Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Re: Necker Cube illusion

Hi Joseph,

> I really love these visuals... Finding the musical equivalent of
> these would, indeed, be quite an accomplishment... From reading the
> exchange, though, I'm not quite certain that it has been determined
> EXACTLY what it would be. Either that, or I'm missing something in
> the discussion...

I think you are right, and it hasn't been completely determined yet, as
far as I can gather from the discussion so far.

Maybe a softly sounding but distinctive inharmonic timbre with a few prominent
inharmonic partials, and which falls apart into partials readily anyway
when you listen to it, might then be able to fall apart in two different
ways, either as itself at a number of harmonic pitches, or a harmonic
instrument at a number of inharmonic pitches.

Choosing one with, say, three, or four prominent inharmonic partials
might do the trick.

I think, from my experiments with timbres in MIDI, that one would
need to choose the instrument very carefully indeed.

I wonder if crystal singing bowls might work?
http://www.crystalmusic.com/

Or the glass harmonica.
http://www.glassarmonica.com/gallery/index.html

Just a thought, maybe not.

Robert

🔗jpehrson@rcn.com

--- In tuning@y..., "Robert Walker" <robert_walker@r...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_18470.html#18470

>
> Maybe a softly sounding but distinctive inharmonic timbre with a
few prominent inharmonic partials, and which falls apart into
partials readily anyway when you listen to it, might then be able to
fallapart in two different ways, either as itself at a number of
harmonic pitches, or a harmonic instrument at a number of inharmonic
pitches.
>

Isn't this, though, what Paul Erlich was discussing previously, and
he said that the ear would ALWAYS pick out the various vertical
harmonic series in every case?? Therefore, the sound would ALWAYS
fall toward a "number of harmonic pitches..." Either that, or I'm
not understanding something...

_________ ____ ____ ___ _
Joseph Pehrson

🔗Robert Walker <robert_walker@rcwalker.freeserve.co.uk>

Hi Joseph,

How about this idea.

Find accurate partials for a crystal singing bowl, and a Shakuhachi.

Start with a single crystal singing bowl. Gradually add in others one at a
time until you get the partials of the Shakuhachi.

At some point you may start hearing several Shakuhachi's instead of
several crystal singing bowls. If so, maybe the illusion will happen
just before that point.

(Or, since there will be no breath sound, maybe you will hear several
harmonic instruments of some sort resembling a Shakuhachi in tone.)

Now, gradually fade out the crystal singing bowls, and gradually
fade in a timbre made of several Shakuhachis playing the crystal
singing bowl partials.

This timbre has all the same partials with the same volumes as
before, or pretty close, since the Shakuhachi and crystal singing
bowl have a reasonably uniform timbre.

So the transition will hopefully be quite a smooth one, with
mainly the continuous part of the sound changing.

Finally, fade out the Shakuhachi's one at a time until you
are left with only one Shakuhachi.

May sound quite Escher like I think, like his metamorphoses.

That could all be done in MIDI in fact, if one used a sound font or
equivalent for the crystal singing bowl.