Good one from the McLaren book...

Well, I polished my bifocals to read the 1 point type with which
Brian McLaren has wisely and generously chose to format his
article "Tuning and Psychoacoustics" from his _Microtonality,
Present, Past, Future_ blah blah...

All in all quite an engrossing read, although it's riddled with
spelling errors, extractions from various texts without the
accompanying diagrams, etc., etc. It's hard, sometimes, to tell when
all the various authors cited are speaking and when it is McLaren, so
it's kind of a "mish mash" in that regard...

Interesting ideas about hearing, however, with the advocacy of THREE
different theories auditory perception 1) The "place" theory, or
physical excitation of the inner ear... advocated by some just
intonation enthusiasts and Helmholtz, 2) The "periodicity" theory,
which involves the recognition of pitch by the *timing* sensations of
the ear-brain and 3) A "pattern recognition" theory, which involves
mental processing of the two previous types of perception *in
addition* to higher-level mental processes which are culturally
influenced and dependent.

McLaren is good to state all the inherent contradictions in *all
three* systems, as well as the various biases held by researchers.
Essentially, he feels as though the "results are not yet in"
regarding a true understanding of the nature of hearing and auditory
perception... although the use of the computer has, apparently,
greatly changed such research due to a greater ability to currently
generate accurate tests for listening subjects...

The bibilography is extensive... about 8 of these small 1 point typed
pages. However, McLaren states that there are many more sources that
have not yet been included in the bibliography.

Here is a "good one" from his statement about the bibliography:

"This bibliography is grossly incomplete and will probably stretch to
40+ pages in its final version. Most of the sources cited in the
text are *not* currently listed here. Work on entering the biblio
text is the lowest form of human activity and a result is ongoing..."

____________ _________ __________
Joseph Pehrson