Words that Describe Timbre: a Survey

[Mihir Sarkar <mihir@xxxxxxx>]

Hi,

Do you listen to music? Do you play music? Whatever your musical style, we would
love to hear what you have to say on the sounds of music! We are looking for
English-speaking individuals who are willing to describe sounds using everyday
words.

Results from this study will be used to find whether people use a common
vocabulary to describe sounds, and how a person's musical background affects
his or her choice of words. Ultimately we plan to build a system to describe
sounds automatically based on their audio characteristics, and thus facilitate
their retrieval from a database, and an audio processing engine to modify
sounds using everyday words instead of non-intuitive technical parameters.

In this survey, which we have strived to make interactive and fun, you will hear
one or more sounds and will be asked to describe them by choosing words
presented to you or by using your own words. This survey will take around 10
minutes at the minimum, but if you enjoy it you can continue for longer! :-)

You can take the survey online at:
http://www.media.mit.edu/~y_yang/perceptual

Please note that you need a multimedia computer with headphones or speakers.

For more information, please contact:
Mihir Sarkar(mihir@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, 617-253-0619),
or Yang Yang (y_yang@xxxxxxx, 978-430-0827).

Thanks!
Mihir

-- 
Mihir Sarkar
Graduate Research Assistant
Music, Mind and Machine Group
MIT Media Lab
+1 (617) 253-0619
mihir@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.media.mit.edu/~mihir