The Effects Of Reverberation On Music Emotion In Musical Instruments

MPhil Thesis Defence


Title: "The Effects Of Reverberation On Music Emotion In Musical 
Instruments"

By

Mr. Ron Ka Chun MO


Abstract

Previous research has shown a strong connection between music emotion and 
timbre, and that musical instruments have strong emotional 
predispositions. This thesis investigates the effect of reverberation on 
music emotion, in particular, the effect of reverberation length and 
amount. We conducted listening tests to compare the effect of 
reverberation on music emotion for eight instrument sounds representing 
the wind and bowed string families. We compared these sounds over ten 
emotions. We found that reverberation had a strong effect on the emotions 
Romantic and Mysterious, and it had a reasonably strong effect on Scary, 
Sad, Depressed, and Heroic, increasing with hall size and distance from 
the stage. Interestingly, for Comic, reverberation length and amount had 
the reverse effect, that is, anechoic tones were judged most Comic. These 
results provide a fresh, new perspective for recording engineers. For 
example, recording engineers can add strong and long reverberation to 
emphasize emotions such as Romantic and Mysterious, while using 
close-miking bring out the Comic character of an instrument.


Date:			Monday, 29 December 2014

Time:			2:00pm - 4:00pm

Venue:			Room 3501
 			Lifts 25/26

Committee Members:	Prof. Andrew Horner (Supervisor)
 			Dr. Raymond Wong (Chairperson)
 			Dr. Huamin Qu


**** ALL are Welcome ****