call it persistence of hearing (was RE: Holy smokes. . .)

>>>Undoubtedly. However, if you're playing the scale two notes at a
>>>time, the diadic measure I've been using is quite appropriate.
>>
>>I guess that depends on how much stock we decide to place in "echo".
>>I'm open to suggestions, but your own examples have taught me, over
>>the years, a great respect for echo.
>
>You mean examples of my guitar playing? Well, I think of what I do with
>delay more in terms of counterpoint (as in a round) rather than creating
>one big chord with all the notes in the scale.

Sorry for not making myself clear, but I meant a kind of psychoacoustic
"echo" -- musical context, if you will. I suspect the common-fundamental,
chord-like quality of the harmonic series segment would prevail over many
duets tuned to it. But I see what you're saying Paul, and I'm all for it.
I just wanted readers to know that your views are part of a large, self-
consistent model of music-making -- one that reflects, in places, the type
of music you're interested in... Bottom line: I don't believe the 39-point
scale is any lower in harmonic entropy than the 40-point one, until we
assume mutiple fundamentals, chord changes, yada. I don't think the duet
restriction will do it (cough).

Incidentally, I've had many blissful listening moments hearing delay as
counterpoint -- but I almost always find it nasty by the time it starts
making a chord out of the scale in a melodic passage. By "your examples",
I meant theory-ones about approximations and such -- one involving the
8/5 comes to mind.

-Carl

>>I suspect the common-fundamental,
>>chord-like quality of the harmonic series segment would prevail over many
>>duets tuned to it.
>
>Yes, and the results would not be very musically charming, IMO.

As I said -- you're down to using your own musical taste here. Which is
good, so long as you say so (as you did). To be fair, I have no more
evidence in favor of such duets than you have against them -- I'm using my
taste too. But I have a stab: I think the average listener can track the
partial number of a note over a drone, and I think I've heard this being
exploited for beautiful melody many times. It's one of the three things I
think listeners can use to track a melody: pitch (Miller limit), scale
degrees (Rothenberg propriety), and partial positions (sensory consonance).
It's action between the latter two that results in diatonicity. This is
the same business I've been pitching since I joined the list -- one which
I've never been able to make clear to my satisfaction, and one which has
anyway been given short shrift by list readership, IMO.

-Carl

--- In tuning@egroups.com, Carl Lumma <CLUMMA@N...> wrote:

> It's one of the three things I
> think listeners can use to track a melody: pitch (Miller limit),
scale
> degrees (Rothenberg propriety), and partial positions (sensory
consonance).
> It's action between the latter two that results in diatonicity.

Carl,

Hello.

Could you explain the "action between the latter two" in laymens
terms? When you say "results in diatonicity", am I understanding
correctly that it is the interaction between the Rothenberg property
and "partial positions" (perception of overtones in the timbre being
used), is what results in the listener's perception of a
scale's "diatonicity"? Very interesting! Do explain more.

A little help with the Miller Limit would be of great help. Got a
paper, post or web page on that one?

Respectfully,

Jacky