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Flexibility Conceiving Relationships between Timbres Revealed by Network Analysis
- Roger T. Dean, Felix Dobrowohl, Yvonne Leung
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- Journal:
- Organised Sound / Volume 28 / Issue 3 / December 2023
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 19 June 2023, pp. 407-420
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- December 2023
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Perceived relationships between timbres are critical in electroacoustic music. Most studies assume timbres have fixed inter-relationships, but we tested whether distinct tasks change these. Thirty short sounds were used, from five categories: acoustic instruments, impulse responses, convolutions of the preceding, environmental sounds and computer-manipulated instrumental sounds. In Task 1, 46 non-musicians formed a ‘cohesive’ sonic ordering of unlabelled icons (sounds attached). In Task 2, they categorised the icons into four boxes. In Task 3 listeners separately ordered the sounds from each of Task 2’s boxes using the approach of Task 1. Tasks 1 and 2/3 revealed distinct orderings, consistent with conceptual flexibility. To analyse the orderings, we replaced conventional distance by adjacency measures, and described each system as a network (rather than spatial positions), confirming that the two task outcomes were distinct. Network analyses also showed that the two systems were mechanistically distinct and allowed us to predict temporally changing networks, modelling the observed networks as successive perceptions. Further simulated networks generated with the temporal model readily encompassed all possible pairings between the sounds and not just those we observed. The temporal network model thus confirms conceptual flexibility even in untrained listeners, clearly suitable for a composer to use.
Controlling Perception Thresholds for Changing Timbres in Continuous Sounds
- Felix A. Dobrowohl, Andrew J. Milne, Roger T. Dean
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- Journal:
- Organised Sound / Volume 24 / Issue 1 / April 2019
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 30 May 2019, pp. 71-84
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- April 2019
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Perceptual dimensions underlying timbre and sound-source identification have received considerable scientific attention. While these scholarly insights help us in understanding the nature of sound within a multidimensional timbral space, they carry little meaning for the majority of musicians. To help address this, we conducted two experiments to establish listeners’ perceptual thresholds (PT) for changes in sound using a staircase-procedure. Unlike most timbre perception research, these changes were sonic manipulations that are common in synthesisers, audio processors and instruments familiar to musicians and producers, and occurred within continuous sounds (rather than between discrete pairs of sounds). In experiment 1, two sounds (variants of a sawtooth oscillation) both with the same fundamental frequency (F1: 80 Hz, 240 Hz or 600 Hz) were played with no intervening gap. In each trial, the two sounds’ partials differed in amplitudes or frequencies to produce a timbre change. The sonic manipulations were varied in size to detect thresholds for the perceived timbre change – listeners were instructed to indicate whether or not they perceived a change within the sound. In experiment 2, we modified stimulus presentation to introduce the factor of transition time (TT). Rather than occurring instantaneously (as in experiment 1), the timbre manipulations were introduced gradually over the course of a 100 ms or a 1000 ms TT. Results revealed that PTs were significantly affected by the manipulations in experiment 1, and additionally by TT in experiment 2. Importantly, the data revealed an interaction between the F1 and the timbre manipulations, such that there were differential effects of timbre changes on the perceptual system depending on pitch height. Musicians (n=11) showed significantly smaller PTs compared to non-musicians (n=10). However, PTs for musicians and non-musicians were highly correlated (r=.83) across different sonic manipulations, indicating similar perceptual patterns in both. We hope that by establishing PTs for commonly used timbre manipulations, we can provide musicians with a general perceptual unit, for each manipulation, that can guide music composition and assessment.
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- By Mitchell Aboulafia, Frederick Adams, Marilyn McCord Adams, Robert M. Adams, Laird Addis, James W. Allard, David Allison, William P. Alston, Karl Ameriks, C. Anthony Anderson, David Leech Anderson, Lanier Anderson, Roger Ariew, David Armstrong, Denis G. Arnold, E. J. Ashworth, Margaret Atherton, Robin Attfield, Bruce Aune, Edward Wilson Averill, Jody Azzouni, Kent Bach, Andrew Bailey, Lynne Rudder Baker, Thomas R. Baldwin, Jon Barwise, George Bealer, William Bechtel, Lawrence C. Becker, Mark A. Bedau, Ernst Behler, José A. Benardete, Ermanno Bencivenga, Jan Berg, Michael Bergmann, Robert L. Bernasconi, Sven Bernecker, Bernard Berofsky, Rod Bertolet, Charles J. Beyer, Christian Beyer, Joseph Bien, Joseph Bien, Peg Birmingham, Ivan Boh, James Bohman, Daniel Bonevac, Laurence BonJour, William J. Bouwsma, Raymond D. Bradley, Myles Brand, Richard B. Brandt, Michael E. Bratman, Stephen E. Braude, Daniel Breazeale, Angela Breitenbach, Jason Bridges, David O. Brink, Gordon G. Brittan, Justin Broackes, Dan W. Brock, Aaron Bronfman, Jeffrey E. Brower, Bartosz Brozek, Anthony Brueckner, Jeffrey Bub, Lara Buchak, Otavio Bueno, Ann E. Bumpus, Robert W. Burch, John Burgess, Arthur W. Burks, Panayot Butchvarov, Robert E. Butts, Marina Bykova, Patrick Byrne, David Carr, Noël Carroll, Edward S. Casey, Victor Caston, Victor Caston, Albert Casullo, Robert L. Causey, Alan K. L. Chan, Ruth Chang, Deen K. Chatterjee, Andrew Chignell, Roderick M. Chisholm, Kelly J. Clark, E. J. Coffman, Robin Collins, Brian P. Copenhaver, John Corcoran, John Cottingham, Roger Crisp, Frederick J. Crosson, Antonio S. Cua, Phillip D. Cummins, Martin Curd, Adam Cureton, Andrew Cutrofello, Stephen Darwall, Paul Sheldon Davies, Wayne A. Davis, Timothy Joseph Day, Claudio de Almeida, Mario De Caro, Mario De Caro, John Deigh, C. F. Delaney, Daniel C. Dennett, Michael R. DePaul, Michael Detlefsen, Daniel Trent Devereux, Philip E. Devine, John M. Dillon, Martin C. Dillon, Robert DiSalle, Mary Domski, Alan Donagan, Paul Draper, Fred Dretske, Mircea Dumitru, Wilhelm Dupré, Gerald Dworkin, John Earman, Ellery Eells, Catherine Z. Elgin, Berent Enç, Ronald P. Endicott, Edward Erwin, John Etchemendy, C. Stephen Evans, Susan L. Feagin, Solomon Feferman, Richard Feldman, Arthur Fine, Maurice A. Finocchiaro, William FitzPatrick, Richard E. Flathman, Gvozden Flego, Richard Foley, Graeme Forbes, Rainer Forst, Malcolm R. Forster, Daniel Fouke, Patrick Francken, Samuel Freeman, Elizabeth Fricker, Miranda Fricker, Michael Friedman, Michael Fuerstein, Richard A. Fumerton, Alan Gabbey, Pieranna Garavaso, Daniel Garber, Jorge L. A. Garcia, Robert K. Garcia, Don Garrett, Philip Gasper, Gerald Gaus, Berys Gaut, Bernard Gert, Roger F. Gibson, Cody Gilmore, Carl Ginet, Alan H. Goldman, Alvin I. Goldman, Alfonso Gömez-Lobo, Lenn E. Goodman, Robert M. Gordon, Stefan Gosepath, Jorge J. E. Gracia, Daniel W. Graham, George A. Graham, Peter J. Graham, Richard E. Grandy, I. Grattan-Guinness, John Greco, Philip T. Grier, Nicholas Griffin, Nicholas Griffin, David A. Griffiths, Paul J. Griffiths, Stephen R. Grimm, Charles L. Griswold, Charles B. Guignon, Pete A. Y. Gunter, Dimitri Gutas, Gary Gutting, Paul Guyer, Kwame Gyekye, Oscar A. Haac, Raul Hakli, Raul Hakli, Michael Hallett, Edward C. Halper, Jean Hampton, R. James Hankinson, K. R. Hanley, Russell Hardin, Robert M. Harnish, William Harper, David Harrah, Kevin Hart, Ali Hasan, William Hasker, John Haugeland, Roger Hausheer, William Heald, Peter Heath, Richard Heck, John F. Heil, Vincent F. Hendricks, Stephen Hetherington, Francis Heylighen, Kathleen Marie Higgins, Risto Hilpinen, Harold T. Hodes, Joshua Hoffman, Alan Holland, Robert L. Holmes, Richard Holton, Brad W. Hooker, Terence E. Horgan, Tamara Horowitz, Paul Horwich, Vittorio Hösle, Paul Hoβfeld, Daniel Howard-Snyder, Frances Howard-Snyder, Anne Hudson, Deal W. Hudson, Carl A. Huffman, David L. Hull, Patricia Huntington, Thomas Hurka, Paul Hurley, Rosalind Hursthouse, Guillermo Hurtado, Ronald E. Hustwit, Sarah Hutton, Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa, Harry A. Ide, David Ingram, Philip J. Ivanhoe, Alfred L. Ivry, Frank Jackson, Dale Jacquette, Joseph Jedwab, Richard Jeffrey, David Alan Johnson, Edward Johnson, Mark D. Jordan, Richard Joyce, Hwa Yol Jung, Robert Hillary Kane, Tomis Kapitan, Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley, James A. Keller, Ralph Kennedy, Sergei Khoruzhii, Jaegwon Kim, Yersu Kim, Nathan L. King, Patricia Kitcher, Peter D. Klein, E. D. Klemke, Virginia Klenk, George L. Kline, Christian Klotz, Simo Knuuttila, Joseph J. Kockelmans, Konstantin Kolenda, Sebastian Tomasz Kołodziejczyk, Isaac Kramnick, Richard Kraut, Fred Kroon, Manfred Kuehn, Steven T. Kuhn, Henry E. Kyburg, John Lachs, Jennifer Lackey, Stephen E. Lahey, Andrea Lavazza, Thomas H. Leahey, Joo Heung Lee, Keith Lehrer, Dorothy Leland, Noah M. Lemos, Ernest LePore, Sarah-Jane Leslie, Isaac Levi, Andrew Levine, Alan E. Lewis, Daniel E. Little, Shu-hsien Liu, Shu-hsien Liu, Alan K. L. Chan, Brian Loar, Lawrence B. Lombard, John Longeway, Dominic McIver Lopes, Michael J. Loux, E. J. Lowe, Steven Luper, Eugene C. Luschei, William G. Lycan, David Lyons, David Macarthur, Danielle Macbeth, Scott MacDonald, Jacob L. Mackey, Louis H. Mackey, Penelope Mackie, Edward H. Madden, Penelope Maddy, G. B. Madison, Bernd Magnus, Pekka Mäkelä, Rudolf A. Makkreel, David Manley, William E. Mann (W.E.M.), Vladimir Marchenkov, Peter Markie, Jean-Pierre Marquis, Ausonio Marras, Mike W. Martin, A. P. Martinich, William L. McBride, David McCabe, Storrs McCall, Hugh J. McCann, Robert N. McCauley, John J. McDermott, Sarah McGrath, Ralph McInerny, Daniel J. McKaughan, Thomas McKay, Michael McKinsey, Brian P. McLaughlin, Ernan McMullin, Anthonie Meijers, Jack W. Meiland, William Jason Melanson, Alfred R. Mele, Joseph R. Mendola, Christopher Menzel, Michael J. Meyer, Christian B. Miller, David W. Miller, Peter Millican, Robert N. Minor, Phillip Mitsis, James A. Montmarquet, Michael S. Moore, Tim Moore, Benjamin Morison, Donald R. Morrison, Stephen J. Morse, Paul K. Moser, Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, Ian Mueller, James Bernard Murphy, Mark C. Murphy, Steven Nadler, Jan Narveson, Alan Nelson, Jerome Neu, Samuel Newlands, Kai Nielsen, Ilkka Niiniluoto, Carlos G. Noreña, Calvin G. Normore, David Fate Norton, Nikolaj Nottelmann, Donald Nute, David S. Oderberg, Steve Odin, Michael O’Rourke, Willard G. Oxtoby, Heinz Paetzold, George S. Pappas, Anthony J. Parel, Lydia Patton, R. P. Peerenboom, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Adriaan T. Peperzak, Derk Pereboom, Jaroslav Peregrin, Glen Pettigrove, Philip Pettit, Edmund L. Pincoffs, Andrew Pinsent, Robert B. Pippin, Alvin Plantinga, Louis P. Pojman, Richard H. Popkin, John F. Post, Carl J. Posy, William J. Prior, Richard Purtill, Michael Quante, Philip L. Quinn, Philip L. Quinn, Elizabeth S. Radcliffe, Diana Raffman, Gerard Raulet, Stephen L. Read, Andrews Reath, Andrew Reisner, Nicholas Rescher, Henry S. Richardson, Robert C. Richardson, Thomas Ricketts, Wayne D. Riggs, Mark Roberts, Robert C. Roberts, Luke Robinson, Alexander Rosenberg, Gary Rosenkranz, Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Adina L. Roskies, William L. Rowe, T. M. Rudavsky, Michael Ruse, Bruce Russell, Lilly-Marlene Russow, Dan Ryder, R. M. Sainsbury, Joseph Salerno, Nathan Salmon, Wesley C. Salmon, Constantine Sandis, David H. Sanford, Marco Santambrogio, David Sapire, Ruth A. Saunders, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Charles Sayward, James P. Scanlan, Richard Schacht, Tamar Schapiro, Frederick F. Schmitt, Jerome B. Schneewind, Calvin O. Schrag, Alan D. Schrift, George F. Schumm, Jean-Loup Seban, David N. Sedley, Kenneth Seeskin, Krister Segerberg, Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Dennis M. Senchuk, James F. Sennett, William Lad Sessions, Stewart Shapiro, Tommie Shelby, Donald W. Sherburne, Christopher Shields, Roger A. Shiner, Sydney Shoemaker, Robert K. Shope, Kwong-loi Shun, Wilfried Sieg, A. John Simmons, Robert L. Simon, Marcus G. Singer, Georgette Sinkler, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Matti T. Sintonen, Lawrence Sklar, Brian Skyrms, Robert C. Sleigh, Michael Anthony Slote, Hans Sluga, Barry Smith, Michael Smith, Robin Smith, Robert Sokolowski, Robert C. Solomon, Marta Soniewicka, Philip Soper, Ernest Sosa, Nicholas Southwood, Paul Vincent Spade, T. L. S. Sprigge, Eric O. Springsted, George J. Stack, Rebecca Stangl, Jason Stanley, Florian Steinberger, Sören Stenlund, Christopher Stephens, James P. Sterba, Josef Stern, Matthias Steup, M. A. Stewart, Leopold Stubenberg, Edith Dudley Sulla, Frederick Suppe, Jere Paul Surber, David George Sussman, Sigrún Svavarsdóttir, Zeno G. Swijtink, Richard Swinburne, Charles C. Taliaferro, Robert B. Talisse, John Tasioulas, Paul Teller, Larry S. Temkin, Mark Textor, H. S. Thayer, Peter Thielke, Alan Thomas, Amie L. Thomasson, Katherine Thomson-Jones, Joshua C. Thurow, Vzalerie Tiberius, Terrence N. Tice, Paul Tidman, Mark C. Timmons, William Tolhurst, James E. Tomberlin, Rosemarie Tong, Lawrence Torcello, Kelly Trogdon, J. D. Trout, Robert E. Tully, Raimo Tuomela, John Turri, Martin M. Tweedale, Thomas Uebel, Jennifer Uleman, James Van Cleve, Harry van der Linden, Peter van Inwagen, Bryan W. Van Norden, René van Woudenberg, Donald Phillip Verene, Samantha Vice, Thomas Vinci, Donald Wayne Viney, Barbara Von Eckardt, Peter B. M. Vranas, Steven J. Wagner, William J. Wainwright, Paul E. Walker, Robert E. Wall, Craig Walton, Douglas Walton, Eric Watkins, Richard A. Watson, Michael V. Wedin, Rudolph H. Weingartner, Paul Weirich, Paul J. Weithman, Carl Wellman, Howard Wettstein, Samuel C. Wheeler, Stephen A. White, Jennifer Whiting, Edward R. Wierenga, Michael Williams, Fred Wilson, W. Kent Wilson, Kenneth P. Winkler, John F. Wippel, Jan Woleński, Allan B. Wolter, Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, Rega Wood, W. Jay Wood, Paul Woodruff, Alison Wylie, Gideon Yaffe, Takashi Yagisawa, Yutaka Yamamoto, Keith E. Yandell, Xiaomei Yang, Dean Zimmerman, Günter Zoller, Catherine Zuckert, Michael Zuckert, Jack A. Zupko (J.A.Z.)
- Edited by Robert Audi, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
- Published online:
- 05 August 2015
- Print publication:
- 27 April 2015, pp ix-xxx
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- By Louise Arseneault, Sagnik Bhattacharyya, Mary Cannon, Maria Grazia Cascio, David Castle, Suman Chandra, Carolyn Coffey, David Copolov, Dean Brian, Louisa Degenhardt, Marta Di Forti, Mahmoud ElSohly, Ismael Galve-Roperh, Wayne Hall, Lumir Hanus, Cécile Henquet, Leanne Hides, Leslie Iversen, Wynne James, David J. Kavanagh, Koethe Dagmar, Rebecca Kuepper, Don Linszen, Valentina Lorenzetti, Dan Lubman, Michael Lynskey, Philip McGuire, Raphael Mechoulam, Zlatko Mehmedic, Paul Morrison, Kim T. Mueser, Sir Robin M. Murray, George Patton, Roger Pertwee, Nicole Pesa, Mohini Ranganathan, Miriam Schneider, Andrew Sewell, Silberberg Carol, Patrick D. Skosnik, Desmond Slade, Nadia Solowij, Deepak Cyril D’Souza, Sundram Suresh, Thérèse van Ameisvoort, van Os Jim, Verdoux Hélène, Murat Yücel, Zammit Stanley
- Edited by David Castle, University of Melbourne, Robin M. Murray, Deepak Cyril D'Souza, Yale University, Connecticut
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- Book:
- Marijuana and Madness
- Published online:
- 05 November 2011
- Print publication:
- 27 October 2011, pp vii-x
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- By Waiel Almoustadi, Brian J. Anderson, David B. Auyong, Michael Avidan, Michael J. Avram, Roland J. Bainton, Jeffrey R. Balser, Juliana Barr, W. Scott Beattie, Manfred Blobner, T. Andrew Bowdle, Walter A. Boyle, Eugene B. Campbell, Laura F. Cavallone, Mario Cibelli, C. Michael Crowder, Ola Dale, M. Frances Davies, Mark Dershwitz, George Despotis, Clifford S. Deutschman, Brian S. Donahue, Marcel E. Durieux, Thomas J. Ebert, Talmage D. Egan, Helge Eilers, E. Wesley Ely, Charles W. Emala, Alex S. Evers, Heidrun Fink, Pierre Foëx, Stuart A. Forman, Helen F. Galley, Josephine M. Garcia-Ferrer, Robert W. Gereau, Tony Gin, David Glick, B. Joseph Guglielmo, Dhanesh K. Gupta, Howard B. Gutstein, Robert G. Hahn, Greg B. Hammer, Brian P. Head, Helen Higham, Laureen Hill, Kirk Hogan, Charles W. Hogue, Christopher G. Hughes, Eric Jacobsohn, Roger A. Johns, Dean R. Jones, Max Kelz, Evan D. Kharasch, Ellen W. King, W. Andrew Kofke, Tom C. Krejcie, Richard M. Langford, H. T. Lee, Isobel Lever, Jerrold H. Levy, J. Lance Lichtor, Larry Lindenbaum, Hung Pin Liu, Geoff Lockwood, Alex Macario, Conan MacDougall, M. B. MacIver, Aman Mahajan, Nándor Marczin, J. A. Jeevendra Martyn, George A. Mashour, Mervyn Maze, Thomas McDowell, Stuart McGrane, Berend Mets, Patrick Meybohm, Charles F. Minto, Jonathan Moss, Mohamed Naguib, Istvan Nagy, Nick Oliver, Paul S. Pagel, Pratik P. Pandharipande, Piyush Patel, Andrew J. Patterson, Robert A. Pearce, Ronald G. Pearl, Misha Perouansky, Kristof Racz, Chinniampalayam Rajamohan, Nilesh Randive, Imre Redai, Stephen Robinson, Richard W. Rosenquist, Carl E. Rosow, Uwe Rudolph, Francis V. Salinas, Robert D. Sanders, Sunita Sastry, Michael Schäfer, Jens Scholz, Thomas W. Schnider, Mark A. Schumacher, John W. Sear, Frédérique S. Servin, Jeffrey H. Silverstein, Tom De Smet, Martin Smith, Joe Henry Steinbach, Markus Steinfath, David F. Stowe, Gary R. Strichartz, Michel M. R. F. Struys, Isao Tsuneyoshi, Robert A. Veselis, Arthur Wallace, Robert P. Walt, David C. Warltier, Nigel R. Webster, Jeanine Wiener-Kronish, Troy Wildes, Paul Wischmeyer, Ling-Gang Wu, Stephen Yang
- Edited by Alex S. Evers, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, Mervyn Maze, University of California, San Francisco, Evan D. Kharasch, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis
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- Book:
- Anesthetic Pharmacology
- Published online:
- 11 April 2011
- Print publication:
- 10 March 2011, pp viii-xiv
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A Rise–Fall Temporal Asymmetry of Intensity in Composed and Improvised Electroacoustic Music
- Roger T. Dean, Freya Bailes
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- Journal:
- Organised Sound / Volume 15 / Issue 2 / August 2010
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 06 July 2010, pp. 147-158
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- August 2010
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A computational analysis of temporal patterns of acoustic intensity is applied to a series of recorded electroacoustic works in order to discern whether there are recurrent patterns in the intensity rise–fall structure. The works range from 1962 (Xenakis) to 2001 (Normandeau), and include composition and improvisation, large-scale (>25 minutes) and small-scale (<2 minutes) pieces, and acoustic, electronic and manipulated and synthesised sound. Contrary to Huron’s 1991 finding of long and gradual crescendi compared to short and abrupt decrescendi in classical music notation, it is found that in successive rise–fall events the rise phase (crescendo) is commonly shorter than the fall, and has a greater absolute rate of change of intensity than the fall. Correspondingly, crescendi occupy a smaller portion of the piece than decrescendi. When categorised into dynamic steps (such as p, mp, mf etc.), crescendi are usually less numerous than decrescendi. The results are considered from a cognitive point of view, in that this structuring may influence and thus result from listener attention and arousal patterns; and from a creator/performer point of view, in that embodied or virtualised effort may be key to the impact of an electroacoustic piece.
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- By Katherine J. Aitchison, Louis Appleby, John Bancroft, Aaron T. Beck, Sidney Bloch, Marc B. J. Blom, Roger Bloor, Anne Buist, Alistair Burns, E. Jane Byrne, Paul Carey, David J. Castle, Alex Cohen, Michael Craig, Ilana B. Crome, Kimberlie Dean, Tom Fahy, Anne E. Farmer, Michael Farrell, Alan J. Flisher, Glen O. Gabbard, Ragy R. Girgis, Sir David Goldberg, Ian M. Goodyer, Wayne Hall, Edwin Harari, Anthony Holland, Matthew Hotopf, Assen Jablensky, Navneet Kapur, Shitij Kapur, Kenneth S. Kendler, Sean Lennon, Jeffrey A. Lieberman, David Mamo, Peter McGuffin, Paul E. Mullen, Robin Murray, David Ndegwa, Jessica R. Nittler, Vikram Patel, Perminder Sachdev, Ulrike Schmidt, Scott A. Schobel, Jan Scott, Pak C. Sham, Dan J. Stein, Ezra Susser, Michele Tansella, Graham Thornicroft, Janet Treasure, Evangelia M. Tsapakis, André Tylee, Peter Tyrer, Jim van Os, Elizabeth Walsh, Paul Walters, Myrna M. Weissman, Simon Wessely, Marieke Wichers, Kimberly Yonkers
- Edited by Robin M. Murray, King's College London, Kenneth S. Kendler, Virginia Commonwealth University, Peter McGuffin, University of Wales College of Medicine, Simon Wessely, Institute of Psychiatry, London, David J. Castle, University of Melbourne
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- Book:
- Essential Psychiatry
- Published online:
- 22 August 2009
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- 18 September 2008, pp vii-xi
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‘Human understanding’ in imagining and organising sound: some implications of John Locke's Essay for ecological, cognitive and embodied approaches to composition
- Roger T Dean, Freya Bailes
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- Journal:
- Organised Sound / Volume 12 / Issue 1 / April 2007
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 05 April 2007, pp. 89-95
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- April 2007
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We discuss John Locke's ideas in his essay of 1690 on sound and its cognition and relation to bodily motion. The ideas have interesting implications for the construction of organised sound. We argue that our ecological and statistical experience of sounds in our natural (and man-made) environment is in several respects critical for our choices as soundsmiths and our impressions as listeners. Sonic repetition, both sensory and imag(in)ed, contributes to that environment. Input sounds may be ‘coupled’ to output sounds; and in some cases the physical processes generating sound and the cognitive processes of receiving them are joined. As music technologists we may think of the computer, our sonic vehicle, as a joined bodily sonic-prosthesis. ‘Simple’ sonic ideas may associate with each other through shared biological bases, and become tools for creation of ‘complex’ ideas, as Locke cogitates. Furthermore, we now have new routes towards such complex sounds, including our computer prostheses.
16 - Jazz, improvisation and brass
- Edited by Trevor Herbert, The Open University, Milton Keynes, John Wallace
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Companion to Brass Instruments
- Published online:
- 28 September 2011
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- 13 October 1997, pp 217-235
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Summary
In music, improvisation is a process in which a major portion of the resultant performance is not prearranged or anticipated. It is generated by the creator(s) during a performance. The degree to which improvisation is important varies between different musical styles, but in jazz it is virtually always central. The nature and definition of improvisation are complex issues which have been discussed in detail elsewhere. For the particularly technical purposes of the present book, it is noteworthy that improvisation commonly involves a redrawing of the assumed ground of a musical form, through instrumental technique, just as much as by musical vocabulary or structure. As John Corbett entertainingly puts it:
Old Pat Question: How does an improviser improvise?
New Pat Answer: By developing and employing a repertoire of possibilities in order to risk the unknown.
Jazz is a music of the twentieth century which originated in the USA from Afro-American traditions. It achieves improvised intensification by rhythmic repetition and cyclic harmonic repetition. Much jazz involves 4/4 metre, with considerable accentuation of the constituent pulses, and a vital concern with syncopation, of a subtle and complex kind. The syncopation is not simply displacing strong beats to their half-point or by whole beats, but also making irregular displacements, often in complex subdivisions of triplets and quintuplets, and accompanied by large, abrupt and transient variations in dynamic and/or emphasis: these are components of the special rhythmic ‘swing’ inherent in most jazz.