piano tones confused with oboe, clarinet, flute and violin.

[Richard Moody]

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somebody posted... 
The attack and the decay were carefully excised, leaving the middle body
of the tone, with the premise (dangerous thing to have in pure research)
that without these, especially the attack, one would be hard pressed
(like some hammers) to tell the difference, say, between a clarinet and
an oboe.  After all this work, they rounded up the usual
suspects...er...experiment volunteer subjects, and found that indeed,
most of them couldn't tell the difference.  UNTIL, that is, a musician
spoke up and asked if the volunteer subjects had any idea of what these
instruments sounded like in the first place!!
 
 
I remember this back in the 60's in music class as a seventh grader??
They said by the miracle of modern recording techniques you could not
tell the difference between a piano tone and clarinets unless you heard
heard it from beginning to end.   so the attack and release was
"excised".    But sfw ?   (so freaking what?)   well t hose were the
days before 'relevance' had priorities in debate or inquiry even.
Actually the synthesizer people were vERy much interested but I was way
too young for that.   And yes I remember something about the volunteers
couldn't tell the instruments apart  but I still wonder at that because
as a seventh grader I could sure tell the instruments apart if they were
recorded naturally.  That is what the whole tape was about.  Back in the
5th grade we all heard Peter Wolf and Carnival of Animals so we all knew
what the oboe sounded like, it was the.......   ........   ummmm duh I
forgot...(the flute was a bird I tink)
 
     ---ric... (the "i" stands for "I will be reminded")  
                    www.pnotec.com 
"Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely."  Auguste
Rodin (1840-1917); French sculptor. 

 
 
 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On
Behalf Of Barbara Richmond
Sent: Friday, August 20, 2004 10:00 PM
To: Pianotech
Subject: Re: backchecks, magical mystery tour


OK, all of you who ever attended the PTG seminar class taught by Dr. Tom
Rossing (a physicist) at Northern Illinois University back in the mid to
late 80s raise your hands.  (Were you there Stan?)  If I remember
correctly, he played recordings of instruments (or maybe just the piano)
without the attack.  The piano (without the attack) sounded remarkably
like a pipe organ.  It was amazing.
 
Barbara Richmond, RPT

----- Original Message ----- 
From: J.  <mailto:jstan40@sbcglobal.net> Stanley Ryberg 
To: pianotech <mailto:pianotech@ptg.org>  
Sent: Friday, August 20, 2004 8:02 PM
Subject: Re: backchecks, magical mystery tour

Isaac Oleg writes:
 
I stay on the concept of the synchronism or a sequence that works
better for energy reasons. The noise indeed is "masked" in the attack
tone, that is what we do when tuning.
I have seen experiments where the action noise and attack noise was
separed from the tone, and if the tone of the piano was heard without
it it was barely recognized by an audience.

While I am not in a position just now to verify the following, I
remember speaking with an engineering professor who was a TA (teaching
assistant) during the Fetcher-Munson studies (which had to be mid-50s at
the latest).  One of the items from that study that we encounter daily
is the existence on our stereo systems of a "loudness control" switch,
or in some cases, a pot or slider.  It was determined by the study that
the human ear, at soft volume levels, loses high and low frequencies
more quickly than mid-range frequencies, thus the adjustment to bring
both ends of the spectrum up for use at low volume levels (the
Fletcher-Munson Curve).  Of course, we just flip the switch and leave it
there, but that's a whole other story!
 
A part of the study which I believe was NOT included in the final
version, was several months of work painstakingly editing (cutting and
splicing) audio tape, with different instruments (pretty much the entire
orchestra) playing the same note, with differences in register accounted
for by lower instruments playing lower octaves, upper instruments upper
octaves.  The attack and the decay were carefully excised, leaving the
middle body of the tone, with the premise (dangerous thing to have in
pure research) that without these, especially the attack, one would be
hard pressed (like some hammers) to tell the difference, say, between a
clarinet and an oboe.  After all this work, they rounded up the usual
suspects...er...experiment volunteer subjects, and found that indeed,
most of them couldn't tell the difference.  UNTIL, that is, a musician
spoke up and asked if the volunteer subjects had any idea of what these
instruments sounded like in the first place!!!  Back to the drawing
board, but this time, the same experiment with music students--and the
premise fell apart completely.
 
This is not exactly the same as what Isaac is relating, but it does seem
to obtain...interesting parallel, in any case!
 
Regards,


Stan Ryberg 
Barrington IL 
jstan40@sbcglobal.net


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