Rapport Entre la Hauteur Et Le Fondamental D'un Son Musical

Abstract

It is well known that pitch in a musical sense, and pitch as a psychological attribute of sound, are not linearly correlated. On the other hand a great deal of discussion is still going on concerning the physiological basis of pitch perception, various mechanisms having been proposed.

The experience here related, undertaken at the “groupe de recherches musicales” of O.R.T.F., Paris, is a first attempt of investigation of the interplay between the two above mentioned aspects of pitch. We feel that this kind of data will also throw some light on the physiological mechanism of pitch perception.

Observers were placed in a musical context by the type of stimuli chosen: a set of 64 instrumental notes covering a wide variety of musical timbres, and ranging in pitch between Eflat₁ (f = 38.8 cps) and Gflat₇ (f = 2959 cps). These sounds were presented either in their original form or filtered. Each sound was repeated three times, each time followed by a reference sound bearing a simple octave relation with it, such group being called a “sequence”; reference sounds were either sinusoïdal tones, or piano notes.