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Re: noise classification problem



Susan allen wrote
Hello, I would like a definition of 'real world sounds' = does this
include piped in or background music in the retail/service
environment?  Many thanks
Susan Allen

--- That typical Music in the retail/service environment is called MUSAK
wich is also the name of the american firm that defined the concept
during the second world war II. Recently Doctor Hildegard Westerkamp
from Simon Frazer university (communication dpt) gave a lecture on
Musak. Michel Chion also discusses Musak in his book entitled
/Musiques, médias et technologies/, 1994, Paris: Flammarion, p.52-63.

Also

   Raymond Murray Schafer. 1977. The Tuning of the World, New York; A.
Knopf Inc.  388p./ - Le paysage sonore./ Paris : J.-C. Lattès 1979 pour
la traduction française.
This book is a "must" for anyone interested in "sound of the environment"
Schafer is the "fondateur" of the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology
in Canada.

     Claire Piché


Vincent Rioux wrote
Back in 77, Pierre Schaeffer wrote very interesting things about sound
(including "noise") classification (what he called "typo-morphology") in
a book called "Traité des Objets Musicaux", 'Treatise of Musical Objects'.

--- A little correction Vincent, Schaeffer'book has been published in
1966 not 1997

    Schaeffer, Pierre. 1966. /Traité des objets musicaux : essai
interdisciplines. /Paris : Éditions du Seuil, 701p.

       Claire Piché







Vincent Rioux a écrit :

Back in 77, Pierre Schaeffer wrote very interesting things about sound
(including "noise") classification (what he called "typo-morphology")
in a book called "Traité des Objets Musicaux", 'Treatise of Musical
Objects'.
It is written in French.
There might be some translations of this work in English,
for e.g. http://www.sun.rhbnc.ac.uk/Music/Archive/Disserts/palombin.html
but I am not aware of any official edited translation.
Note, that it was thought as a tool for musical composition (mostly
electroacoutic music) which might be slightly out of your scope (?)

regards,
vincent

At 22:27 15/04/2004, Valeriy Shafiro wrote:

Hi Alberto,

I don't believe that there are any "official" categories for classifying
real world sounds.  In my opinion, Gaver's taxonomy of environmental
sounds, while clearly not perfect, is still the best that we have for
classifying sounds in general.  At least it is a great starting
point.  As
you wrote in your email the problem of classification is very
complex, and
this is one reason why you have not been able to find much information
about it.  Real world sounds are produced by a great variety of
different
sound sources which cannot be unambiguously classified either.
People have
tried to find some kind of an underlying perceptual structure of
environmental sounds (e.g., Ballas, 1993; Marcell et al., Gygi,
2001), but
that has not revealed any clearcut categories.  Which is not to say that
there is no category structure, but rather that the categories do not
reveal themselves very easily and unambiguously with the analysis
methods
we are using.  My preferred analogy for the perceptual organization
of real
world sounds would be that of the lexicon where individual items can be
classified based on acoustics/phonology, and also based on the
ecological
significance/semantics/meaning.  Of course, this analogy is not perfect,
and I offer it just as one way to think about the problem.  For one, for
most environmental sounds the relationship between their semantics and
acoustics is not as arbitrary as it is for words.

If I understood you correctly, and your goal is synthesizing musically
useful noises (possibly based on some real world sounds) then rather
than
trying to come up with a general all-encompassing classification of real
world sounds you may have more success figuring out specific types of
noises/sounds that maybe interesting for your application.  Or, you
can try
to find a way to represent different types of sounds in a smaller
subset.

Best regards,

Valeriy
-------------------------------------------------------------
Valeriy Shafiro
Communication Disorders and Sciences
Rush University Medical Center
Chicago, IL

office (312) 942 - 3298
lab    (312) 942 - 3316
email: valeriy_shafiro@rush.edu

Refs:

Ballas, J.A. (1993). Common factors in the identification of an
assortment
of brief
everyday sounds. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception
and
Performance, 19 (2), 250-267.

Gygi, B. (2001). Factors in the Identification of Environmental Sounds,
Unpublished
doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.
Retrieved
02/20/02
from http://www.indiana.edu/~k300bg/dissall.pdf

 Marcell, M.M., Borella, D., Greene, M., Kerr, E. & Rogers, S. (2000).
 Confrontation
naming of environmental sounds. Journal of Clinical and Experimental
Neuropsychology, 22(6), 830-864.