Effects of Tone-Quality Changes on Intonation and Tone-Quality Ratings of High School and College Instrumentalists

Abstract

We investigated the effects of variations in tone quality on listeners' perception of both tone quality and intonation. University music and nonmusic major instrumentalists and high school students participating in instrumental ensembles served as listeners (N = 116). High-quality digital samples of clarinet, trumpet, and trombone tones were used. The original tone quality of each instrument was manipulated to produce experimental stimuli of "bright" and "dark" relative to the unaltered tone quality. Results indicated that the more inexperienced instrumentalists rated stimuli that were relatively "brighter" in tone quality as sharper in intonation, and conversely, stimuli of relatively "darker" tone quality were judged to beflatter in intonation. For the brass instruments, listeners judged the unaltered and bright tones as better in tone quality than tones that were relatively dark. However, for the clarinet tones, the bright tone quality was judged to be worse than unaltered or dark-quality stimuli.

Research to Resource: Evidence-Based Strategies for Improving Wind Intonation

“…One of the reasons that intonation is a challenging concept for developing musicians is that pitch and timbre have been shown to be mutually related (Feldman et al, 2016). In fact, researchers have previously reported that listeners mistook intonation for tone quality when they rated bright timbres as sharper in pitch and dark timbres as flatter in pitch (Geringer & Worthy, 1999; Wapnick & Freeman, 1980). Additionally, wind instrumentalists performed sharper when attempting to match bright-timbre stimuli and flatter when trying to match dark-timbre stimuli (Worthy, 2000).…”

“…Based on those studies, band directors should be aware of the potential for pitch-timbre confusion among their students (Geringer & Worthy, 1999; Wapnick & Freeman, 1980; Worthy, 2000) and evaluate the effects of timbral instructions to make certain that desired timbre changes do not unintentionally result in pitch changes (Springer et al, in press). When discussing relationships between pitch and timbre, aural models will likely be more effective than verbal instructions alone.…”

Microtonal Analysis of "Blue Notes" and the Blues Scale

“…245-6). The just noticeable difference studies in human pitch perception suggest that a singer will be unable to detect an error that is within a range of 5 to 25 cents depending on test conditions, pitch, and level of musical experience (Burns, 1999;Burns & Campbell, 1994;Burns & Ward, 1978;Geringer & Worthy, 1999;Houtsma, 1968;McDermott, Keebler, Micheyl, & Oxenham, 2010;Warrier & Zatorre, 2002;Zarate, Ritson, & Poeppel, 2012). This would lead one to expect a probability distribution spanning both sides of this radius based only on auditory perception.…”

A Comparison of Stimulus Variability in Lexical Tone and Melody Perception

“…Musicians (at least well-studied Western musicians) are sensitive to the structure of musical figures even when they are transposed, reflecting invariance and generalization across keys (Tervaniemi, Rytko¨nen, Schro¨ger, Ilmoniemi, & Na¨a¨ta¨nen, 2001). As with lexical tone, spectral (timbre) information aids in pitch perception, and this is subject to experience: more experienced musicians less likely to conflate timbre and tuning (Geringer & Worthy, 1999), and they perform better at intonation tasks in the timbre of their own (more familiar) instruments (Pantev, Roberts, Schulz, Engelien, & Ross, 2001;Pantev et al, 2003).…”