Physics and Psychophysics of Music (eBook)

The author is a space scientist of international reputation with a close and active relation with music (he studied organ with the late maestros Héctor Zeoli in Buenos Aires and Hans Jendis in Göttingen), who organized and directed the international workshops on the Neuropsychological Foundations of Music at the Carinthian Music Festivals in Ossiach, Austria. These workshops, held regularly between 1973 and 1985, have been credited as being the originators of the interdisciplinary approach to the study of music perception. In 2007 he was invited to deliver the opening lecture on Music and the Evolution of Human Brain Function at the international congress Mozart and Science in Baden/Vienna, Austria.

Preface 6
Contents 9
The Science of Music and the Music of Science: A Multidisciplinary Overview 12
1.1 The Intervening Physical Systems 12
1.2 Characteristic Attributes of Musical Sounds 14
1.3 The Time Element in Music 17
1.4 Physics and Psychophysics 19
1.5 Psychophysics and Neuroscience 23
1.6 Neuroscience and Informatics 25
1.7 Informatics and Music: Why Is There Music? 28
Sound Vibrations, Pure Tones, and the Perception of Pitch 33
2.1 Motion and Vibration 33
2.2 Simple Harmonic Motion 37
2.3 Acoustic Vibrations and Pure Tone Sensations 38
2.4 Superposition of Pure Tones: First-Order Beats and the Critical Band 45
2.5 Other First-Order Effects: Combination Tones and Aural Harmonics 54
2.6 Second-Order Effects: Beats of Mistuned Consonances 57
2.7 Fundamental Tracking 60
2.8 Auditory Coding in the Peripheral Nervous System 66
2.9 Subjective Pitch and the Role of the Central Nervous System 74
Sound Waves, Acoustic Energy, and the Perception of Loudness 87
3.1 Elastic Waves, Force, Energy, and Power 87
3.2 Propagation Speed, Wavelength, and Acoustic Power 91
3.3 Superposition of Waves Standing Waves
3.4 Intensity, Sound Intensity Level, and Loudness 104
3.5 The Loudness Perception Mechanism and Related Processes 115
3.6 Music from the Ears: Otoacoustic Emissions and Cochlear Mechanics 118
Generation of Musical Sounds, Complex Tones, and the Perception of Timbre 124
4.1 Standing Waves in a String 125
4.2 Generation of Complex Standing Vibrations in String Instruments 129
4.3 Sound Vibration Spectra and Resonance 137
4.4 Standing Longitudinal Waves in an Idealized Air Column 146
4.5 Generation of Complex Standing Vibrations in Wind Instruments 150
4.6 Sound Spectra of Wind Instrument Tones 156
4.7 Trapping and Absorption of Sound Waves in a Closed Environment 158
4.8 Perception of Pitch and Timbre of Musical Tones 163
4.9 Neural Processes Relevant to the Perception of Musical Tones 168
Superposition and Successions of Complex Tones and the Integral Perception of Music 178
5.1 Superposition of Complex Tones 178
5.2 The Sensation of Musical Consonance and Dissonance 181
5.3 Building Musical Scales 187
5.4 The Standard Scale and the Standard of Pitch 191
5.5 Why Are There Musical Scales? 194
5.6 Cognitive and Affective Brain Processes in Music Perception: Why Do We Respond Emotionally to Music? 196
5.7 Specialization of Speech and Music Processing in the Cerebral Hemispheres 201
5.8 Why Is There Music? 205
Some Quantitative Aspects of the Bowing Mechanism 210
Some Quantitative Aspects of Central Pitch Processor Models 213
Some Remarks on Teaching Physics and Psychophysics of Music 221
Index 231
About the Author 237