Klarinet Archive - Posting 000864.txt from 2000/05

From: Bilwright@-----.net (William Wright)
Subj: [kl] Tone -- online experiment
Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 22:16:41 -0400

Mark once said that this list has approximately 800 members. I
think it would be interesting to try the following:

If 1 out of every 10 of us has (or is willing to obtain) a copy of a
specific recording -- say, Mozart or Brahms or Weber -- and rate this
recording for 'darkness' on a scale of 1-10, we would end up with 80
votes. This would approach a statistically significant sample. We
would not attempt to define 'dark', we would simply ask the question and
tally the answers.
Then, as the second part of this experiment, we would calculate the
median or average rating. We would ask, "If the previous recording's
darkness is <number>, then what rating would you assign to <another
widely available recording>?"

Presumably every person on this list has some experience and
knowledge of the clarinet. This would eliminate the most extreme cases
of 'non-musician'.

Our purpose would be two-fold: (1) to obtain a rating _without_
providing a definition of darkness in advance; and then: (2) to obtain a
rating after each participant had been told that, for the purposes of
this experiment, a certain recording is in fact a "<number>".

Would very many of you be willing to participate in this? We'd
need to talk abut differences in stereos and speaker setups; but I can
cite fully accepted data from visual experiments that addresses this
issue in the area of color perception, and I think it's reasonable
(though not proven) that the same methods wold apply to recorded audio.
I won't fill up your screen with details right now.
What I'm wondering is: would more than 5 or 6 people here be
interested in participating?

Bill

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