The Mel Scale

This paper investigates one finding in the field of experimental psychology and suggests the possibility of its use in musical composition.t In general, the perceived magnitude of physical variables does not correspond directly to a physical measure. Psychological scales have been constructed on the basis of experimental procedures to reflect the actual relationship between the perceived magnitude and the physical measure in quantitative terms. The mel scale is one such effort, where psychological pitch is related to frequency so that equal steps in mels (the unit of psychological pitch) are equal in subjective