pitch of unresolved harmonics ("Alex Galembo, PhD" )

Subject: pitch of unresolved harmonics
From:    "Alex Galembo, PhD"  <alex(at)SPEECH.KTH.SE>
Date:    Fri, 11 Oct 2002 13:43:46 +0200

At 11:33 AM 10/10/2002 +0200, Martin Braun wrote:

>Outside the lab all sound is broad-band noise with varying amounts of
>periodic components. If these are strong enough, we hear pitch,
otherwise we
>don't.
>
>It is obvious that complex sound with only unresolved harmonics
produces a
>pitch perception. But such sound is non-existent in a natural
environment,
>and this pitch percept is weaker and slower than that caused by natural

>sound with resolved harmonics.

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?

Alex

--

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(at)speech.kth.se

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