Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup mills-tuning-list TUNING digest 803

From: mclaren
Subject: Hucksters, shysters and
other suspicious doyens of intonational
"research"
--
Many and mutually contradictory are the
results of psychoacoustic research on
tuning in the early years of this century.
And still, occasionally, in the badly
thought-out articles which appear now
and then.
As one who believes along with H. L.
Mencken that "Man, at his best, remains
a sort of one-lunged animal, never completely
rounded and perfect, as a cockroach, say,
is perfect," this is perhaps only to be
expected. Nevertheless it behooves me
to point out some of the more glaring
errors perpetuated in the name of
early 20th-century intonational "research."
(These errors are filched straight from
"How to Lie with Statistics," by Darrell
Huff, W. W. Norton and Co., 1954. This
book ought to be taught in every college
curriculum.)
The first classic error of the intonational
"researcher" is the biased sample.
Consider, for example, a paper which stands
out for sheer wackiness as perhaps the worst
piece of microtonal "research" ever done:
namely, "Scale, Key and contour in the
discrimination of tuned and mistuned
approximations to melody" by Anthony J.
Watkins, Perception & Psychophysics,
1985, Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 275-285.
Watkins makes sure to build in a huge
bias into his test sample of listeners,
because he defines "mistuned" melodies
as the closest approximation to a 12-TET
melody in another equal temperament.
The problem with this sort of microtonal
"research" should be obvious: if you inform
your test subjects that, say, red is a distorted
version of blue, and then show your test
subjects a lot of paintings with red in 'em,
you will obtain the predictable result that
"the subjects reported that all paintings
which were not monochromatically blue
were perceived as significantly distorted."
This kind of "research" is just a nudge away
from the infamous political "push polls," in
which quondam "phone researchers" call up
voters for the opposition and ask: "Would you
change your vote if you learned that your
candidate is a child molester?"
(It's worth mentioning that Richard Nixon
is the father of this infamy, in the 1947
Jerry Vorhees senate race.)
In the microtonal realm, a more subtle form
of biased sample is found when researchers
choose 1st year music students as test subjects
for intonational listening studies. SInce most of
these music students are constantly being
run through an exhaustive regimen of 12-TET
listening tests, the sample is a priori tainted,
and might even be unusable. John Chalmers has
pointed this out--the problem is much less
severe with upper division music students,
since they've been exposed to real music in
so many intonational real-life situations that
their ears are bound to be more flexible. They
also have presumably passed the early ear-
training tests and thus are not constantly
being bombarded by 12-TET brainwashing.)
[2] The well-chosen average is a second
source of error in intonational research.
Mean and median "averages" are often quite
different, particularly with small sample
sizes and large variances. Most insidious of all
is the quoted "average" deviation from some
hypothetical "target tuning" as measured by
the preferences of a group of listeners. If
the averages are given as unsigned scalars,
the study is often worthless. Don Hall et al.
made this error in their 1985 article "The
Perception of Musical Intervals." Hall and co.
also chose their deviations from values which
slyly sit atop just ratios, so that the implication
was that the listeners judged deviations based on
an innate desire for small integer ratios.
Franz Loosen's articles corrected this error
by showing that the direction of the error
bars of perceived deviations changed systematically
depending on which instrument the listener
used. Loosen's studies tell us: [1] different listeners
perceive deviations from different types
of intervals--pianists from ET intervals,
violists from Pythagorean intervals; and [2]
that pianists and violinists tolerate different
error ranges skewed toward different triadic
pitch heights, showing that they are measuring
"deviation" primarily in terms of the triads
they've become used to hearing.
[3] "The little figures that are not there"
bedevil small group studies of intonational
perception. If you've got 4 or 6 listeners,
it's no more meaningful to report that "75%
of listeners perceived the stretched intervals
as..." than it is to report that "75% of dentists
surveyed prefer Crest." (What this really means
is that the fourth dentist disagreed.)
Carol Krumhansl's studies use very small
sample sizes--yet her results purport to
be statistcally significant. A much earlier
researcher, Carl Seashore, used truly mammoth
sample sizes, and his results hold up. Heinz Werner's
studies are also a excellent model in this regard;
his results were primarily *qualitative*,
and Werner's main interest was in eliciting
descriptions of perceived intervals. This
is a valid procedure even with very small
sample sizes. But Krumhansl's statistical
approach seems highly suspect when only
a dozen or twenty-some listeners are involved,
yet the results are generalized to sweeping
grandiosities involving "Western tonal
hierarchical perception," etc.
[4] "Much ado about practically nothing"
is the problem of making a big deal out
of small differences which probably
don't exist. This can be seen in Partch's
insistence and more recently Ezra Sims's
insistence that inaccuracies in the realm of
2 cents, 1 cent, 1.8 cents, etc., are lethal
to the peformance and audition of just
intonation music. This error also crops
up in intonational research. Comparing standard
deviations of interval preference, for
example, may not be valid unless the
sample size is very large and/or the
results have been replicated by many
different reserachers over many
different years.
Another way of saying this is: (number
of intonational studies) * (difference
in standard deviations) is the quantity
that ought to be compared.
This works in reverse. Many intonational
advocates have tried to claim that small
differences in standard deviation of
interval perception are merely a statistical
error caused by sampling noise--yet they
ignore the fact that these small differences
are (A) small when compared with the octave,
but not when compared with the intervals
being perceived, and (B) the results have
been replicated by so many hundreds of
researchers over more than 150 years of
quantitative tests that it's clear a real
effect is involved, not mere statistical
noise.
[5] The last error and one of the most
insidious in intonational research is
the classic "post hoc" fallacy.
This fallacy is aptly summed up by
the case in which there are two clocks
in the town square. When clock #1
points to 5 o'clock, clock #2 rings
its bell. Therefore clock #1 caused
clock #2 to ring.
Right?
This kind of error can be seen in study
after study of ethnic scales in non-
western cultures. Most of these
studies find predominantly 7 or
5 tones. No suggestion is ever made
that because of Miller's limit to the
channel capacity of the human sensorium
and short-term memory (see Miller, G. A.,
"The Magic Number 7 Plus or Minus Two,"
Journ. Psych. 1956), 7 notes represents
a practical near-upper limit to the number
of tones which can be distinguished in
a fluid musical context.
Instead of arriving at *that* conclusion,
intonational researchers in the early
part of the century reasoned: since the piano
has 7 white keys and 5 black keys, clearly
this indicates that the tuning
preferences throughout all the world's
cultures are caused by an unconscious
desire for the western 7-note white
piano keys.
Right?
Alternatively, this fallacious argument
is used by just intonation fans (most
notably, Lou Harrison--a very fine
composer but a less than entirely rigorous
scholar) to argue that since errors are
distributed approximately evenly around
this or that set of just ratios for all
of the 7-tone and 5-tone scales used by
other cultures, clearly this indicates
that the tuning preferences throughout
all the world's cultures are caused by an
unconscious desire for small whole
number ratios.
Right?
And thunder causes the lightning,
right?
And smoke causes the fire...right?
Researchers like Frederic Voisin, who
use retunable synthesizers to measure
the *process* of tuning by native
experts in other musical cultures,
are now beginning to torpedo these
specious "post hoc, propter hoc" notions
of the origins of ethnic tunings.
Shockingly, researchers like Voisin
are discovering that there's very little
preference for even such purportedly
"universal" and "basic" units of
intonational measure as the 2:1
octave, the 3:2 fifth, etc. See
Voisin, F. "Musical Scales in Central
Africa and Java: Modelling by Synthesis,"
Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 4, 1994,
pp. 85-90; also Kubik, G. "African
Tone-Systems: A reassessment,"
Yearbook for Traditional music, Vol. 17,
1985, pp. 31-63; Schneider, A. and
Beurmann, A. "Notes on the Acoustics
and Tunings of Gamelan Instruments,"
Performance in Java and Bali: Studies of Narrative,
Theater, Music and Dance, London: B. ARPS,
1993, pp. 197-218; Tracey, H. "Towards
an Assessment of African Scales," African Music,
Vol. 2, No. 1, 1958, pp. 15-23; Ellis, "Pre-
Instrumental Scales," Ethnomusicology, 1962;Vetter,
R., "A Retrospect On A Century of Gamelan Tone
Measurements," Vol. 33, No. 2, Ethnomusicology,
1989, pp. 217-227; Rahn, Jay, "Javanese Pelog
Tunings Reconsidered," Yearbook of the
International Folk Music Council,1978, Vol. 10,
pp. 69-82; Wachsmann, K., "A Study of Norms
in the Tribal Music of Uganda," Ethnomusicology,
Vol. 1, No. 11, 1957, pp. 9-16; Hood, Mantle,
Hood, M., "Slendro and Pelod Redefined: With a Note
on Laboratory Methods, by Max Harrell," Selected
Reports on Ethnomusicology, 1966, Vol. 1, No. 1,
pp. 28-48; "Hatch, Martin, F. "Lagu, Laras,
Layang: Rethinking Melody in Javanese Music,"
PhD. dissertation, Cornell University, 1980,
und so weiter.
Lou Harrison has been a prime mover in the
misguided attempt to describe *all* ethnic tunings
throughout world musical cultures as departures
from this or that set of small integer ratios.
Alas, the data accumulated over the last century
make it clear that most of the world's intonational
usage *cannot* be adequately explained in this way.
In fact, as Ellis' article and Voisin's research makes
clear (along with much other research), many cultures
do not even think in terms of subdividing a 2:1 ratio,
much less in terms of small-integer ratios. Many
cultures think musically in terms of adding constant
Herz intervals, irregardless of whether the sum
comes out to a 2:1 or not. In fact the Banda Linda,
Banda Ndopka, Ngaka-Manza and Banda Gbambiya
peoples of Central Africa prefer an "octave" of
1150 cents. Lou Harrison has not explained how
to reconcile these facts with the notion that just
intonation forms the basis of world music.
In the 1920s H. L. Mencken lamented:
"Today the old pegagogy has gone out,
and a new and complicated science has
taken its place. Unluckily, it is largely
the confection of imbeciles,
and so the unhappiness of the young
continues. In the whole realm of human
learning there is no faculty more
fantastically incompetent than that of
pedagogy. If you doubt it, go read the
pedagogical journals. Better still, send
for an armful of the theses that
Kandidaten write and publish when they
go up for their Ph.D's. Nothing worse is
to be found in the literature of astrology,
snake oil salesmanship, or Christian
Science." [Mencken, H. L., "The Vintage
Mencken Gathered by Alistair Cooke,"
Vintage Press: New York, 1956, pg. 184]
This is nowhere more true than in early
intonational "research." Fortunately,
there are signs that the woeful tide
of error may be receding--somewhat.
--mclaren

Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl
with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Fri, 16 Aug 1996 18:22 +0200
Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA01772; Fri, 16 Aug 1996 19:05:01 +0200
Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA01771
Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI)
for id KAA21639; Fri, 16 Aug 1996 10:05:00 -0700
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 10:05:00 -0700
Message-Id: <199608161603.RAA05161@gollum.globalnet.co.uk>
Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu
Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu

TUNING digest 803

🔗Steve Curtin <curtin@...>

🔗John Chalmers <non12@...>