Software Receiver Design: Build your Own Digital Communication System in Five Easy Steps

William A. Sethares

C. Richard Johnson Jr.

Andrew G. Klein

Cambridge University Press

6.4 Summary In the pursuit of genuinely xenharmonic music that does not sacrifice con sonance or depth of timbral material, this chapter presented three concrete examples of related tunings and spectra. The tingshaw bell and the Chaco rock showed how to take the spectrum of an existing sound, draw the disso nance curve, find the related scale, and build a playable "instrument." The crystal section showed how to take an arbitrary complex spectrum and to realize it in sound via a related partial-based scale. Despite the odd timbres and scales, the resulting music gives an impres sion of tonality or key. It has the surface feeling of tonality, but is unlike 19 anything possible in 12-tet. McLaren comments The Chaco Canyon Rock bounces from one inharmonic "scale mem ber" to another, producing an astonishing sense of consonance. The effect isn't identical to traditional tonality-yet it produces many of tonality's effects. One is instantly aware of "right" and "wrong" pitches, and there is a sense of spectral "progression." We call such music xentonal.

Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale

Science & Math

Physics

Springer

<p>Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale focuses on perceptions of consonance and dissonance, and how these are dependent on timbre. This also relates to musical scale: certain timbres sound more consonant in some scales than others. Sensory consonance and the ability to measure it have important implications for the design of audio devices and for musical theory and analysis. Applications include methods of adapting sounds for arbitrary scales, ways to specify scales for nonharmonic sounds, and techniques of sound manipulation based on maximizing (or minimizing) consonance. Special consideration is given here to a new method of adaptive tuning that can automatically adjust the tuning of a piece based its timbral character so as to minimize dissonance. Audio examples illustrating the ideas presented are provided on an accompanying CD. This unique analysis of sound and scale will be of interest to physicists and engineers working in acoustics, as well as to musicians and psychologists.</p>

Tuning Timbre Spectrum Scale

Arts & Photography

Music

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