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Paper

TESTING February 20, 2026

Methods for Pitch Analysis in Contemporary Popular Music: Multiphonic Tones Across Genres

Authors

Emmanuel Deruty, David Meredith, Yann Macé, Luc Leroy, Dima Tsypkin, Pascal Arbez-Nicolas

Abstract

This study argues that electronic tones routinely used in contemporary popular music - including 808-style bass and power chords - are structurally and perceptually equivalent to multiphonics in contemporary classical music. Using listening tests (n=10) and signal analysis, we show that both types of tones elicit multiple, listener-dependent pitch percepts arising from similar spectral and temporal features. These findings suggest that pitch ambiguity is not confined to experimental classical contexts but is also a feature of mainstream music production.

Metadata

arXiv ID: 2602.18030
Provider: ARXIV
Primary Category: cs.SD
Published: 2026-02-20
Fetched: 2026-02-23 05:33

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Raw Data (Debug)
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