The subjective analysis of musical tone

Abstract

Every one who has attempted to analyse a musical sound by the unaided ear and has acquired some experience at such work will recognise the peculiar nature of the difficulties met with. The first stage is, of course, to learn to concentrate attention on the particular partial sound sought to be recognised, and this is greatly assisted by previously sounding a note of the same pitch and firmly fixing it in the memory, as recommended by Helmholtz in his Sensations of Tone. But even after one has acquired this habit of attention and has had years of practice and experience in acoustical work, the difficulty is only diminished and is not removed, as is shown by the fact that one may fail in some cases to distinguish a partial even if it be present, and that the use of a resonator is always a great advantage.