Psychological Pitch Scale: Use in Musical Composition

Abstract

A subjective pitch scale, such as S. S. Stevens' mel scale, presents interesting possibilities for musical composition. In order to make the scale useful for composition, a computer analysis of the curve was made, which yielded a table of mels vs. frequency at 1-mel intervals. This scale, in which intervals of equal mel size are equal in subjective size throughout the audible frequency range, opens the way to some new concepts of melody and counterpoint. Possibilities for the use of the scale exist in composition for conventional instruments as well as in electronic music composition. A preliminary experiment was conducted comparing judgment of pitch intervals in the low- and high-frequency ranges of the scale with a standard interval in the 1000-cps range. Further experimentation is needed in several areas: (1) it seems probable that the extreme high-frequency range of the scale is not quite accurate; (2) the scale should be determined using complex tones; (3) the question of whether or not equal mel steps are equally discriminable needs clarification. Tape-recorded examples of the mel scale and its use in musical composition are presented.