McGill Association of Student Composers (MASC) Forum 1

Stephen McAdams and Meghan Goodchild will be presenting “The Orchestration and Perception Project: Developing a psychological foundation for a theory of orchestration.”

Abstract:

Despite the integral function of instrumentation and timbre on the structure and expression of music, orchestration theory has not attained the same depth or precision achieved in other musical fields. The aim of the Orchestration and Perception Project is to develop a psychological foundation for a theory of orchestration practice based on perceptual principles associated with musical timbre. In this presentation, we will outline our ongoing research program, including the development of analysis categories of orchestral effects related to auditory grouping principles and the creation of a novel empirical analysis method to study the orchestral effects in scores, recordings, and treatises. We will also share the results of a perceptual study on the factors influencing blend ratings in orchestral excerpts and the findings from data mining the analyses compiled in our new ORCHestration Analysis and Research Database (Orchard). Finally, we will discuss plans to integrate the results into a theory of orchestration and to transfer acquired knowledge to computer-aided orchestration systems and new pedagogical tools.