; Fletcher and Rossing, 1998; Johnston, 2003) and psychoacoustics, music psychology and perception (e.g., Plomp, 1976; Deutsch, 1982a; Zatorre and Peretz, 2001; Hartmann, 2005). An excellent text on musical acoustics is that of Sundberg (1991), still most useful 17 years later; compre- hensive discussions of recent researches on pitch perception and related audi- tory mechanisms can be found in Plack et al. (2005). The purpose of the present volume is not to duplicate but to synthesize and complement existing literature. Indeed, my original goal in writing this book in the seventies was to weave a close mesh between the disciplines of physics, acoustics, psychophysics, and neu- robiology and produce a single-authored truly interdisciplinary text on what is called “the science of music”—and this is still the goal of this fourth edition! I also hope that it will convey to the reader a bit of what I call “the music of science,” that is, the beauty and excitement of scientific research, reasoning and understanding. After the first 1973 edition, several reprints and two revised editions were published, as were translations into German, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese. These are all personally most gratifying indicators, especially in view of the fact that the subject in question was always more of a hobby for me (being a space physicist), than an official occupation! This Fourth Edition was prepared vii viii Preface under the motto “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Indeed, based on the fact that the previous edition has been called a “classic” by some reviewers, I felt that the main pedagogical structure of the book should be maintained intact, and that the only major changes should be restricted to updating some critical points, especially in the psychophysical and neurobiological areas. As a mat- ter of fact, I find it rather remarkable that many statements that were mere conjectures or speculations in the previous edition, have been verified in mea- surements and experiments and now can be presented as scientific facts in the text. One of the most painful parts of writing a book is deciding what topics should be left out, or grossly neglected, in view of the stringent limitations of space. No matter what the author does, there will always be someone bitterly complain- ing about this or that omission. Let me list here some of the subjects that were deliberately neglected or omitted—without venturing a justification. In the dis- cussion of the generation of musical tones mainly basic mechanisms are analyzed, to the detriment of the presentation of concrete musical situations. The human voice has been all but left out and so have discussions of inharmonic tones (bells and percussion instruments) and electronic tone generation; computer-generated music is not even mentioned. On the psychoacoustic side, only the perception of single or multiple sinusoidal tones is discussed, with no word on noise-band or pulse stimuli experiments. There is only very little on rhythm, stereo perception, and historical development. Finally, this being a book on an eminently interdis- ciplinary subject intended mainly for students from all disciplines and univer- sity levels, including those in lower division, many subjects had to be simplified considerably—and I apologize to the experts in the various disciplinary areas for occasionally sacrificing parochial detail for the benefit of ecumenical understand- ing. For the same reason, in the literature references priority was given to the quotation of reviews and comprehensive articles in sources of more widespread availability to the intended readership, rather than articles in specialized jour- nals. Detailed references of original articles can be found in many of the quoted reviews. The first edition was an offspring of a syllabus published by the Univer- sity of Denver for the students in a “Physics of Music” course, introduced at that university more than 35 years ago, which quickly turned into a “Physics and Psychophysics of Music” course. In addition to regular class work, the students were required to perform a series of acoustical and psychoacousti- cal experiments in a modest laboratory. Conducting such experiments, some of which will be described here, is essential for a clear comprehension of the principal concepts involved. Unfortunately they often require electronic equipment that is not readily available, even in well-equipped physics depart- ments. I ask that the readers trust the description of the experiments and believe that they really do turn out the way I say they do! Whenever possi- ble I shall indicate how a given experiment can be performed with the aid of ordinary musical equipment. For a list of possible errata, visit my personal Web page. Preface ix I am grateful to the director of the Geophysical Institute, Professor Roger Smith, for institutional support of my work, and to my wife Beatriz for her under- standing and tolerance of the “extracurricular” time spent on rewriting this book. Juan G. Roederer Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska-Fairbanks http://www.gi.alaska.edu/∼Roederer March 2008 Contents Preface v 1 The Science of Music and the Music of Science: A Multidisciplinary Overview 1 1.1 The Intervening Physical Systems 1 1.2 Characteristic Attributes of Musical Sounds 3 1.3 The Time Element in Music 6 1.4 Physics and Psychophysics 8 1.5 Psychophysics and Neuroscience 12 1.6 Neuroscience and InformaticsCondensed from Roederer (2005). 14 1.7 Informatics and Music: Why Is There Music? 17 2 Sound Vibrations, Pure Tones, and the Perception of Pitch 22 2.1 Motion and Vibration 22 2.2 Simple Harmonic Motion 26 2.3 Acoustic Vibrations and Pure Tone Sensations 27 2.4 Superposition of Pure Tones: First-Order Beats and the Critical Band 34 2.5 Other First-Order Effects: Combination Tones and Aural Harmonics 43 2.6 Second-Order Effects: Beats of Mistuned Consonances 46 2.7 Fundamental Tracking 49 2.8 Auditory Coding in the Peripheral Nervous System 55 2.9 Subjective Pitch and the Role of the Central Nervous System 63 3 Sound Waves, Acoustic Energy, and the Perception of Loudness 76 3.1 Elastic Waves, Force, Energy, and Power 76 3.2 Propagation Speed, Wavelength, and Acoustic Power 80 xi xii Contents 3.3 Superposition of Waves; Standing Waves 90 3.4 Intensity, Sound Intensity Level, and Loudness 93 3.5 The Loudness Perception Mechanism and Related Processes 104 3.6 Music from the Ears: Otoacoustic Emissions and Cochlear Mechanics 107 4 Generation of Musical Sounds, Complex Tones, and the Perception of Timbre 113 4.1 Standing Waves in a String 114 4.2 Generation of Complex Standing Vibrations in String Instruments 118 4.3 Sound Vibration Spectra and Resonance 126 4.4 Standing Longitudinal Waves in an Idealized Air Column 135 4.5 Generation of Complex Standing Vibrations in Wind Instruments 139 4.6 Sound Spectra of Wind Instrument Tones 145 4.7 Trapping and Absorption of Sound Waves in a Closed Environment 147 4.8 Perception of Pitch and Timbre of Musical Tones 152 4.9 Neural Processes Relevant to the Perception of Musical Tones 157 5 Superposition and Successions of Complex Tones and the Integral Perception of Music 167 5.1 Superposition of Complex Tones 167 5.2 The Sensation of Musical Consonance and Dissonance 170 5.3 Building Musical Scales 176 5.4 The Standard Scale and the Standard of Pitch 180 5.5 Why Are There Musical Scales? 183 5.6 Cognitive and Affective Brain Processes in Music Perception: Why Do We Respond Emotionally to Music? 185 5.7 Specialization of Speech and Music Processing in the Cerebral Hemispheres 190 5.8 Why Is There Music? 194 Appendix I: Some Quantitative Aspects of the Bowing Mechanism 199 Appendix II: Some Quantitative Aspects of Central Pitch Processor Models 202 Contents xiii Appendix III: Some Remarks on Teaching Physics and Psychophysics of Music 210 References 213 Index 221 [...]... wave music, ” the physical mechanisms by which they are generated and transmitted, and the correspondence between the characteristics of such patterns, the changes that they cause in the information-processing systems in the listener’s ear and brain, and the resulting sensations and feelings 1.7 Informatics and Music: Why Is There Music? The previous discussion may have irritated some readers Music, they... brain anatomy and neurophysiology; there are many traditional and modern books on these subjects available in medical libraries (e.g., Brodal, 1969; Hohne, 2001) 8 1 The Science of Music and the Music of Science 1.4 Physics and Psychophysics We may describe the principal objective of physics in the following way: To provide methods by means of which one can quantitatively predict the evolution of a... the words spoken or the music being played!) 1 Sound, of course, also propagates through liquids and solids J.G Roederer, The Physics and Psychophysics of Music, DOI: 10.1007/97 8-0 -3 8 7-0 947 4-8 1, C Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2008 1 2 1 The Science of Music and the Music of Science Let us have a second, closer look at the systems involved in music At the source, i.e., the musical instrument,... functions” of an animal brain—mainly its cerebral cortex—are environmental representation and prediction, and the planning of behavioral response, with the goal of maximizing the chances of survival and perpetuation of the species To accomplish this, the brain must, in the long term, acquire the necessary sensory information to make “floor plans” of spatial surroundings and discover cause -and- effect relationships... predicts the possible frequencies with which the string will vibrate if plucked or hit in a certain manner (Sect 4.3) Given the shape and dimensions of an organ pipe and the composition and the temperature of the gas inside (air), physics predicts the frequencies of the fundamental and overtones of the sound emitted when it is blown (Sect 4.5) In classical physics, “to predict” means to provide a mathematical... On the other hand, if the body is not small, but if from the particular circumstances we know beforehand that all points of the body are confined to move along straight lines parallel to each other (“rectilinear translation”), it, too, will suffice to specify the motion of just one given point of the body This is a “one-dimensional” case of motion, and the position of the given 22 J.G Roederer, The Physics. .. the measurement of a quantum system!) This difference is due not only to differences among individuals, but also to the conditioning that takes place in the case of repeated exposures In summary, the very complex feedback loops in the nervous system and the strategy of the brain of predicting in the short term what is to come (and then making corrections if 12 1 The Science of Music and the Music of. .. on the conditions in which the system is found at any one given time For instance, given an automobile of a certain mass and specifying the braking forces, physics allows us to predict how long it will take to bring the car to a halt and where it will come to a stop, provided we specify the position and the speed at the initial instant of time Given the mass, length, and tension of a violin string, physics. .. more than the study of brain function 1.5 Psychophysics and Neuroscience 13 and body, with a goal disconnected from the instantaneous requirements of survival (Sect 5.6) It can recall information at will without external or somatic stimulation, analyze it, and store in memory modified versions thereof for later use—we call this the human thinking process In addition, because of these “internal command”... construction and performance of an organism? It is not the digital pits on the CD, the notes on the pentagram, the air pressure oscillations in a sound wave, the neural activity in the brain, or the chemical bases of the DNA molecule—these all express information, but they are not the information Just shuffle them around or change their order ever so slightly and you may get noise, nonsense, or destroy an intended . The Physics and Psychophysics of Music An Introduction Fourth Edition Juan G. Roederer The Physics and Psychophysics of Music An Introduction Fourth Edition 123 Juan G. Roederer Geophysical. certain manner (Sect. 4.3). Given the shape and dimensions of an organ pipe and the composition and the temperature of the gas inside (air), physics predicts the frequencies of the fundamental and. define the words spoken or the music being played!). 1 Sound, of course, also propagates through liquids and solids. J.G. Roederer, The Physics and Psychophysics of Music, DOI: 10.1007/97 8-0 -3 8 7-0 947 4-8 1, C  Springer