Recognition of Isolated Instrument Tones by Conservatory Students

An experiment was conducted in order to reconstruct previous timbre recognition experiments, measure the effect of ensemble experience and short-term training on the recognition rate, and generate more detailed baseline data to help evaluate the performance of timbre recognition computer models. The subjects, who were conservatory students, had to identify between 2, 3, 9, and 27 instruments on two different occasions: once without practice and once with short training sessions before the test. Eighty-eight subjects participated in the experiment. All tones were taken from the McGill University Master Samples CDs. Compared to previous experiments, the average scores of subjects in this experiment were considerably higher. Additionally, subjects who play orchestral instruments scored significantly higher than those who do not. Finally, the short training sessions had no significant effect on the subjects’ performance.