Effect of Task Constraints on the Perceptual Evaluation of Violins

Abstract

SummaryResults from twop revious studies that involved free-playing evaluative tasks showed that players are selfconsistent in their preference for violins and tend to agree of what particular qualities theyl ook for in an instrument (int his case, "richness" and "dynamic range"). However, as ignificant lack of agreement between violinists wasobserved, likely because different players evaluate the same perceptual attributes in different ways. The present study thus investigated whether there will be more inter-player agreement if musicians evaluate violin richness and dynamic range by playing only certain notes in certain registers. Results showed that the more focused the task, the more self-consistent violinists are and the more theyagree with each other.Wefurther examined the evaluation of richness from playing versus listening tasks and observed that players were better able to discriminate between violins in the former than in the latter.Finally,the potential correlation of spectral centroid and tristimulus with violin richness were examined. Results showed that the perception of richness is likely associated with the relative amount of low-and mid-frequencypartials in agiven sound (i.e., lowspectral centroid and high tristimulus 1and 2),though more exploration would be necessary before drawing anyconclusions.

The Role of Haptic Cues in Musical Instrument Quality Perception

“…Analyses of intra-individual consistency and inter-player agreement in the (nonverbal) preference and attribute judgments showed that while violinists generally agreed on what particular attributes they look for in an instrument, the perceptual evaluation of the same attributes varied dramatically across individuals, thus resulting in large interplayer differences in the preference for violins. A third experiment [58] and studies by Fritz et al [26,27] and Wollman et al [66,67] reached similar conclusions.…”

Perceptual evaluation of violins: A psycholinguistic analysis of preference verbal descriptions by experienced musicians

“…1 and 2). The emergence of 496 shared conceptualization structures between musicians suggests, in line with our previous findings 497 ( Saitis et al, 2012Saitis et al, , 2015, that interindividual differences in the preference for violins originate (14), light (11), comfortable (8), quick (8), playability (7), flexible (6), ability to create different timbres (6), versatile (4), low action (2), predictable (2), maniable (2), liberty (2), solidité, cushioned, convenient to handle, enough room for control, reflexible, well-adjusted, small, touche agréable, fit bridge, to feel a healthy contact with the bow on the string, répondre au quart de tour, to give a lot back, to take a lot of weight from the bow, to stand up to what the player gives hard to play (5), heavy (3), uncomfortable (3), more effort (3), difficult to play (2), slow (2), missing of the tuning (2), bulky (2), big, gros, awkward, rigid, too light, labored vibrato, big neck, to fight with the instrument [to produce the desired sound]…”

Automatic Assessment of Tone Quality in Violin Music Performance

“…Similarly, Lukasik ( 2005 ) suggested associations among spectral centroid with bright/dark, and tristimulus 1 and 3 with deep/full and flat/empty, respectively. Saitis et al ( 2015 ) reported on associations among spectral centroid, tristimulus 2 and 3 with sound richness. Hermes et al ( 2016 ) reported high correlations among harmonic centroid and clarity.…”