Psychoacoustic criteria evaluates the quality of musical sounds

Abstract

This paper explains that psychoacoustic criteria evaluate the quality of musical sounds in terms of proficiency of performance. The tremolo performance played by mandolin is known as a performed sound produced by repetition of plucked strings, giving us the Fluctuation Strength. Authors confirms a relation that a musical sound evaluated as high from a psychoacoustic viewpoint will be evaluated as a proficient performance, which means the proficiency of music is highly correlated to a simple impression described by psychoacoustic criteria. Authors are also trying to construct an evaluation model for the aesthetics of four parts in the theory of harmony based on the Western classical music established in the seventeen century. The four parts are assumed here as a short musical signal, thought as appropriate for investigating the criteria on evaluating musical signals from a musical viewpoint. Here, the inhibition rules in the theory of harmony are investigated, by observing the characteristics of the inhibition rules. Therefore, four profiles of criteria are commonly found; a note, an interval, sequence of two notes and sequence of two intervals. These four profiles are thought as the basic criteria for evaluating the four parts in the theory of harmony. Finally, authors are trying to construct a conceptual and hierarchic model concerning the feeling the music subjectively, showing that all the impressions for musical signals are based on both simple (lower layer) and complex (upper layer) criteria. Relations between each layer of criteria are to be investigated in several subjective experiments, so that the model is expected to be clarified in the near future.