Re: intonational accuracy

Hi Johnny,

I've had another thought on this rather vexing subject.

There seem to be a number of aspects to hearing and they
don't all function in the same way.

If presented with two notes one after another, only 2 cents apart, I
normally can't tell which is the sharper of the two, and will often get it wrong
(though possibly a proper trial on a large number of notes would
show up something). In fact, most often, will make some mistakes even
at 5 cents apart.

However, if I try to keep a steady pitch (very carefully, as I did for
this clip), then the CoolEdit results seem to suggest I can keep it steady
to about 1/3 of a cent most of the time. Occasional blips such as the 521 Hz
blip at the start of the 519 Hz note, but they are very short duration and
it is clear the note is being kept steady most of the time, and from beginning to
end of note without any pitch drift either.

I suppose that could be by feeling the breath pressure, but it seems
somehow more likely that in some sense, a 1/3 cent pitch increment
is indeed "heard" - in some other sense of hearing. Maybe one could
even eventually learn to be more used to and confident in that
and actually achieve 1/3 cent accuracy in pitch judgements?

Also when I try to match a heard note with another pitch, I generally
do it by playing the note I want to match, then playing the note
to match with it, rather than playing both notes simultaneously
and looking for beats / roughness. Again I think it is possible
to match it to less than 4 cents, even though, if someone else
were to do it, one probably wouldn't notice a discrepency of,
say, 2 cents.

So who can tell what kind of accuracy one could achieve in
actual performance. I.e. when one relies on feeling the notes
and goes with the music, rather than trying to work everything
out.

Maybe in the future with more microtonal performances, 1 cent
accuracy will even seem tame.

I'm interested to hear what Haresh has to say if he is still
subscribed to the TL, as the Indian musicians have been playing
in j.i. and with small intervals in a very long and highly
sophisticated tradition and seems to me, may well have
particularly refined pitch perception.

Are you there Haresh??

Robert

In a message dated 6/10/01 10:38:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
robertwalker@ntlworld.com writes:

> Maybe one could
> even eventually learn to be more used to and confident in that
> and actually achieve 1/3 cent accuracy in pitch judgements?
>
>

I've enjoyed your responses to this thread. Now, that you mention it, by
playing accurate JI, I already play finer than a single cent. Rudolf Rasch
of Utrecht in the Netherlands wrote of heart jitter. This could be as much as
some cents of interruption based on heartbeat action. A wind instrument is
not as directly connected to the musical tone as singing a tone (except maybe
recorder). The breathing is developed in a manner that keeps the pressure on
the diaphragm constant. So, the bassoon is even more accurate, at least as
concerns jitter.

Since JI ratios are actually heard at points between whole number cents, I
can perform even more accurately than I have previously stated. I am well
aware of producing a JI interval, independent of counting cents.

Best, Johnny Reinhard

Robert 1
Sorry to interject but the trick is the higher one will seem louder

Robert Walker wrote:

> If presented with two notes one after another, only 2 cents apart, I
> normally can't tell which is the sharper of the two, and will often get it wrong

-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria island
http://www.anaphoria.com

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