I want to make use of psychoacoustics in my music, but my knowledge of it is pretty limited. Are there any websites/books that I could research so that I can learn more?

I'm not sure what you are thinking of, but psychoacoustics is the scientific study of how humans perceive sound.

I know. I want to use it in my music.

The Psychology of Hearing by Brian Moore is a good place to start.

I have the original HB edition but it may still be in print.

Acoustics and Psychoacoustics
by David M. Howard, Jamie A. S. Angus
http://books.google.com/books?id=qgsst2OQYJEC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=true


An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing, Fifth Edition
by Brian C. J. Moore
http://books.google.com/books?id=tkbOivKH2HkC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=true


Psycho-Acoustics Facts and Models, Third Edition
by Hugo Fastl and Eberhard Zwicker
http://books.google.com/books?id=eGcfn9ddRhcC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=true


Spatial Hearing: The Psychophysics of Human Sound Localization, Revised Edition
by Jens Blauert
http://books.google.com/books?id=wBiEKPhw7r0C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=true


Communication Acoustics
by Jens Blauert
http://books.google.com/books?id=1pxKhlEaPXkC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=true

Look harder, Grasshopper.

I still don't quite get how you incorporate that into music. It is already there, right at the moment when there is a sound.

For sound reproduction on the other hand...

I was waiting a while for such topic to come up.

First, I will admit I know close to nothing about sound or music. Unlike a huge majority of the people here, it is not my medium of art or expression. Yet I guess that gives me a unique perspective on this topic.



In order to be a doctor you HAVE to dissect and study cadavers. You can't become a doctor unless you do. It is a pivotal study in the greater part of understanding how bodies work and how different things effect them. ie.: poor diet, old age, smoking, genetic disorders...(kind of ironic that to understand something living an object lesson of the dead is used).

Equally, to understand completely the organism of sound you would have study and dissect it fully, even study how things react to it. Psychoacoustics is the definitive study of the physiological and psychological influence of sound and how it is perceive.

Music like other art is open for interpretation, even if it has lyrics to go along with it. Psychoacoustics can be used to construct sounds that manufacture a controlled responds/reaction. I believe this is prominently use in sound composition for movies.

By sound we know when certain climatic parts of a movie will be scary, when a moment is meant to cause a saddening reaction or an uplifting emotion. If a movie is made without these elements it would be rather flat and boring. In movies, cinematography is the heart of the story, sound is it's soul. Another example: in Sergei Prokofiev's, Peter and the Wolf he used psychoacoustics in both choice of instruments and music composition to portray certain characters in the story and to give them defined personas. ie.: A nervous, fluttering, chirping bird= flute, a lumbering, ground moving, plump duck= oboe...


I think it would be an interesting project, Ptoleia.

Hmm, when I think of the subject it is definately from a different angle than say what frequencies and harmonies that triggers certain effects.

What I think of when I hear psycho acoustics is for example: what reflections are needed in the room, to convince the listener that she is listening to the real thing, when it's a recording played back on a speaker system. Or, what frequency response is needed to convince the listener of the same thing as above; to make a recording sound natural.

Phase, group delay, distortion levels...

That's Acoustics.

No. Acoustics is the science of sound. Psychoacostics is the science of how humans percieve sound and that is what I was reffering to, even if it might have been to sketchy. There is a difference. The stereosystem is a construction where psychoacoustics come into play when trying to fool our senses we are listening to the real thing (happens extremely seldom, can't remember I've ever been fooled).

But, hmm, I have to stand corrected on what I wrote in my first post here though, questioning if the original poster really was thinking of psychoacoustics. I realise we just come at it from different angles.

Psychoacoustics is the study aimed at linking two worlds:

one describe acoustics by quantities which you can measure (pressure, particle velocity) and by wave equations.

one is our perception of the sound, which exists only inside our head and it is subjective. It is not measurable in term of mathematic quantities but in term of judgement. A qualitatively approach such as "bright" or "spacious" "dull" etc.

Also statistics is linked because often used to analyze listening tests.

The first step in psychoacoustics is learning how the auditory system works. It is probably the most refined sense we have, the complexity of it is fascinating.

Psychoacoustics is used to analyze, study and improve lossy coding such as ATRAC, MP3 etc.