"Intonation is Intonation OF" [categories]

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 1:30 AM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> Even if you cannot find books on the subject, theorists such as Tartini and so on are quoted extensively in academic papers available on JSTOR, which your university library will have. There you will find that this same principle continued in the West: intonation is intonation OF. There is a pre-existing object of this intonation, and that object retains its identity whether tuned Just or not.

These objects are exactly what are referred to in the literature as
"categorical perception." They seem to be what transmits all musical
information, and as such, I basically don't care at all about ratios
anymore. Well, that's not true, but I care more about categories.

The question is: how do we proceed from here to figure out what's
going on, and how to model that? We're all agreed that the phenomenon
exists, at least for some people, and that it's quite mysterious. Now
that we're all agreed, what next?

I'll start by suggesting something, and maybe we'll see where it leads
us: categories themselves are nothing but empty shells. They consist
entirely of "associations" of things that have been lumped together.
If one manages to disassociate all of the constituent things that are
in a category, and lump them with other things, one can form new
categories.

From this perspective, we simply have to figure out what the
constituent factors that form the foundation of a category are to
proceed in modeling things.

What of this assumption? Would this violate anything we already know?
Does it lead anywhere?

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 1:30 AM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
> >
> > --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@> wrote:
> >
> > Even if you cannot find books on the subject, theorists such as Tartini and so on are quoted extensively in academic papers available on JSTOR, which your university library will have. There you will find that this same principle continued in the West: intonation is intonation OF. There is a pre-existing object of this intonation, and that object retains its identity whether tuned Just or not.
>
> These objects are exactly what are referred to in the literature as
> "categorical perception." They seem to be what transmits all musical
> information, and as such, I basically don't care at all about ratios
> anymore. Well, that's not true, but I care more about categories.
>
> The question is: how do we proceed from here to figure out what's
> going on, and how to model that? We're all agreed that the phenomenon
> exists, at least for some people, and that it's quite mysterious. Now
> that we're all agreed, what next?
>
> I'll start by suggesting something, and maybe we'll see where it leads
> us: categories themselves are nothing but empty shells. They consist
> entirely of "associations" of things that have been lumped together.
> If one manages to disassociate all of the constituent things that are
> in a category, and lump them with other things, one can form new
> categories.
>
> From this perspective, we simply have to figure out what the
> constituent factors that form the foundation of a category are to
> proceed in modeling things.
>
> What of this assumption? Would this violate anything we already know?
> Does it lead anywhere?
>
> -Mike
>

For one thing it leads to truly "xenharmonic" music rather than infinite variations of what is essentially the same damn thing, and it leads to something you can transmit with ease to other musicians, which is (truly) alternative scales.

The reified ratios of Partch are actually just another cage.

Gotta run, looking forward to this

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 1:50 AM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> For one thing it leads to truly "xenharmonic" music rather than infinite variations of what is essentially the same damn thing, and it leads to something you can transmit with ease to other musicians, which is (truly) alternative scales.

I'd like to think so. However, I still haven't heard anything like
this. It's still true that the scale which has the most appeal in this
sense to me is mavila[9], which is also one of the least pure scales
for intonation. Porcupine[8] is a close second.

Do you have any compositions you feel are especially successful in this vein?

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> These objects are exactly what are referred to in the literature as
> "categorical perception." They seem to be what transmits all musical
> information, and as such, I basically don't care at all about ratios
> anymore. Well, that's not true, but I care more about categories.

If categorical perception is what transmits all musical information then only people like you can listen to music at all. People with weak categorical perception would be effectively tone-deaf, or at least would be unable to understand the music they hear.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 1:50 AM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
> >
> > --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@> wrote:
> >
> > For one thing it leads to truly "xenharmonic" music rather than infinite variations of what is essentially the same damn thing, and it leads to something you can transmit with ease to other musicians, which is (truly) alternative scales.
>
> I'd like to think so. However, I still haven't heard anything like
> this. It's still true that the scale which has the most appeal in this
> sense to me is mavila[9], which is also one of the least pure scales
> for intonation. Porcupine[8] is a close second.
>
> Do you have any compositions you feel are especially successful in this vein?
>
> -Mike

Xenharmonic music dare not succeed, for if it succeeds none dare call it xenharmonic.

The ancient Greek soft chromatic tetrachord in the voicing favored by
Islamic theorists both breaks diatonic categorical perception and violates the alleged field of attraction of 5:4. Intervals (in cents) at 0-360-930-498 would be an example of this tetrachord. I mix tetrachords in my music, so let me noodle out an example specifically adhering to this, and throw in some other category-breaking features as well.

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 5:13 AM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > These objects are exactly what are referred to in the literature as
> > "categorical perception." They seem to be what transmits all musical
> > information, and as such, I basically don't care at all about ratios
> > anymore. Well, that's not true, but I care more about categories.
>
> If categorical perception is what transmits all musical information then only people like you can listen to music at all. People with weak categorical perception would be effectively tone-deaf, or at least would be unable to understand the music they hear.

I should have clarified that I was making a personal statement, and
that I can only really claim that the above is true for some of us.
But, from what I can tell, it happens to be a damn lot of us. You know
that you have weaker categorical perception than I do, but you were
also able to understand all of the Bach listening examples, as were
most people who heard them. So even your weaker categorical perception
seems to profoundly affect the sounds you hear.

I'm also starting to realize that much of the confusion in these
discussions may stem from how I'm using the term "categorical
perception." Right now, since it's so poorly understood, it's a
catch-all term for a lot of different effects. Anything that has to do
with the listener making an association with a piece of information
and a scalar interval is within the realm of categorical perception.
Really, at this point, any musical effect that derives from
intervallic size, rather than intervallic ratio, might conceivably be
related to categorical perception.

All I know is that I mentally treat almost every new xenharmonic I get
my hands on as a "muddle" for 12-EDO, and that things like mavila[9]
are helping me to get away from that. Porcupine is coming up as a
second close contender, and hopefully there'll be some more with
higher accuracy soon.

-Mike

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 5:41 AM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
>
> Xenharmonic music dare not succeed, for if it succeeds none dare call it xenharmonic.
>
> The ancient Greek soft chromatic tetrachord in the voicing favored by
> Islamic theorists both breaks diatonic categorical perception and violates the alleged field of attraction of 5:4. Intervals (in cents) at 0-360-930-498 would be an example of this tetrachord. I mix tetrachords in my music, so let me noodle out an example specifically adhering to this, and throw in some other category-breaking features as well.

This has to be a typo. Did you really mean 930 cents above? Was this
supposed to be 430, or 390 perhaps?

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 5:41 AM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
> >
> > Xenharmonic music dare not succeed, for if it succeeds none dare call it xenharmonic.
> >
> > The ancient Greek soft chromatic tetrachord in the voicing favored by
> > Islamic theorists both breaks diatonic categorical perception and violates the alleged field of attraction of 5:4. Intervals (in cents) at 0-360-930-498 would be an example of this tetrachord. I mix tetrachords in my music, so let me noodle out an example specifically adhering to this, and throw in some other category-breaking features as well.
>
> This has to be a typo. Did you really mean 930 cents above? Was this
> supposed to be 430, or 390 perhaps?
>
> -Mike

Typo, sorry. 430, yes.

Okay, noodled out some ancient Greek tetrachords with DX-7 Fulltines type of sound, an abomination to be sure.

http://www.mediafire.com/?istxqpadc9bok2e

I'm curious as to whether you'll find it "xenharmonic" at all.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 1:50 AM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
> >
> > --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@> wrote:
> >
> > For one thing it leads to truly "xenharmonic" music rather than infinite variations of what is essentially the same damn thing, and it leads to something you can transmit with ease to other musicians, which is (truly) alternative scales.
>
> I'd like to think so. However, I still haven't heard anything like
> this. It's still true that the scale which has the most appeal in this
> sense to me is mavila[9], which is also one of the least pure scales
> for intonation. Porcupine[8] is a close second.
>
> Do you have any compositions you feel are especially successful in this vein?
>
> -Mike
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...> wrote:

> If categorical perception is what transmits all musical information then only people like you > can listen to music at all. People with weak categorical perception would be effectively
> tone-deaf, or at least would be unable to understand the music they hear.

But isn't this the case? There *are* tone-deaf people, and people who don't understand what they hear. I've met them!

-Igs

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@> wrote:
>
> > If categorical perception is what transmits all musical information then only people like you > can listen to music at all. People with weak categorical perception would be effectively
> > tone-deaf, or at least would be unable to understand the music they hear.
>
> But isn't this the case? There *are* tone-deaf people, and people who don't understand what they hear. I've met them!

I'm not tone deaf, and I think the claim I can't understand music is idiotic.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...> wrote:

> I'm not tone deaf, and I think the claim I can't understand music is idiotic.

Then what makes you think you've got weak categorical perception?

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@> wrote:
>
> > I'm not tone deaf, and I think the claim I can't understand music is idiotic.
>
> Then what makes you think you've got weak categorical perception?

Mike's description of categorical perception seems to apply to me only rather feebly. Is 8/7 a second or a third? My ears don't seem to know, or much care.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...> wrote:
Then what makes you think you've got weak categorical perception?
>
> Mike's description of categorical perception seems to apply to me only rather feebly. Is 8/7 a second or a third? My ears don't seem to know, or much care.
>

Then your "categorical perception" is probably based on proportions in the harmonic series, not the scalar stuff of Western music. That's groovy.

What is not groovy is when one kind of categorical perception insists that another is actually their own. If someone said Gene, that's absurd, 8/7 is obviously a second, look how close it is to a REAL M2 (12-tET) or within the magic grasp of the NATURAL M2 (9:8), you'd be in your rights to say oh f*ck off. Just like anyone who hears major thirds in different intonations is within their rights to say blow me when someone insists that the M3 "is" 5:4. 'Tisn't- it is still a "major third" as far from 5:4 as 400 cents, and even much further, depending on context.

I think you might just be misunderstanding what Mike means. Would you recognize the tune of "Frere Jacques" if it were played in Superpyth[7] just as easily as if it were played in Flattone[7] and/or Meantone[7]? If so, your categorical perception is working fine.

-Igs

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@> wrote:
> >
> > > I'm not tone deaf, and I think the claim I can't understand music is idiotic.
> >
> > Then what makes you think you've got weak categorical perception?
>
> Mike's description of categorical perception seems to apply to me only rather feebly. Is 8/7 a second or a third? My ears don't seem to know, or much care.
>

On Jan 20, 2012, at 10:08 AM, genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>
wrote:

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@> wrote:
>
> > If categorical perception is what transmits all musical information
then only people like you > can listen to music at all. People with weak
categorical perception would be effectively
> > tone-deaf, or at least would be unable to understand the music they
hear.
>
> But isn't this the case? There *are* tone-deaf people, and people who
don't understand what they hear. I've met them!

I'm not tone deaf, and I think the claim I can't understand music is
idiotic.

I just responded to this, so I don't know why you're acting like I didn't.
You -DO- have a diatonic-based categorical perception. The fact that yours
isn't as strong as someone with AP and 22 years of piano training doesn't
mean you don't have one. The way you heard the Bach retunings is evidence
of that, as you agreed the other night.

If we can agree that you're not by any definition part of these
hypothetical category-less people who would be tone deaf, then that still
begs the question about what Western music sounds like to someone without a
Western categorical perception. Keenan has a story about a native Balinese
listener who went to see Fiddler on the Roof, and came out singing melodies
in the LssLs mode of pelog. Was he tone deaf? Well, maybe not, but he
certainly was interpreting the tones in a radically different manner than
we are.

Lastly, I do very much expect that someone with a stronger categorical
perception might enjoy certain types of music that someone without it might
not. For example, I particularly enjoy free jazz, or let's say the kind of
"harmonically broken" jazz that Ari Hoenig's band plays. I hear all of
these little fragments of chords coming in and out of existence, like a
kaleidoscopic mixture of harmonic quantum fluctuations or something. I hear
notes temporarily implying new tonal centers which rapidly pop in and out
of existence. I think it's great. But the average Western listener doesn't
like free jazz at all; it sounds like random chaotic noise to them, they
clearly can't follow what's going on at all.

Many westerners hear Gamelan music and think it sounds weird and chaotic at
first. Keenan Pepper, who's far more demanding than I am in terms of how
much accuracy he wants his tunings to have, hears it just fine, to the
point where it's a major focus of his life. He can also describe how his
training changed his hearing for pelog, and I have similar anecdotal
evidence for mavila, with us both sharing the same ear training exercise
that caused the change. In comparison, the people who hear Gamelan as noisy
are, on some level, tone deaf to Gamelan music.

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> I think you might just be misunderstanding what Mike means. Would you recognize the tune of "Frere Jacques" if it were played in Superpyth[7] just as easily as if it were played in Flattone[7] and/or Meantone[7]? If so, your categorical perception is working fine.

Mahler puts Frere Jacques in minor and makes further variations on it, but I can still hear Frere Jacques. Is that supposed to be categorical perception? What about 33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli--is making sense of that categorical perception?

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> I just responded to this, so I don't know why you're acting like I didn't.
> You -DO- have a diatonic-based categorical perception. The fact that yours
> isn't as strong as someone with AP and 22 years of piano training doesn't
> mean you don't have one. The way you heard the Bach retunings is evidence
> of that, as you agreed the other night.

I don't think I agreed to anything re your Bach retunings that I wouldn't also agree with re 33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli. And I don't recall any agreement in any case.

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 1:48 PM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...> wrote:
> Then what makes you think you've got weak categorical perception?
> >
> > Mike's description of categorical perception seems to apply to me only rather feebly. Is 8/7 a second or a third? My ears don't seem to know, or much care.
> >
>
> Then your "categorical perception" is probably based on proportions in the harmonic series, not the scalar stuff of Western music. That's groovy.

I thought this was the case at first, that Gene's extensive exposure
to high-accuracy regular temperaments had given him a JI-based
categorical perception, but it doesn't seem to be. Keenan and I were
talking about this with him just a few nights ago. He described his
experience of music as being more like "Grog like" than anything else.

It's been shown that musical training increases certain facets of ones
categorical perception, such as which categories "belong" most with
regards to some background scale; Krumhansl famously tested this to
show that a tonal heirarchy of perceived "belonging" exists for the
notes in the diatonic scale with respect to one another. So it's not
that surprising that someone with less hands-on training would have a
weaker categorical perception than someone with more. But he still
heard all of the Bach retunings as being tonally intelligible, just
varying in how much they sound like crap or don't sound like crap. So
he clearly exhibits the behavior on some level.

Part of the problem is that "categorical perception" is like this
catch-all term for any number of things that have to do with
acculturation and scales and "melody," so it's hard to figure out what
we're talking about. But as to the question of whether Gene's
developed any sort of underlying acculturation to JI, due to his
extensive exposure to it - I'm not sure. I'm not sure how to measure
it. He certainly displays greater sensitivity to intonational purity
than most of us, but whether that's due to more JI acculturation on
his part, or a lack of ear-destroying high error acculturation on our
part, I have no idea.

What I do know is that Western listeners confuse things like 3/2 and
2/1 all the time, and you'll be hard pressed to find a non-musician
who can verbally identify a major sixth vs a minor sixth without ear
training. But there's clearly some underlying internalized scale
template there anyway, as measured in experiments like Krumhansl and
others. So it's hard to figure out what it means.

-Mike

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 3:47 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > I just responded to this, so I don't know why you're acting like I didn't.
> > You -DO- have a diatonic-based categorical perception. The fact that yours
> > isn't as strong as someone with AP and 22 years of piano training doesn't
> > mean you don't have one. The way you heard the Bach retunings is evidence
> > of that, as you agreed the other night.
>
> I don't think I agreed to anything re your Bach retunings that I wouldn't also agree with re 33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli. And I don't recall any agreement in any case.

You said that you found the fugue to sound crappier and crappier as
the error got worse, but that it was intelligible in all of the
tunings except the extremes, with regards to things like the tonality,
major and minor chords, all that. Nearly everyone also heard the same
thing.

So, I said that this demonstrates the -nonexistence- of an
internalized JI categorical perception, and the -existence-, at least
in our little group of Western listeners, of an internalized diatonic
categorical perception. You told me that this was nothing new, and
that everyone knew it, and that Herman had been there first, and I'm
reinventing the wheel. That sounds like a bit more than an agreement
that the effect exists; it sounds like you're saying it exists and is
obvious.

I mean, I certainly agree that it's nothing new; I specifically did it
to replicate things that I deliberately knew had already been done,
for the benefit of XA. But how can you consistently tell me that I'm
wasting my time with these experiments by re-demonstrating obvious
features, while simultaneously saying you're not in agreement that the
features exist?

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
But how can you consistently tell me that I'm
> wasting my time with these experiments by re-demonstrating obvious
> features, while simultaneously saying you're not in agreement that the
> features exist?

Because you constantly recast what I say about variations on a theme into your thing with categorical perception.

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 4:30 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
> But how can you consistently tell me that I'm
> > wasting my time with these experiments by re-demonstrating obvious
> > features, while simultaneously saying you're not in agreement that the
> > features exist?
>
> Because you constantly recast what I say about variations on a theme into your thing with categorical perception.

I've never heard you say anything about variations on a theme before.
You said, in response to what I was doing, "it's Herman's warped canon
page. Big deal." What exactly did you mean by It? Every time I think I
know what It is, and I say what you think It is, that's apparently not
It.

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> I've never heard you say anything about variations on a theme before.
> You said, in response to what I was doing, "it's Herman's warped canon
> page. Big deal." What exactly did you mean by It? Every time I think I
> know what It is, and I say what you think It is, that's apparently not
> It.

It's what I said before--gradual morphing.

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 7:38 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > I've never heard you say anything about variations on a theme before.
> > You said, in response to what I was doing, "it's Herman's warped canon
> > page. Big deal." What exactly did you mean by It? Every time I think I
> > know what It is, and I say what you think It is, that's apparently not
> > It.
>
> It's what I said before--gradual morphing.

OK, tell you what: I'll render up five more Bach examples, this time
in 30b-EDO, 23-EDO, 16-EDO, 25-EDO, and 9-EDO.

Then we can compare the nature of the change for those, in which the
major chord now becomes 10:12:15, to the sharper superpyth tunings, in
which the major chord becomes 10:13:15. In either case you'll be able
to see the gradual change with decent accuracy by starting from 12 and
either going down to 9 or up to 37 or what not.

How about them apples? What I'll tell you is that for me, as soon as "major"
becomes minor, the whole thing changes dramatically and becomes "sad"
or "minor" or whatever cheesy word you want to use, whereas nothing so
dramatic ever quite happens for supermajor. But maybe you'll hear it
differently.

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> OK, tell you what: I'll render up five more Bach examples, this time
> in 30b-EDO, 23-EDO, 16-EDO, 25-EDO, and 9-EDO.
>
> Then we can compare the nature of the change for those, in which the
> major chord now becomes 10:12:15, to the sharper superpyth tunings, in
> which the major chord becomes 10:13:15. In either case you'll be able
> to see the gradual change with decent accuracy by starting from 12 and
> either going down to 9 or up to 37 or what not.
>
> How about them apples?

What's the "nature of the change" mean? It sounds like the main nature of the change will be screwed up sounding harmony, but presumably you don't just want me to say that.

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 8:18 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > OK, tell you what: I'll render up five more Bach examples, this time
> > in 30b-EDO, 23-EDO, 16-EDO, 25-EDO, and 9-EDO.
> >
> > Then we can compare the nature of the change for those, in which the
> > major chord now becomes 10:12:15, to the sharper superpyth tunings, in
> > which the major chord becomes 10:13:15. In either case you'll be able
> > to see the gradual change with decent accuracy by starting from 12 and
> > either going down to 9 or up to 37 or what not.
> >
> > How about them apples?
>
> What's the "nature of the change" mean? It sounds like the main nature of the change will be screwed up sounding harmony, but presumably you don't just want me to say that.

Yeah, what I need you to do is to take Maalox and attempt not to puke
as you listen to the 25-EDO version, because there's something else
I'm after.

My questions for you are: aside from the crappy intonation
1) is there a clearly-defined point where "major" becomes "minor" for
you, or a continuum of transition between the two?
2) is there a clearly-defined point where "minor" becomes "subminor"
for you, or a continuum of transition between the two?

For me, what I hear is:

1) There is an abrupt point where "minor" becomes "major," and the
point where that happens is 7-EDO.

2) There is no abrupt point where "minor" becomes "subminor," but
rather a continuum of transition.

3) It is easier for me to discriminate between a pair of stimuli that
are on opposite sides of the minor-major split.

4) I would rate stimuli on opposite sides of the minor-major split as
being more different than stimuli on the same side of the minor-major
split, regardless of the actual cent difference between them.

The key point for me on #3 and #4 is that this is only true with the
major/minor distinction, not with the minor/subminor distinction or
anything else. There is a smooth continuum where minor becomes
subminor, but a discontinuity where it becomes major. I'm curious if
you'd not experience the same thing.

What I really wish I had was an adaptive-JI algorithm so we could
intone everything nicely for you, but still have these notes arranged
in different scalar structures - as a way of appeasing any
intonational concerns you might have while studying the effect that
different scales have on the tonality and effect of the sound. But, I
don't have that, because it doesn't exist. Maybe a stiff drink might
do the trick.

-Mike

Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> You -DO- have a diatonic-based categorical perception. The fact
> that yours isn't as strong as someone with AP and 22 years of
> piano training doesn't mean you don't have one. The way you
> heard the Bach retunings is evidence of that, as you agreed
> the other night.

I already pointed out that the Bach retunings share a common
rhythm, which makes them sound alike. And I think Gene said
that more extreme transformations are possible which would
still preserve much of the character of the piece -- such as
to the Hungarian minor. In the '90s when I first started
fooling with tunings, I would retune familiar MIDI files to
totally crazy 12-note scales. There's only so much damage
you can do that way.

I'm not sure what communicates the essence of a melody.
Rothenberg proposed it has more to do with the relative sizes
of intervals than absolute sizes. That seems reasonable
because most people can tell which of two melodic intervals
is larger -- in some cases down to a resolution of 5 cents.
Most people, on the other hand, can't identify intervals in
isolation. I can, but when I listen to a fast-moving passage
I'm not sure I do. To pick up from earlier in the thread,
I don't think I hear a "major 6th" in the middle of a fast-
moving melody, but rather just an interval smaller than the
seventh I recently heard and bigger than the fifth. This
isn't categorical perception in the usual sense because the
categories are relative to one another rather than to a
learned grid.

Rothenberg advanced his stability as an expedient, but
considers the portion of proper subsets of a melody that are
preserved by a retuning to be an "ideal measure" (see pg. 356
of part 2 of his Pattern Perception paper). One could imagine
an n-back weighting for this, applied to real music. I wonder
how your Bach retunings would look under such an analysis.

Finally, I would again remind you that AP is a skill possessed
by no more than 1 in 10,000 individuals, making it one of the
rarest traits known. And because it almost always appears in
childhood, you may not be aware of how it weighs on your
perception.

-Carl

On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 11:37 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > You -DO- have a diatonic-based categorical perception. The fact
> > that yours isn't as strong as someone with AP and 22 years of
> > piano training doesn't mean you don't have one. The way you
> > heard the Bach retunings is evidence of that, as you agreed
> > the other night.
>
> I already pointed out that the Bach retunings share a common
> rhythm, which makes them sound alike. And I think Gene said
> that more extreme transformations are possible which would
> still preserve much of the character of the piece -- such as
> to the Hungarian minor. In the '90s when I first started
> fooling with tunings, I would retune familiar MIDI files to
> totally crazy 12-note scales. There's only so much damage
> you can do that way.

OK, so the above thing I wrote about Gene's categorical perception is
wrong, at least if we're using the definition of categorical
perception that has to do with this perceptual twisting effect. It
looks like people without a decent amount of 12-EDO based training
don't exhibit the behavior at all.

So to rephrase what I was saying to Gene then, I think that there is
some aspect of how the listener perceives intervals as subdividing and
combining into other intervals - a more abstract way of defining
something like a scale - that contributes significantly to the
"function," "quality," or net perceptual effect of the interval when
used in a musical context. And also for me, at least, this aspect of
an interval's perception weighs more heavily on the way I hear things
at the end of the day than its concordance, especially when things
like "tonality" are involved.

You mentioned rhythm. Here's an exercise: tap the rhythm to "happy
birthday" on a table, and ask the person across the room which song
you're tapping, and see if they can recognize it. There is only so
much information you can communicate with rhythm, and I think there's
a dimension of information which remains intact throughout all the
Bach retuning examples besides the rhythm. Besides, what's the rhythm
here anyway? A constant barrage of 16th notes for a minute and a half?

> I'm not sure what communicates the essence of a melody.
> Rothenberg proposed it has more to do with the relative sizes
> of intervals than absolute sizes. That seems reasonable
> because most people can tell which of two melodic intervals
> is larger -- in some cases down to a resolution of 5 cents.

So I think "relative sizes of intervals" is the same sort of thing I'm
getting at above. However, there's at least one ratio which I think
matters, and that's 2/1. Thanks to Graham we now have Lilypond
retuning code that'll stretch octaves, so we'll see what comes of
that. I expect that while a "major third" doesn't seem to have
anything to do with 5/4, everything will in fact fall apart when you
stretch the octave, despite the rhythm and everything else still being
identical, just like Cameron said in one of his recent posts.

> Rothenberg advanced his stability as an expedient, but
> considers the portion of proper subsets of a melody that are
> preserved by a retuning to be an "ideal measure" (see pg. 356
> of part 2 of his Pattern Perception paper). One could imagine
> an n-back weighting for this, applied to real music. I wonder
> how your Bach retunings would look under such an analysis.

I think that Rothenberg stability sucks, because the scales with the
highest stability are the ones that are closest to equal. Here's what
doesn't suck: considering how far apart all of the intervals in a
scale are from one another, weighted by the number of times each pair
of intervals appears.

Consider the mavila example we were listening to a little while ago,
where we were trying to figure out what mode was used, and it boiled
down to that we couldn't figure out if they were using a major or
minor second. Well, if they had used a tuning for mavila that widened
the difference between the seconds, we'd hardly be talking about it at
all, wouldn't we? It'd be obvious to figure out what the scalar
structure was at that point. Of course, if you widen the chroma too
much, then the small step starts to get really small, causing
intervals that differ by s to become ambiguous. And there's that point
in the middle where s-c disappears too.

This is usually where I talk about categorical entropy, so I'll reveal
a little bit more about it now. I'd been focused on the above idea for
about a year, which is that scales will be clearest to understand if
you make all of the intervals as far apart as possible. What I was
going to do was smear each interval out by a Gaussian and see how much
they all run over one another. I was using an information-theoretic
quantity called the "conditional entropy" which can be applied to the
scale, and thought it might be nice to expand this to use the Shannon
mutual information instead, which was a bit more elegant. I ran into
some trouble with this when Andy Milne beat me to the punch and posted
something very similar which he called an "expectation tensor." So I
let it rest for a bit, until the discussion about "rank range" brought
it back up a few months ago.

More recently, I was looking for a really simple way to measure this
for an arbitrary scale, something as easy to calculate as Rothenberg
stability, maybe called "weighted rank range," but wasn't sure how to
do it. So I made it my goal for about a month to bombard Keenan Pepper
with information on this subject until he was convinced it was a good
idea. We had a pretty epic conversation about it on XA chat (the fact
that XA chat isn't being documented is a sin), and within like 4 days
of that he signed on and said "hey, I invented categorical entropy!"
and sent me his independent derivation of the same thing I mentioned
above - he even got the mutual information working. And that's where
things are at now.

We're doing things in slightly different ways, though, and now that
I've read the study I linked to in the other post, it's pretty clear
that Keenan's way is better for modeling the comprehensibility of
individual scales, whereas mine is better for modeling actual
categorical perception in the perceptual warping sense. Keenan's
doesn't assume the listener has any categorical perception at all and
simply shows how much information is in a scale. Mine can sort of be
used the same way, but has a more direct application in modeling how
scales will sound to someone who has a pre-existing categorical
perception for a certain scale. I suggested calling his "scalar
entropy," although that's kind of a crappy name because the word
"scalar" has another mathematical meaning beyond this.

That's all for now, except to maybe add that some preliminary results
I got in searching for MOS's show that the scale lowest in categorical
conditional entropy is the diatonic scale with a generator of about
699 cents. Yes, it sucks.

> Finally, I would again remind you that AP is a skill possessed
> by no more than 1 in 10,000 individuals, making it one of the
> rarest traits known. And because it almost always appears in
> childhood, you may not be aware of how it weighs on your
> perception.

I don't know why you keep saying this. I think it's less than a week
ago I linked you to Huron's website showing that "AP Categorical
dissonance" and "categorical dissonance" were two differently
recognized phenomena.

-Mike

Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> You mentioned rhythm. Here's an exercise: tap the rhythm to
> "happy birthday" on a table, and ask the person across the
> room which song you're tapping, and see if they can recognize
> it.

I used to wonder about this as a kid. I bet a lot of
tunes can be uniquely identified by their rhythms after
just a few bars... and even more if you let me have two
fingers, let alone a polyphonic MIDI file, let alone when
you prime the listeners with the answer at the outset.

> So I think "relative sizes of intervals" is the same sort of
> thing I'm getting at above.

Above where?

> However, there's at least one ratio which I think
> matters, and that's 2/1.

I agree, and I think 3/2 matters also.

> > Rothenberg advanced his stability as an expedient, but
> > considers the portion of proper subsets of a melody that are
> > preserved by a retuning to be an "ideal measure" (see pg. 356
> > of part 2 of his Pattern Perception paper). One could imagine
> > an n-back weighting for this, applied to real music. I wonder
> > how your Bach retunings would look under such an analysis.
>
> I think that Rothenberg stability sucks, because the scales with
> the highest stability are the ones that are closest to equal.

Are you thinking of efficiency? All proper scales have
stability = 1.

> This is usually where I talk about categorical entropy, ...
> I ran into some trouble with this when Andy Milne beat me to
> the punch and posted something very similar which he called an
> "expectation tensor." So I let it rest for a bit, until the
> discussion about "rank range" brought it back up a few
> months ago.

Where did Milne post this?

> That's all for now,

Links? Examples?

> except to maybe add that some preliminary results
> I got in searching for MOS's show that the scale lowest in
> categorical conditional entropy is the diatonic scale with a
> generator of about 699 cents. Yes, it sucks.

It sucks? Is low supposed to be bad? What's wrong with
699 cents?

> > Finally, I would again remind you that AP is a skill possessed
> > by no more than 1 in 10,000 individuals, making it one of the
> > rarest traits known. And because it almost always appears in
> > childhood, you may not be aware of how it weighs on your
> > perception.
>
> I don't know why you keep saying this.

I don't know why you keep reasoning from your own experiences
as if they were somehow applicable to the public at large.

> I think it's less than a week ago I linked you to Huron's
> website showing that "AP Categorical dissonance" and
> "categorical dissonance" were two differently recognized
> phenomena.

???

-Carl

On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 2:50 AM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > You mentioned rhythm. Here's an exercise: tap the rhythm to
> > "happy birthday" on a table, and ask the person across the
> > room which song you're tapping, and see if they can recognize
> > it.
>
> let alone a polyphonic MIDI file, let alone when
> you prime the listeners with the answer at the outset.

It seems like you're trying here to assert a null hypothesis, but
you'll have to state it more clearly for me to respond to it.

> > So I think "relative sizes of intervals" is the same sort of
> > thing I'm getting at above.
>
> Above where?

Above the thing I wrote.

> > However, there's at least one ratio which I think
> > matters, and that's 2/1.
>
> I agree, and I think 3/2 matters also.

I doubt it.

> Are you thinking of efficiency? All proper scales have
> stability = 1.

Maybe I'm thinking of Lumma stability.

> > This is usually where I talk about categorical entropy, ...
>
> > I ran into some trouble with this when Andy Milne beat me to
> > the punch and posted something very similar which he called an
> > "expectation tensor." So I let it rest for a bit, until the
> > discussion about "rank range" brought it back up a few
> > months ago.
>
> Where did Milne post this?

Sorry, that was an error, someone posted it on my Facebook wall. I
don't remember who, exactly, but I see an email I wrote to him talking
about it.

> > That's all for now,
>
> Links? Examples?

That's all for now,

> > except to maybe add that some preliminary results
> > I got in searching for MOS's show that the scale lowest in
> > categorical conditional entropy is the diatonic scale with a
> > generator of about 699 cents. Yes, it sucks.
>
> It sucks? Is low supposed to be bad? What's wrong with
> 699 cents?

Low is good.

> > I don't know why you keep saying this.
>
> I don't know why you keep reasoning from your own experiences
> as if they were somehow applicable to the public at large.

I don't remember where I did that last, but in general this is called
the fallacy of composition.

> > I think it's less than a week ago I linked you to Huron's
> > website showing that "AP Categorical dissonance" and
> > "categorical dissonance" were two differently recognized
> > phenomena.
>
> ???

!!!

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> So to rephrase what I was saying to Gene then, I think that there is
> some aspect of how the listener perceives intervals as subdividing and
> combining into other intervals - a more abstract way of defining
> something like a scale - that contributes significantly to the
> "function," "quality," or net perceptual effect of the interval when
> used in a musical context. And also for me, at least, this aspect of
> an interval's perception weighs more heavily on the way I hear things
> at the end of the day than its concordance, especially when things
> like "tonality" are involved.

Whereas to me it doesn't have much weight at all, although I am acutely aware of concordance. But it's more than concordance--different intervals and chords have different sounds intrinsically, and it is the effect of the sound which is important to me. If I compare 1-8/7-3/2, 1-7/6-3/2, 1-13/11-3/2, 1-6/5-3/2 you always seem to be asking me if they are "happy" or "sad", whereas to me they just taste different--different flavors at a banquet of sound.

Mike,

Repeatedly, you overestimate the clarity with which you write.
I'm sincerely trying to understand what you're trying to say.
Your responses that it isn't worth your time to explain yourself
are, I can only think, a sign you're overextended.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 2:50 AM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
> >
> > Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@> wrote:
> >
> > > You mentioned rhythm. Here's an exercise: tap the rhythm to
> > > "happy birthday" on a table, and ask the person across the
> > > room which song you're tapping, and see if they can recognize
> > > it.
> >
> > let alone a polyphonic MIDI file, let alone when
> > you prime the listeners with the answer at the outset.
>
> It seems like you're trying here to assert a null hypothesis, but
> you'll have to state it more clearly for me to respond to it.
>
> > > So I think "relative sizes of intervals" is the same sort of
> > > thing I'm getting at above.
> >
> > Above where?
>
> Above the thing I wrote.
>
> > > However, there's at least one ratio which I think
> > > matters, and that's 2/1.
> >
> > I agree, and I think 3/2 matters also.
>
> I doubt it.
>
> > Are you thinking of efficiency? All proper scales have
> > stability = 1.
>
> Maybe I'm thinking of Lumma stability.
>
> > > This is usually where I talk about categorical entropy, ...
> >
> > > I ran into some trouble with this when Andy Milne beat me to
> > > the punch and posted something very similar which he called an
> > > "expectation tensor." So I let it rest for a bit, until the
> > > discussion about "rank range" brought it back up a few
> > > months ago.
> >
> > Where did Milne post this?
>
> Sorry, that was an error, someone posted it on my Facebook wall.
> I don't remember who, exactly, but I see an email I wrote to him
> talking about it.
>
> > > That's all for now,
> >
> > Links? Examples?
>
> That's all for now,
>
> > > except to maybe add that some preliminary results
> > > I got in searching for MOS's show that the scale lowest in
> > > categorical conditional entropy is the diatonic scale with a
> > > generator of about 699 cents. Yes, it sucks.
> >
> > It sucks? Is low supposed to be bad? What's wrong with
> > 699 cents?
>
> Low is good.
>
> > > I don't know why you keep saying this.
> >
> > I don't know why you keep reasoning from your own experiences
> > as if they were somehow applicable to the public at large.
>
> I don't remember where I did that last, but in general this is
> called the fallacy of composition.
>
> > > I think it's less than a week ago I linked you to Huron's
> > > website showing that "AP Categorical dissonance" and
> > > "categorical dissonance" were two differently recognized
> > > phenomena.
> >
> > ???
>
> !!!
>
> -Mike
>

On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 2:15 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Mike,
>
> Repeatedly, you overestimate the clarity with which you write.
> I'm sincerely trying to understand what you're trying to say.
> Your responses that it isn't worth your time to explain yourself
> are, I can only think, a sign you're overextended.
>
> -Carl

I am extremely overextended, but I have a hard time believing this:

> I'm sincerely trying to understand what you're trying to say.

Your online demeanor is always sarcastic, "snarky," and negative. It's
not pleasant to deal with. And it doesn't seem to be just me, either:
I just watched before my very eyes as what should have been a very
straightforward conversation with Igs' degenerated into you calling
him a "troll," getting uglier and uglier until Igs eventually gave up.
Then he messaged Paul offlist, probably had a conversation involving a
lot less adrenaline, got a simple answer, and life went on. I've been
in Igs shoes regarding these sorts of conversations with you a million
times, so when I can see it's heading in that direction, why should I
proceed? There are a million people I can talk to, who also sometimes
disagree with things that I say, but which don't require me to
consistently experience unpleasant emotions while interacting with
them.

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> I am extremely overextended, but I have a hard time believing this:
>
> > I'm sincerely trying to understand what you're trying to say.
>
> Your online demeanor is always sarcastic, "snarky," and negative. It's
> not pleasant to deal with.

There are two issues on the table now: Carl being snarky, and you sometimes being difficult to understand. I think Carl is sometimes snarky and you are sometimes hard to follow, for what that may be worth.

On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 8:12 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > I am extremely overextended, but I have a hard time believing this:
> >
> > > I'm sincerely trying to understand what you're trying to say.
> >
> > Your online demeanor is always sarcastic, "snarky," and negative. It's
> > not pleasant to deal with.
>
> There are two issues on the table now: Carl being snarky, and you sometimes being difficult to understand. I think Carl is sometimes snarky and you are sometimes hard to follow, for what that may be worth.

I don't have any problem with the notion that my discussion of the
study was hard to follow. Sometimes your technical and mathematical
posts are hard to follow as well. For what it's worth, I've tried to
distinguish myself from many people who also find your work hard to
follow by attempting to actually get on the proper wavelength to
understand it and ask straightforward questions about it. What I try
not to do is bitch endlessly about how musicians can't understand math
and you need to make everything clearer or whatever the rant du jour
is on XA.

In general, I didn't consistently complain that the information be
sent to me in a form that requires minimal effort on my part to
understand. I imagine that if that were the approach I took, and if
every question I asked had this tone of "why are you so habitually
hard to follow?!!" there'd probably come a point where the
exasperation of dealing with me would override any desire you'd have
for me to understand the things you write.

In this case, I posted a study showing how categorical perception is
nonexistent for people without a lot of 12-EDO based musical training.
Then I said this might explain why those of us with a lot of 12-EDO
based training often seem to be on the same page with one another
about categorical perception, whereas those without it seem to always
think we're speaking nonsense - because we actually experience the
phenomenon. Carl copied the last paragraph out of my post and said it
was "baffling" how I extrapolated that from the study. I'm not sure
how to explain how that inference isn't baffling. I'm not sure what
would baffle Carl or anyone else about such an inference. I have no
idea if Carl ended up reading the study. I have no idea if Carl ended
up reading all of my post.

-Mike

On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 12:17 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...t> wrote:
>
> Whereas to me it doesn't have much weight at all, although I am acutely aware of concordance.

Sure.

> But it's more than concordance--different intervals and chords have different sounds intrinsically, and it is the effect of the sound which is important to me. If I compare 1-8/7-3/2, 1-7/6-3/2, 1-13/11-3/2, 1-6/5-3/2 you always seem to be asking me if they are "happy" or "sad", whereas to me they just taste different--different flavors at a banquet of sound.

You said that you'd rate the difference between 13/10 and 22/17 as
being about a 3 out of 5, right? What say you to the notion that, just
like I might have some kind of above-average scale hearing ability or
whatever, that you have some kind of above-average microtone
distinguishing ability?

I very highly doubt that the average person would rate those two
intervals as being significantly different. I'll tell you I certainly
wouldn't. On the other hand, if I turn up my ears and listen very
closely, I can hear that 13/10 is a bit less wobbly than 22/17, in a
sort of subtle way. You also described 22/17 as being "dirtier" than
13/10, which is a value judgment I might also not throw onto the
sound.

We've been talking mostly about 12-specific adaptations and how I have
them and you don't. How do you know there's nothing on the other side
of the coin as well? You aren't really a hypothetical "unmusical"
listener, because although you haven't been developing a ton of 12-EDO
specific adaptations, the type of music you've concerned yourself with
for over a decade is typically high-accuracy and high-limit. How do
you know that all of that hasn't affected your perception in any way
at all? For example, I'd rate the difference between 400 cents on my
12-EDO guitar, and 382 cents on my 22-EDO guitar, as being maybe a 1
out of 5 at most, for instance. But you rated the difference between
22/17 and 13/10 as 3 out of 5! Although you tend to be of the "grog
like" sort when it comes to analytical stuff and stuff that has to do
with scales or categories or what not, it does seem that your ears are
more sensitive to minute changes in concordance than mine. And, I'd
wager, than most people, since I doubt my mom could tell the
difference between 13/10 and 22/17 at all unless I told her what to
listen for.

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> You said that you'd rate the difference between 13/10 and 22/17 as
> being about a 3 out of 5, right? What say you to the notion that, just
> like I might have some kind of above-average scale hearing ability or
> whatever, that you have some kind of above-average microtone
> distinguishing ability?

Possibly. People to me often don't seem to care about the finer distinctions.

On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 5:07 AM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > You said that you'd rate the difference between 13/10 and 22/17 as
> > being about a 3 out of 5, right? What say you to the notion that, just
> > like I might have some kind of above-average scale hearing ability or
> > whatever, that you have some kind of above-average microtone
> > distinguishing ability?
>
> Possibly. People to me often don't seem to care about the finer distinctions.

And what if they just don't notice them?

It's difficult for me to conceive of rating a 13/10 and a 22/17 as 3
out of 5 different by any means. If I turn up my concentration I can
hear more periodicity buzz on the 13/10 in a way that doesn't come
through for the 22/17. But I doubt any person in my family would be
able to hear the difference.

-Mike