When timbre blends musically: perception and acoustics underlying orchestration and performance

Blending or contrasting instrumental timbres are common techniques employed in orchestration.Both bear a direct relevance to the perceptual phenomenon of auditory fusion, which in turn depends on a series of acoustical cues.Whereas some cues relate to musical aspects, such as timing and pitch relationships, instrumentation choices more likely concern the acoustical traits of instrument timbre.Apart from choices made by composers and orchestrators, the success of timbre blending still depends on precise execution by musical performers, which argues for its relevance to musical practice as a whole.This thesis undertakes a comprehensive investigation aiming to situate timbre blend in musical practice, more specifically addressing the perceptual effects and acoustical factors underlying both orchestration and performance practice.Three independent studies investigated the perception of blend as a function of factors related to musical practice, i.e., those derived from musical context and realistic scenarios (e.g., pitch relationships, leadership in performance, room acoustics).The first study establishes generalized spectral descriptions for wind instruments, which allow the identification of prominent features assumed to function as their timbral signatures.Two listening experiments investigate how these features affect blend by varying them in frequency, showing a critical perceptual relevance.The second study considers two other listening experiments, which evaluate perceived blend for instrument combinations in dyads and triads, respectively.Correlational analyses associate the obtained blend measures with a wide set of acoustic measures, showing that blend depends on pitch and temporal relationships as well as the previously identified spectral features.The third study extends the previous ones, addressing factors related to musical performance by investigating the timbral adjustments performers employ in blending with one another, as well as their interactive relationship.Timbral adjustments can be shown to be made towards the musician leading the performance.All studies contribute to a greater understanding of blend as it applies to musical and orchestration practice.Their findings expand previous research and provide possible explanations for discrepancies between hypotheses made in the past.Together, the conclusions drawn allow us to propose a general perceptual theory for timbre blend as it applies to musical practice, which considers the musical material and spectral relationships among instrument timbres as the determining factors. of me and guiding me around potential pitfalls, and IDMIL for the many lusophone friends I have made over the years.Writing this thesis has been rather smooth, and I owe it to the persons introducing me to L A T E X and those improving the experience, namely, Mark Zadel, Finn Upham, and Marcello Giordano.Across the road at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT), I would first like to thank Scott Levine, formerly with the Sound Recording Area, whose technical contribution to Experiment 5 has been invaluable to its success, which reached a scope of complexity impossible to realize alone and in such a short time.I would also like to thank Martha de Francisco for her co-supervision of Scott's

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