Effects of Timbre on College Woodwind Players' Intonational Performance and Perception

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of timbre on musicians' intonational acuities during a listening and a performance task. Nine saxophonists, nine clarinetists, and nine flutists from The Ohio State University School of Music participated in the listening and performance segments of this experiment. The performance data consisted of subjects' intonational deviations from recorded examples, and the listening data consisted of subjects' correct and incorrect responses to in-tune or out-of-tune tone pairs. The relationship between subjects' abilities to perform in tune and detect intonation problems, and the effects of timbre on subjects' abilities to perform in tune and detect intonation problems were assessed. Results revealed a low correlation between subjects abilities to play in tune and their abilities to detect intonation problems. Results also indicated that timbre had a significant effect on subjects' abilities to detect intonation problems, but not on their abilities to play in tune. Although there was no significant difference between instrument groups' abilities to detect intonation problems, a significant difference was found between these groups' abilities to play in tune across all timbres. Subjects played significantly more flat than sharp when matching other instrument timbres.