skip to content

Centre for Music and Science

 

Our new paper entitled 'Consonance in the carillon' has just been published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. This paper grew out of an undergraduate dissertation by James MacConnachie. Well done James!

The paper explores an interesting phenomenon whereby the idiosyncratic frequency spectrum of the carillon bell alters the usual hierarchy of consonance and dissonance, making the ordinarily consonant major third and minor sixth intervals dissonant. This effect is measured empirically with a rigorous behavioural experiment, and interpreted using competing psychoacoustic models of musical consonance. The results suggest that the effect derives primarily by interference between partials (e.g., beating), but that preference for harmonicity is also necessary to produce an accurate overall account of participants' preferences.

See the paper for more details! Link below.

Harrison, P. M. C., & MacConnachie, J. M. C. (2024). Consonance in the carillon. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 156(2), 1111–1122. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0028167

Image credit: RuEDCC BY-SA 3.0

CMS Logo

Latest news

Maddie Jones starting PhD at Bristol University

28 March 2025

We are very pleased to hear that Maddie Jones, who did an undergraduate dissertation project at the CMS analysing the relationship between music listening and mood, has been awarded a full PhD scholarship to study at Bristol University, in the School of Psychological Science. She will be supervised by Professor Claire...

New article: Reverberation time and musical emotion in recorded music listening

28 March 2025

Many congratulations to Hannah Wilkie for her recent article in Music Perception entitled 'Reverberation time and musical emotion in recorded music listening'! This article came from Hannah's MPhil thesis at the CMS in 2023. Hannah is now studying for a PhD in Princeton University. Abstract: The influence of room acoustic...