Empirical Musicology Review v5 n1 Target Articles

Abstract

Previous studies have claimed that music can prime the selection of certain products and influence consumers’ propensity to spend because it activates related knowledge of the world and subsequently raises the salience of certain products and behaviours associated with that music. The possibility that music can raise the salience of associated products has not been tested directly, however, and ought to manifest itself through enhanced ability to recall the products in question when associated music is played. Accordingly, this study investigated the impact of musical ‘fit’ on product recall. Participants were asked to list as many Malay and Indian food items as they could while listening to either Malay or Indian music. Among ethnically Chinese participants, more Malay food items were recalled when Malay music was played and more Indian food items were recalled when Indian music was played. Ethnically Malay and Indian participants were more likely to recall food from their own cultures, irrespective of the music played.

Abstract

The fixed spectrum for an average orchestral instrument tone is presented based on spectral data from the Sandell Harmonic Archive (SHARC). This database contains non-time-variant spectral analyses for 1,338 recorded instrument tones from 23 Western instruments ranging from contrabassoon to piccolo. From these spectral analyses, a grand average was calculated, providing what might be considered an average non-time-variant harmonic spectrum. Each of these tones represents the average of all instruments in the SHARC database capable of producing that pitch. These latter tones better represent common spectral changes with respect to pitch register, and might be regarded as an “average instrument.” Although several caveats apply, an average harmonic tone or instrument may prove useful in analytic and modeling studies. In addition, for perceptual experiments in which non-time-variant stimuli are needed, an average harmonic spectrum may prove to be more ecologically appropriate than common technical waveforms, such as sine tones or pulse trains. Synthesized average tones are available via the web.