Subject: Re: ANALYSIS USING SPECTOGRAM & TIMELINE (fwd)
From: David Hirst (D.Hirst@latrobe.edu.au)
Date: Wed Nov 24 1999 - 20:39:23 EST
Hi Alyce
Interpretation of spectragrams is not easy, but there is an interesting and
readable book by Cogan that examines the spectra of whole works from
Renaissance polyphonie to Beethoven & Indonesian Gamelan too. I don't have the
title on me but others on the list may recall it.
I've used MQ plots (which are frequency versus time plots) for the analysis of
whole sections or whole works. An example anaysis is in the article in
Mikropolyphonie with the URL:
http://farben.latrobe.edu.au/mikropol/volume1/hirst-d/hirst.html
or you can navigate to volume 1 articles from:
http://farben.latrobe.edu.au/mikropol/
and check out some other exhibitions and articles too.
The software used for this analysis is called AnnaLies 4.3 for the PPC Mac. It
is freeware available from:
ftp://ftp.latrobe.edu.au/pub/music
cheers
David
ALYCE LYN PUMPHREY wrote:
> Hello. I'm a third-year Communications student enrolled in a
> first-year EAMT course. I apoligize if this posting presents a
> question which might be overly simplistic to some. However, given
> the discourses that I have read on this email list, I assume that
> I might not have long to wait for an intelligent and concise response.
> Presently I am working on attempting to fully comprehend the utility of
> the spectogram belonging to an EA piece for which I will be making a class
> presentation (and which I previously loaded onto Sound Edit 16 to make
> a printout of the spectogram to be used as a visual aid to my anaysis of
> the EA piece.)
>
> First, I would appreciate any input offered about spectograms in general,
> but was also hoping for a discourse regarding the various ways to read, to
> specifically interpret and sufficiently use the spectogram (primarily the
> 2-D version though I would gladly entertain any comments about what
> different things the 3-D says that the 2-D may not).
>
> Secondly, I would appreciate your comments about how you feel the waveform
> is/is not more useful (if not at least quite different) than the
> spectogram in terms of the possible different types of information that
> the two representations of sound provide to the novice and/or the
> experienced analyser.
>
> Thirdly, do you find that the spectogram is useful in terms of analysing
> the frequencies of the sound(s) represented through a piece and/or in
> layers of a particular section of the piece? I ask this because, I'm at
> the point where, though I find the spectogram for this particular piece
> [which is under my analysis] as being rather "visually" interesting, I am
> trying to find significant ways to understand the representational aspects
> of the spectogram so that I may link what I see in the spectogram to
> what I hear in the piece. I would like the link to be much stronger than
> the one that can be seen when the 2-D spectogram and the wave timeline
> for the same piece are placed alogside eachother. I confess that the
> spectogram does reveal the existence of certain "enduring" sounds that are
> heard at specific frequencies. Though this aspect of the spectogram
> makes it more useful than the waveform timeline to me on one level, I feel
> that there should be a lot more to the textured picture than meets my
> eyes. What are the pros and cons of the spectogram/the waveform?
> Please share your knowledge with this very curious observer? Should the
> spectogram/waveform timeline just be used as an outline for a more
> detailed description of the more complex elements that might be happening
> in the piece? If so, what would you suggest (to a student)as a different
> approach to reviewing the textural and sonic characteristics present in a
> piece? (Once analytical listening is done, that is.)
> Thanks in advance! :)
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