Computerized Sound Microscopy. Application of Sound Microscopy: Comparison of Notation by Ear and Sound-Microscopic Analysis Data on a Folk Fiddle Music Example

Abstract

Folk musicians often apply a technique, as expressed by them, to fortify sound. A folk fiddle player, mentioned in the referred paper of Lujza Tari,l also makes use of this special technique. Though it is easy to recognise this technique, it is difficult to explore the acoustic phenomenon by which this characteristic effect is realised. As artists implement it in a spontaneous and empirical way, the detailed process and the nature of the effect are unknown even to themselves. As mentioned in the first part of this series2 on computerized sound microscopy, the ear, although it can be considered as an extremely sensitive sensor, perceives the sound in its complexity, thus a more detailed sound analysis by ear can be achieved only after considerable musical training. Furthermore, beyond a certain limit, the ear is unable even to follow the variation in intensity of partials of sounds of short duration and quick spectrum variation (Tarnoczy, 1991). Therefore, a demand arised to analyse certain sequences of sounds by spectroscopy (Hesselmann, 1985), and to compare the result with the data of notation by ear. The aim of this paper is the intetpretation of the difference between the two notation methods.