Verbal description of organ principal 8' sound

Abstract

The sound recordings of twelve pipe organs from four European countries (six Baroque, two Romantic and four contemporary) were subjectively evaluated. Two listening tests with sounds of tones C2, C3, C4, C5 and C6 of Principal 8' were provided. In the first test (dissimilarity in timbre in pairs of sounds) the spontaneously expressed verbal attributes describing the organ sound were collected. Twelve listeners (nine organ players, three organ builders) took part in the test. In the second listening test only the most contrasting pairs in timbre were selected and judged by the group of eight organ builders. The listeners ranked spontaneously expressed verbal attributes into four prescribed categories according to their meaning describing pipe scaling, pipe voicing, prominent or insufficient partials, and timbre. Common frequency vocabularies from both tests together with the vocabularies of expressions used in individual pitches are created and compared. Category vocabularies are also created and discussed