Timbre Cues and the Identification of Musical Instruments

This study was designed to evaluate the relative importance of transients, harmonic structure, and vibrato as timbre cues in the absolute judgment of musical tones. Tape recordings were made of tones played, by experienced musicians in an anechoic chamber, on ten different instruments at three selected frequencies of the equally tempered scale. Appropriate retaping and splicing procedures provided five types of stimulus material: (1) entire tone (initial transients, steady state, and final transient); (2) entire tone (initial transients, shortened steady state, and final transients); (3) initial transients and steady-state portion only; (4) steady-state portion only; and (5) steady state and final transients only. The final test tape consisted of 300 randomly ordered tonal stimuli (10 instruments×3 frequencies×2 playing styles×5 types of tones). Twenty trained musicians were tested and retested on the final tape in two experimental sessions. Ss were provided with a reminder list of 39 instruments (grouped into classes), and were required, on hearing a test tone, to identify the appropriate instrument. The results of this study indicate that (1) some instruments are better identified than others, (2) absolute judgments are better at F4 than at C4 or A1, (3) a vibrato tone is better-identified than a nonvibrato tone, (4) initial transients with a steady-state portion of the tone produce the best identification, and (5) identification is significantly improved with practice. In general, discrimination was relatively poor, with only about 40% of the absolute judgments being correct.