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Sept., 1937] PROGRESS IN ACOUSTICS 245
new extensions of the ranges of both pitch and loudness, are now possible by means of electroacoustical instruments. These instruments, even if they should prove to be too expensive for personal ownership, would contribute new life and interest to motion pictures, radio broadcasting, and phonograph recordings. As composers became familiar with the possibilities of such instruments they would be able to create a new music which would be limited only by the imagination and creative ability of the composer. Research and development are required to produce these instruments, but already several electroacoustical instruments have been developed far enough to indicate clearly the potentialities of such instruments.
The music of these new instruments, and all music of the future, should be based not only upon the infinitely many tonal qualities made possible by synthetic tones, but also upon the physical characteristics of hearing, such as the dependence of auditory acuity upon frequency ; the sensitivity of the ear to differences of intensity and frequency; the masking effects of certain tones upon other tones; the effects of auditory fatigue; the auditory reactions to contrapuntal rhythms and melodies ; and the complicated relationships between the subjective properties of pitch, loudness, and quality, and the objective properties upon which they depend, namely, frequency, intensity, and overtone structure. These are only a few of the physical characteristics of hearing that should be regarded in creating the music and musical instruments of the future. The musician, the psychologist, and the esthetician are familiar with many other characteristics that could and should guide future developments in music.
If the recently discovered characteristics of music and hearing had been known to Helmholtz, and if the modern instruments of electroacoustics had been available in his time, music probably would have gained much more than it did from his brilliant and comprehensive studies of the physical nature of music. But we should not despair that he left something useful for us to do. The time is now ripe for repeating and extending these studies in a modernly equipped laboratory. Thus may we contribute to the raw materials from which there will surely emerge a new and superior musical art, free from the imperfections inherent in existing musical instruments, and enhanced with finer and more logical pitch and intensity gradations, more and better tonal qualities, and more pleasing harmonies, rhythms, and forms than man has yet experienced. Here, indeed, is a field where the musician, the psychologist, the esthetician, and the acoustician