Musical Sounds Research Articles

Children's and Caregivers' Review of a Guided Imagery Therapy Mobile App Designed to Treat Children With Functional Abdominal Pain Disorders: Leveraging a Mixed Methods Approach With User-Centered Design.

Functional abdominal pain disorders (FAPDs) are highly prevalent and associated with substantial morbidity. Guided imagery therapy (GIT) is efficacious; however, barriers often impede patient access. Therefore, we developed a GIT mobile app as a novel delivery platform. Guided by user-centered design, this study captured the critiques of our GIT app from children with FAPDs and their caregivers. Children aged 7 to 12 years with Rome IV-defined FAPDs and their caregivers were enrolled. The participants completed a software evaluation, which assessed how well they executed specific app tasks: opening the app, logging in, initiating a session, setting the reminder notification time, and exiting the app. Difficulties in completing these tasks were tallied. After this evaluation, the participants independently completed a System Usability Scale survey. Finally, the children and caregivers were separately interviewed to capture their thoughts about the app. Using a hybrid thematic analysis approach, 2 independent coders coded the interview transcripts using a shared codebook. Data integration occurred after the qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed, and the collective results were summarized. We enrolled 16 child-caregiver dyads. The average age of the children was 9.0 (SD 1.6) years, and 69% (11/16) were female. The System Usability Scale average scores were above average at 78.2 (SD 12.6) and 78.0 (SD 13.5) for the children and caregivers, respectively. The software evaluation revealed favorable usability for most tasks, but 75% (12/16) of children and 69% (11/16) of caregivers had difficulty setting the reminder notification. The children's interviews confirmed the app's usability as favorable but noted difficulty in locating the reminder notification. The children recommended adding exciting scenery and animations to the session screen. Their preferred topics were animals, beaches, swimming, and forests. They also recommended adding soft sounds related to the session topic. Finally, they suggested that adding app gamification enhancements using tangible and intangible rewards for listening to the sessions would promote regular use. The caregivers also assessed the app's usability as favorable but verified the difficulty in locating the reminder notification. They preferred a beach setting, and theme-related music and nature sounds were recommended to augment the session narration. App interface suggestions included increasing the font and image sizes. They also thought that the app's ability to relieve gastrointestinal symptoms and gamification enhancements using tangible and intangible incentives would positively influence the children's motivation to use the app regularly. Data integration revealed that the GIT app had above-average usability. Usability challenges included locating the reminder notification feature and esthetics affecting navigation. Children and caregivers rated our GIT app's usability favorably, offered suggestions to improve its appearance and session content, and recommended rewards to promote its regular use. Their feedback will inform future app refinements.

Holding Tightly: Co-Mingling, Life-Flourishing and Filmic Ecologies

ABSTRACT Firmly emplaced within a soundscape incorporating movement, prayer, music, human-made and environmental sounds, the film Holding Tightly (2021) closely observes the performance and practice of a series of healing encounters in the Baucau Municipality of Timor-Leste. The lakadou (tubed zither) played in consort with dance in the opening and closing scenes is used by ritual specialists to communicate with the dai (ancestral nature spirit), which will eventually enable good health and more-than-human flourishing. Integral to conveying a sense of such flourishing are the sounds of everyday Timorese life which are pronounced in the film. The combination of rich and lively co-mingled soundscapes with the variety of healing modalities and exchanges depicted allows the audience to be drawn into the complexities and textures of Timorese pathways and aspirations for life-flourishing. Such flourishing emerges from forms of belief and care that are grounded in deep connections and exchanges between people and their environments. In this paper we explore the ways in which the relational sonic and visual richness of experience recorded in film opens new and productive ways of working with Indigenous knowledge and thinking about ecology.

Exotic Toys, Musical Centralities and Power Reversals: The Early Reception of European Keyboard Music and Instruments in East Asia 20

Western music first achieved a sustained presence in East Asia during the sixteenth century, brought to this ‘distant’ region by European traders and missionaries. However, its dissemination remained limited for some three centuries to specific locales such as the area of southern Japan around Nagasaki and the Chinese imperial court in Beijing. Even so, investigation of the early phases of this cross [1]cultural encounter helps to illuminate the process by which Asian listeners gradually assimilated the alien quality of Europe’s musical sounds as transmitted especially by its keyboard instruments, to such a degree that these came to function as a native language of sorts. The present article will discuss the following aspects: the exotic fascination with the technological complexity of the foreigners’ musical devices, taking precedence over any aesthetic engagement with the music; the initial clash and then shift in musical centralities in the sense formulated by Bruno Nettl, that is, the selective emphasis of parameters (e.g. polyphony, timbre) that define musical creation, listening and thought; the applicability to the history of Sino-Western exchange of Emily Dolan’s notion of ‘keyboardisation’, an idiosyncratic reconceptualisation of musical content that would eventually acquire normative force; questions of colonisation and reverse colonisation in understanding the complex power dynamics that shaped this global musical encounter.

Auditory-inspired adaptive frequency tracking

One of the best frequency trackers to date is the human (mammalian) auditory system, which has evolved through millions of years of resolving classification problems. It is a versatile, elegant and powerful sound processing unit. It excels in detecting, estimating, and classifying multiple targets simultaneously even in noisy environments. Hence, mimicking even some features of the auditory system could be beneficial in developing superior frequency tracking and classification algorithms. An auditory inspired adaptive synchrony capture filterbank (SCFB) signal processing architecture for tracking signal frequency components was proposed in a related paper [JASA (2013)]. The SCFB architecture consists of a fixed array of traditional, passive linear, gammatone filters in cascade with a bank of three adaptively tunable bandpass filters that form a frequency-discriminator-loop (FDL). The SCFB exhibits many desirable properties for processing speech, music, and other complex sounds. In recent work (Dec 2021), the algorithm was modified using adaptive tuning parameters, and a generalized way to determine/suppress voiced and unvoiced (silent) regions. This modified algorithm estimates frequencies with higher accuracy even in the presence of closely spaced input tones. Preliminary analysis with synthetic, human speech and humpback/whale-call signals demonstrates that the revised algorithm performs well. This talk will focus on the latest updates.

13. The Acoustic Analysis of Violins and the Artistic Impressions Evaluated by Musicians

Abstract Violin studies can be classified into two main types: psychoacoustic studies, which are based on the artistic perception of audibility by violinists and vibro-acoustic studies, which are based on the spectral analysis of the vibrations and sounds produced by the instruments. The paper presents the acoustic analysis of violins by means of specialized software, their main acoustic characteristics being extracted in the form of frequency spectrum, spectrograms, specific modes and number of harmonics. These results were compared with the results of the opinion poll among musicians regarding the acoustic qualities of violins, based on musical auditions. The results highlighted the fact that the acoustic analysis technique cannot detect in totality the psycho-acoustic effects of musical sounds, therefore the establishment of the acoustic quality of the instruments on objective foundations, since the personal touch of an instrumental artist aims at the approach and articulation of the musical discourse, in a complex manner, combined with the interpretation of forms and styles.

Laboratory measurements for objective evaluation of earplug fidelity

Musicians and concertgoers can easily be exposed to dangerously high noise doses that lead to hearing loss, and earplug use is often encouraged during loud musical performances. Traditional earplugs for industrial use can distort musical signals reaching the ear to the extent that users find their use disorienting and uncomfortable. High fidelity earplugs are designed to preserve musical sounds better than traditional earplugs by presenting a flat spectral attenuation of sound reaching the ears. At present, it’s not clear how to quantitatively compare different models in an analogous way to other devices in the high-fidelity sphere such as loudspeakers and amplifiers. In this presentation, a suite of laboratory measurements and derived metrics are proposed that lead to a comprehensive evaluation of earplug fidelity in terms of insertion loss levels, flatness, polar distortion maps, and temporal skewing. Initial results for a range of devices are presented, followed by a discussion of future directions.

Les bruits du monde chez Diderot

Si la critique a déjà bien mis au jour la place essentielle qu’occupent le sonore et la musique chez Diderot, notamment au travers de la grande métaphore de l’homme-clavecin, la présente étude se veut plus restreinte, plus suggestive qu’exhaustive, et vise à analyser quelques « bruits du monde », par opposition mais aussi contiguïté avec ceux du corps humain ou des sons musicaux. L’étude comprend alors deux moments : un relevé analytique de quelques topoï pris pour l’essentiel dans les fictions narratives (Jacques le fataliste, Le Neveu de Rameau, La Religieuse, Les Bijoux indiscrets, la « Promenade Vernet » du Salon de 1767) puis, quelques éléments d’une théorie sonore chez Diderot qui convoque cette fois-ci plutôt l’œuvre philosophique et esthétique de l’auteur. Dans un premier temps sont alors mis en évidence les « bruits pittoresques » qui constituent une sorte de fond sonore des narrations diderotiennes : sonneries de cloches, coups de fusil et de tonnerre, pas des chevaux, mugissement des eaux, claquement de portes. La seconde partie se concentre sur la place du sonore dans un système complexe d’expression sensorielle synesthésique.

Similarity of Musical Timbres Using FFT-Acoustic Descriptor Analysis and Machine Learning

Musical timbre is a phenomenon of auditory perception that allows the recognition of musical sounds. The recognition of musical timbre is a challenging task because the timbre of a musical instrument or sound source is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that is influenced by a variety of factors, including the physical properties of the instrument or sound source, the way it is played or produced, and the recording and processing techniques used. In this paper, we explore an abstract space with 7 dimensions formed by the fundamental frequency and FFT-Acoustic Descriptors in 240 monophonic sounds from the Tinysol and Good-Sounds databases, corresponding to the fourth octave of the transverse flute and clarinet. This approach allows us to unequivocally define a collection of points and, therefore, a timbral space (Category Theory) that allows different sounds of any type of musical instrument with its respective dynamics to be represented as a single characteristic vector. The geometric distance would allow studying the timbral similarity between audios of different sounds and instruments or between different musical dynamics and datasets. Additionally, a Machine-Learning algorithm that evaluates timbral similarities through Euclidean distances in the abstract space of 7 dimensions was proposed. We conclude that the study of timbral similarity through geometric distances allowed us to distinguish between audio categories of different sounds and musical instruments, between the same type of sound and an instrument with different relative dynamics, and between different datasets.

The Effects of Monaural Stimulation on Frequency-Following Responses in Adults Who Can Sing in Tune and Those Who Cannot.

Introduction Musicians have an advantage over non-musicians in detecting, perceiving, and processing nonverbal (i.e., environmental sounds, tones and others) and verbal sounds (i.e., consonant, vowel, phrases and others) as well as instrumental sounds. In contrast to the high skill of musicians, there is another group of people who are tone-deaf and have difficulty in distinguishing musical sounds or singing in tune. These sounds can originate in different ways, such as a musical instrument, orchestra, or the human voice. Objective The objective of the present work is to study frequency-following responses (FFRs) in individuals who can sing in-tune and those who sing off-tune. Methods Electrophysiological responses were recorded in 37 individuals divided in two groups: (i) control group (CG) with professional musicians, and (ii) experimental group (EG) with non-musicians. Results There was homogeneity between the two groups regarding age and gender. The CG had more homogeneous responses in the latency of the FFRs waves when responses between the right and left ears were compared to those of the EG. Conclusion This study showed that monaural stimulation (right or left) in an FFR test is useful for demonstrating impairment of speech perception in individuals who sing off tune. The response of the left ear appears to present more subtlety and reliability when identifying the coding of speech sound in individuals who sing off tune.

Timbral cues for learning to generalize musical instrument identity across pitch register.

Timbre provides an important cue to identify musical instruments. Many timbral attributes covary with other parameters like pitch. This study explores listeners' ability to construct categories of instrumental sound sources from sounds that vary in pitch. Nonmusicians identified 11 instruments from the woodwind, brass, percussion, and plucked and bowed string families. In experiment 1, they were trained to identify instruments playing a pitch of C4, and in experiments 2 and 3, they were trained with a five-tone sequence (F#3-F#4), exposing them to the way timbre varies with pitch. Participants were required to reach a threshold of 75% correct identification in training. In the testing phase, successful listeners heard single tones (experiments 1 and 2) or three-tone sequences from (A3-D#4) (experiment 3) across each instrument's full pitch range to test their ability to generalize identification from the learned sound(s). Identification generalization over pitch varies a great deal across instruments. No significant differences were found between single-pitch and multi-pitch training or testing conditions. Identification rates can be predicted moderately well by spectrograms or modulation spectra. These results suggest that listeners use the most relevant acoustical invariance to identify musical instrument sounds, also using previous experience with the tested instruments.

Peter Urquhart. Sound and Sense in Franco-Flemish Music of the Renaissance: Sharps, Flats and the Problem of Musica Ficta (review)

Renaissance vocal music has an editorial problem. Performers and editors of pre-Baroque repertoire are unable simply to realise the music on the page but instead must decide whether the notation means what it says it means: manuscripts require interpretation. This obligation arises from the widely accepted idea that the surviving compositions were not chromatically precise and that certain types of inflection—what today we would call accidentals—were omitted in writing but applied in performance. There are several well-known ‘rules’ that govern the creation of these inflections,1 but this is where the consensus ends. Every scholar’s particular application of these rules is slightly different, and consequently, no two recordingsof a Josquin mass or a Mouton motet sound identical. As Peter Urquhart observes in his weighty contribution to the topic, even the term used to describe these problems, musica ficta, is ambiguous. […]

A minimal physics-based model for musical perception

Some people, entirely untrained in music, can listen to a song and replicate it on a piano with unnerving accuracy. What enables some to "hear" music so much better than others? Long-standing research confirms that part of the answer is undoubtedly neurological and can be improved with training. However, are there structural, physical, or engineering attributes of the human hearing mechanism apparatus (i.e., the hair cells of the internal ear) that render one human innately superior to another in terms of propensity to listen to music? In this work, we investigate a physics-based model of the electromechanics of the hair cells in the inner ear to understand why a person might be physiologically better poised to distinguish musical sounds. A key feature of the model is that we avoid a "black-box" systems-type approach. All parameters are well-defined physical quantities, including membrane thickness, bending modulus, electromechanical properties, and geometrical features, among others. Using the two-tone interference problem as a proxy for musical perception, our model allows us to establish the basis for exploring the effect of external factors such as medicine or environment. As an example of the insights we obtain, we conclude that the reduction in bending modulus of the cell membranes (which for instance may be caused by the usage of a certain class of analgesic drugs) or an increase in the flexoelectricity of the hair cell membrane can interfere with the perception of two-tone excitation.

Intelligibility improves perception of timing changes in speech.

Auditory rhythms are ubiquitous in music, speech, and other everyday sounds. Yet, it is unclear how perceived rhythms arise from the repeating structure of sounds. For speech, it is unclear whether rhythm is solely derived from acoustic properties (e.g., rapid amplitude changes), or if it is also influenced by the linguistic units (syllables, words, etc.) that listeners extract from intelligible speech. Here, we present three experiments in which participants were asked to detect an irregularity in rhythmically spoken speech sequences. In each experiment, we reduce the number of possible stimulus properties that differ between intelligible and unintelligible speech sounds and show that these acoustically-matched intelligibility conditions nonetheless lead to differences in rhythm perception. In Experiment 1, we replicate a previous study showing that rhythm perception is improved for intelligible (16-channel vocoded) as compared to unintelligible (1-channel vocoded) speech-despite near-identical broadband amplitude modulations. In Experiment 2, we use spectrally-rotated 16-channel speech to show the effect of intelligibility cannot be explained by differences in spectral complexity. In Experiment 3, we compare rhythm perception for sine-wave speech signals when they are heard as non-speech (for naïve listeners), and subsequent to training, when identical sounds are perceived as speech. In all cases, detection of rhythmic regularity is enhanced when participants perceive the stimulus as speech compared to when they do not. Together, these findings demonstrate that intelligibility enhances the perception of timing changes in speech, which is hence linked to processes that extract abstract linguistic units from sound.

Comparing the Timbre of Different Musical Sounds used in Music Therapy and its Effect on the Quality of Sleep in Medical Students with Insomnia- A Prospective Interventional Study

Introduction: Stress and the pressure to perform in a competitive world has led to a rise in insomnia cases, especially in medical students. Music serves as a great alternative or additional therapy and hence, specifying the details of the type of music and creating a standard set of musical parameters, e.g., a specific value for tempo that sleep music should have. This will make it a more viable and clear option. One of these important but minimally explored aspects is timbre of music. Aim: To assess and compare the effect of timbre of different musical sounds on an individual’s quality of sleep, duration and day time sleepiness. Materials and Methods: This prospective interventional (community trial) study was done in the Department of Physiology, Velammal Medical College Hospital and Research Institute, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India for three weeks. Hundred medical students having insomnia were chosen and split into five groups: Group A-Sitar, B-violin, C-vocal, D-flute and E-control. Groups A-D had to listen to tracks with an assigned timbre for 20 minutes before going to sleep daily for three weeks. Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) were used to assess sleep quality, duration and day time sleepiness. Kruskal-Wallis test was used to analyse the results. Results: Sleep quality improved with sitar being the one that improved the quality the most, followed by violin, then flute and finally, vocal (p-value=0.001). Sleep duration improved with sitar being the one that showed the most improvement, followed by flute, then violin and finally, vocal (p-value=0.001). Daytime sleepiness decreased with sitar being the one that decreased it the most, followed by violin, then flute and lastly, vocal (p-value=0.021). Conclusion: The most effective timbre in improving sleep quality, duration and reducing day time sleepiness was Sitar and the least effective was vocal.

Widespread but Limited in Context: Absolute Tuning Judgments are Disrupted by Relative Pitch Cues

Most listeners exhibit absolute pitch memory for familiar pitched sounds, ranging from simple tones (e.g., the “bleep” used to censor broadcast media) to rich, polyphonic melodies (e.g., excerpts from popular songs). Given that relative pitch is the predominant means of processing music for most listeners, this observed absolute pitch memory suggests that most listeners have hybrid representations, containing both absolute and relative pitch cues. The present experiment assesses how relative pitch cues influence absolute pitch memory in a variety of listening contexts, varying in terms of ecological validity. Participants were asked to explicitly judge different musical sounds (isolated notes, chords, scales, and short excerpts), varying in complexity, in terms of absolute tuning (i.e., whether a musical sound adhered to conventional, A440 tuning). Listeners showed robust above-chance performance in judging absolute tuning when the to-be-judged sounds did not contain relative pitch changes (i.e., isolated notes and chords), replicating prior work. Critically, however, performance was significantly reduced and was not statistically different from chance when the musical sounds contained relative pitch changes (scales and short excerpts). Taken together, the results suggest that most listeners possess some long-term memory for absolute tuning, but this ability has limited generalizability to more ecologically valid musical contexts that contain relative pitch changes.

Remembering sounds in the brain: From locationist findings to dynamic connectivity research

Our world is full of sounds, either verbal or non-verbal, pleasant or unpleasant, meaningful or simply irrelevant noise. Understanding, memorizing, and predicting the sounds, even non-verbal ones which our environment is full of, is a complex perceptuo-cognitive function that we constantly refine by everyday experience and learning. Musical sounds are a peculiar case due to their culture-dependent complexity and hierarchical organization requiring cognitive functions such as memory to be understood, and due to the presence of individuals (musicians) who dedicate their lifetime to master the specifics of those sounds and rules. Thus far, most of the neuroimaging research focused on verbal sounds and how they are processed and stored in the human brain. Only recently, researchers have tried to elucidate the neural mechanisms and structures allowing non-verbal, musical sounds to be modeled, predicted and remembered. However, those neuroimaging studies often provide only a mere snapshot of a complex dynamic process unfolding over time. To capture the complexity of musical memory and cognition, new methods are needed. A promising analysis method is dynamic functional connectivity, which assumes that functional connectivity changes in a short time. We conclude that moving from a locationist to a dynamic perspective on auditory memory might allow us to finally comprehend the neural mechanisms that regulate encoding and retrieval of sounds.

A Preliminary Exploration of the Effects of Different Sound Types on the Behavior of Melopsittacus undulates (Budgerigar)

Objective: To explore the effects of different sound types (including different species, frequencies, and volumes on Melopsittacus undulatus singing and approach and avoidance behaviors. Methods: The experimental or test group was set up with different combinations of sound types, frequencies, and volume, and its effects on Melopsittacus undulatus singing and approach and avoidance response were observed. Results: The immediate and sustained effects of noise on Melopsittacus undulatus singing behavior were significantly increased compared to musical tones; under the same volume, high frequency and undulating sounds led to an increase in both immediate and subsequent calls of Melopsittacus undulatus; under the same frequency, a high volume will lead to an increase in the number of tweeting made by Melopsittacus undulatus; a combined increase in frequency and volume will lead to a highly significant increase in the number of tweeting made by Melopsittacus undulatus. An 85dB noise triggers a singing response from Melopsittacus undulatus and produces a clear source avoidance behavior; a frequency of 2048Hz triggers a singing response from Melopsittacus undulatus. Conclusion: This study revealed that noise was more likely to elicit an increase in the number of tweeting made by Melopsittacus undulatus than musical sounds. Loudness volumes of 85dB and above and frequency of 2048Hz and above were more likely to trigger the singing and approach and avoidance response in Melopsittacus undulatus.

Faktori rizika i lečenje tinitusa kod adolescenata

Introduction: Tinnitus is conscious perception of sound without an external sound stimulus. The origin of the name has its root in the Latin word tinnire (to ring). The sound can be buzzing, ringing, hissing, and is rarely heard as voice, music, or several different sounds simultaneously. Tinnitus occurs in one-third of people at least once in their lifetime and is chronic in 10-15% of the adult population. In children and adolescents aged 5 to 19 years, the range of tinnitus prevalence is quite wide (from 5% to over 40%), depending on how tinnitus is defined in the study. This article aims to provide an up-to-date overview of tinnitus risk factors and treatment in adolescents. Methods: The authors searched PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Review databases using the following keywords: tinnitus, adolescents, risk behavior, risk factors, and treatment. The inclusion criterion has an article published in Serbian or English without time restriction. Results: Common risk factors for tinnitus among adolescents are female gender, noise exposure, hearing loss, marijuana and tobacco smoking, exposure to second-hand smoke, and sleep deprivation. Recently, some nutritional risk factors have been added: reduced water intake, niacin and protein deficit, and consumption of fizzy drinks, fast food, and white bread. The results of the current tinnitus treatments, including pharmaceutical, surgical, and behavioral ones, are unsatisfactory, causing frustration both in patients and physicians. Currently, there is no registered medicine for tinnitus. Conclusion: Tinnitus is one of the greatest enigmas of modern medicine. As tinnitus is still considered incurable, we point out major risk factors among adolescents that should be targeted in primary prevention.

MUSIC-COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY SOUND RECORDING ENRICHES STUDENTS' MUSIC KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS IN AN EXTRACURRICULAR LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

The development of modern society requires the application of new forms of presentation of educational content in order to build personality and form a generation of creative people. It’s necessary that the approach and forms of the structure of the learning process to stimulate students’ development to the maximum extent. Attracting students’ attention and stimulating their activity by presenting the learning content most effectively is a challenge for the teacher. This way, their interest should be increased and they should acquire lasting, long-term knowledge in Art music. This report presents the possibilities of consolidating and enriching students' knowledge and skills in the academic discipline Music outside the traditional music lesson. The research presents the benefit of education through music computer technology Sound Recording in a recording studio for students aged 10-16 as a part of their scheduled observation hours in extracurriculum learning environment. The aim is to increase students' interest in music as an art and to support the gaining of new knowledge. In this way, the students will be provoked to get to know their surroundings in full. At the same time, the research is an example of successful good practice to motivate and support music teachers with new practical ideas.

A Survey of Audio Enhancement Algorithms for Music, Speech, Bioacoustics, Biomedical, Industrial, and Environmental Sounds by Image U-Net

A Survey of Audio Enhancement Algorithms for Music, Speech, Bioacoustics, Biomedical, Industrial, and Environmental Sounds by Image U-Net