Musical intervals in speech.

@article{citeulike:1336282, abstract = {Throughout history and across cultures, humans have created music using pitch intervals that divide octaves into the 12 tones of the chromatic scale. Why these specific intervals in music are preferred, however, is not known. In the present study, we analyzed a database of individually spoken English vowel phones to examine the hypothesis that musical intervals arise from the relationships of the formants in speech spectra that determine the perceptions of distinct vowels. Expressed as ratios, the frequency relationships of the first two formants in vowel phones represent all 12 intervals of the chromatic scale. Were the formants to fall outside the ranges found in the human voice, their relationships would generate either a less complete or a more dilute representation of these specific intervals. These results imply that human preference for the intervals of the chromatic scale arises from experience with the way speech formants modulate laryngeal harmonics to create different phonemes.}, address = {Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and Department of Neurobiology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708.}, author = {Ross, Deborah and Choi, Jonathan and Purves, Dale }, citeulike-article-id = {1336282}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0703140104}, issn = {0027-8424}, journal = {Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A}, keywords = {audition, evolution, linguistics, music, perception, speech}, month = {May}, posted-at = {2007-06-28 18:58:18}, priority = {2}, title = {Musical intervals in speech.}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0703140104}, year = {2007} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:1336282 L3 - citeulike-article-id:1336282 N2 - Throughout history and across cultures, humans have created music using pitch intervals that divide octaves into the 12 tones of the chromatic scale. Why these specific intervals in music are preferred, however, is not known. In the present study, we analyzed a database of individually spoken English vowel phones to examine the hypothesis that musical intervals arise from the relationships of the formants in speech spectra that determine the perceptions of distinct vowels. Expressed as ratios, the frequency relationships of the first two formants in vowel phones represent all 12 intervals of the chromatic scale. Were the formants to fall outside the ranges found in the human voice, their relationships would generate either a less complete or a more dilute representation of these specific intervals. These results imply that human preference for the intervals of the chromatic scale arises from experience with the way speech formants modulate laryngeal harmonics to create different phonemes. JF - Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A SN - 0027-8424 AD - Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and Department of Neurobiology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708. TI - Musical intervals in speech. KW - audition KW - evolution KW - linguistics KW - music KW - perception KW - speech AU - Ross, Deborah AU - Choi, Jonathan AU - Purves, Dale PY - 2007/05/24/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0703140104 ER -