The 20th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD–2014) June 22–25, 2014, New York, USA ON THE IMPORTANCE OF CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN SHAPES AND TIMBRE

The results of a preliminary study of the audio-visual cor-respondence between musical timbre and visual shapes are reported. 22 participants had to play 20 musical sounds and choose a shape for each. An association between timbre and visual shapes emerged. Soft timbres seem to match with rounded shapes, harsh timbres with sharp angular shapes and timbres having elements of softness and harshness to-gether with a mixture of the two previous shapes. The cor-respondence between timbres and shapes should lend itself to the development of perceptually supported musical inter-faces and substitution systems. A larger scale experiment with more sounds and participants is underway and con-firms the preliminary results reported in this paper. 1