Laszlo,
I cannot answer your question about loud rock music. But I would like to explain my point about classical tonal music in greater detail: The minor third A4-C5 in just tuning has fundamental frequencies of 440 Hz (A4) and 528 Hz (C5). The sixth harmonic of A4 and the fifth harmonic of C5 both have a frequency of 2640 Hz and so do not generate beats. The Equal-Temperament minor third A4-C5, however, has frequencies of 440 Hz (A4) and 523.251 Hz (C5). In this case, the mentioned harmonics have frequencies of 2640 Hz and 2616.256 and so generate about 24 beats per second, fairly disagreeable and thus making the ET third somewhat dissonant. These high harmonics are fairly soft even if the total loudness is high.
Reinhart.
----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----
Von: tothl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Datum: 24.09.2010 09:28
An: <AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Betreff: Re: Hearing Loss "False Positives"
On Thu, 23 Sep 2010, reinifrosch@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Old guys with undamaged hair cells have the advantage that they can fully
> enjoy classical tonal music with its change from dissonant to consonant
> chords and back. According to the Helmholtz consonance theory that
> change is due to the presence or absence of beats generated by pairs of
> partial tones of almost equal frequencies. These partials tend to be
> soft, and their frequencies tend to be high.
Do you know the answer to the opposite: why is rock music more enjoyable
loud? I think that it would be important to understand.
Laszlo Toth
Hungarian Academy of Sciences *
Research Group on Artificial Intelligence * "Failure only begins
e-mail: tothl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx * when you stop trying"
http://www.inf.u-szeged.hu/~tothl *
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Reinhart Frosch,
CH-5200 Brugg.
reinifrosch@xxxxxxxxxx .