Re: pitch of unresolved harmonics

["Alex Galembo, PhD" <alex@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

To Martin Brown's message:

But "boring" bass tones consisting of several harmonics with equal amplitudes
produce pitch sensation. I think we just deal here with a temporal rather than
spectral perception. This is further confirmed by another observatiion:  timbre
of these tones depends on starting phase relations between harmonics.

And: I have not found any data on the critical bandwidth in the range below 100
Hz.

And a question:
Does the contradiction between Zwicker and Moore data of a critical bandwidth in
the low frequency range suggests that the Zwicker data are wrong?

Alex

Martin Braun wrote:

> Alex Galembo asked:
>
> > Well, the bass range of a piano (and other instruments in the same
> > range) is full of tones (notice: musical tones) having no resolved
> > harmonics at all (27.5 -55Hz are the fundamentals in the lowest octave
> > of a standard piano). What we hear then in these sounds?
>
> Hi Alex and List,
> If you build a boring e-piano where all harmonics have equal amplitudes and
> equal decay patterns, you indeed have no resolved harmonics in the low bass
> tones. But if you take a piano with strings, or with a digital simulation of
> strings, you have a great variation of amplitudes and decay patterns across
> the harmonics. In this case you always have some harmonics that are stronger
> than their adjacent companions. Many of them are resolved by the auditory
> system, and when the spectrally based periodicity detector in the midbrain
> sums up all periods that can be detected in the spectrum of your low bass
> tone, the result inevitably is the f0. Do the maths.
>
> Martin
>
> -------------------------------------------
> Martin Braun
> Neuroscience of Music
> S-671 95 Klässbol
> Sweden
> e-mail: nombraun@post.netlink.se
> web site: http://hem.netlink.se/~sbe29751/home.htm
> -------------------------------------------
>
> On the evolution of a fact in science:
> Stage 1 .......................... "Totally absurd stuff."
> Stage 2 .......................... "Interesting, but queer."
> Stage 3 .......................... "Correct, but unimportant."
> Stage 4 .......................... "I have always said this."
> [John BS Haldane (1892 - 1964), biologist]

--

Alexander Galembo, Ph.D.
Visiting researcher
Dept. of Speech, Music and Hearing
Royal Inst. of Technology
Stockholm, Sweden

Tel.        46-8-7907856
Fax         46-8-7907854

E-mail:     alex@speech.kth.se

WEB:        http://www.geocities.com/galembo_alex/