Article
Giving instruments a voice: Are there vowel-like qualities in the timbres of musical instruments? (de)
* Presenting author
Abstract:
Scholars have long explored similarities between musical instrument sounds and vowel qualities of human voice sounds. From a psychoacoustic standpoint, however, this relationship remains poorly understood. Here, we seek to address whether musical instruments truly exhibit vowel-like qualities, whether specific instruments, registers, and dynamic levels stand out, and what the acoustical correlates of this relation might be. In an online experiment, German native speakers listen to the sounds of oboe, clarinet, flute, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, French horn, tuba, violin, viola, cello, and double bass in three registers and two dynamic levels. Their task is to assign the following vowels and umlauts (in German pronunciation) to instrument sounds: A, Å, E, I, O, U, Ä, Ö, and Ü. Furthermore, participants rate the strength of vowel similarity. Preliminary analyses (of n=43 participants) suggest that although vowel similarity is rated approximately equally high, whereas vowel associations do not seem to be equally consistent for different instruments. Particular similarity is observed between bassoon and tuba with the vowel O, oboe and violin with the vowel I. Audio features will be used to model vowel similarity.