Terhardt, E. (1985). Some psycho-physical analogies between speech and music. In: Musik in der Medizin (Spintge, R., Droh, R., eds.), Editiones Roche, Basel, 89-100
Inspection of perceptual processes in speech and music, respectively, reveals significant analogies and complementations. Certain signal characteristics that are aurally relevant are common both to speech and music. However, some are most in important in speech while others are in music. While timbre is highly significant in speech, it is secondary in music. On the other hand, while pitch is secondary in speech, it is highly significant and categorical in music. Categorization of rhythm is not typical of speech but is essential in music. Complementation is also apparent in the physical principles of sound production. While they are in many resepects identical, quantitative differences induce certain typical disparities between the sounds of the human voice and of a musical instrument. In particular, fundamental frequency in the voice is continuously variable and systematically different between men, women, and children. In musical instruments, fundamental frequency is a priori confined to certain tone categories.