musical phonemes

[Ray Tomes, TD 207.18]
>
> I believe that major confusion is caused by our naming
> convention where we call D and D- (or D and D+) by the same
> name "D". We would never think of playing a Db for a D or
> vice versa because we call these separate names and so we
> should also accept that D and D- are not the same note and
> that they can occur near each other in the same piece.
> This is well understood in Indian music (in practice if not
> in theory).

This is *exactly* what I was talking about in my long posting
[TD 207.14] where I discuss 'musical phonemes'.

As an example, The 'p' sound in the two words 'pat' and 'spat'
is actually, phonetically, two different sounds: after the initial
'plosive' created by forcing the lips apart in both sounds,
the first one has a puff of air while the second one does not.

In many languages of India, these are considered to be two
different letters, and therefore two different words that use
them, respectively, which to us look and sound like the same
word, carry two distinctly different meanings.

In English, this phonetic distinction does not apply: the
'plain p' and the 'p with a puff of air' are always both 'p',
and the sounds are not distinguished by English listeners
because they do not convey any difference in meaning.

Thus, in English they are both the same phoneme 'p', while
in those Indian languages they are two different phonemes.

The situation can also be reversed: there are some sounds
that we, as English speakers, know are entirely different,
but speakers of other languages may not distinguish between
them, as the difference conveys no meaning in their language.

Joseph L. Monzo monz@juno.com
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
|"...I had broken thru the lattice barrier..."|
| - Erv Wilson |
--------------------------------------------------

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Message text written by INTERNET:tuning@onelist.com
>
As an example, The 'p' sound in the two words 'pat' and 'spat'
is actually, phonetically, two different sounds: after the initial
'plosive' created by forcing the lips apart in both sounds,
the first one has a puff of air while the second one does not.

In many languages of India, these are considered to be two
different letters, and therefore two different words that use
them, respectively, which to us look and sound like the same
word, carry two distinctly different meanings.<
>

Joe Monzo:

I think you might be a bit confused by some -emic/-etic issues. It's be
worth your while to look at a good popular introduction to modern
linguistics. Pinker's _The Language Instinct_ will do fine.

Daniel Wolf

Monzo [TD209.5]
>This is *exactly* what I was talking about in my long posting
>[TD 207.14] where I discuss 'musical phonemes'.

>As an example, The 'p' sound in the two words 'pat' and 'spat'
>is actually, phonetically, two different sounds: after the initial
>'plosive' created by forcing the lips apart in both sounds,
>the first one has a puff of air while the second one does not.

I learned about the two "th" sounds from a Yugoslav friend.
Try "thin" and "this" which have the same puff and non puff.
Isn't it funny that we know how to do this right but we don't even know
that we are doing it. Perhaps the same applies in music sometimes.

-- Ray Tomes -- http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/users/rtomes/rt-home.htm --
Cycles email list -- http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/users/af/cyc.htm
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Boundaries of Science http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/users/af/scienceb.htm

[Ray Tomes, TD 210.3]
>
> I learned about the two "th" sounds from a Yugoslav friend.
> Try "thin" and "this" which have the same puff and non puff.

Well, this is not *exactly* the type of situation to which
I referred, altho it illustrates the same point I was making.

The difference between the two 'p' sounds in English is that
one is aspirated (thanks to Daniel Wolf for reminding me of
the proper term) and one is not; the difference between the
two 'th' sounds is that one is *voiced* and one is *unvoiced*
(as in 'this' and 'thin' respectively).

> Isn't it funny that we know how to do this right but we don't
> even know that we are doing it. Perhaps the same applies in
> music sometimes.

That's the point.

And I *do* think there's a good analogy to musical intonation
here.

Daniel Wolf pointed out to me that speakers of a certain language
who hear a sound pronounced incorrectly as a result of the person
uttering it not being cognizant of the phonetic/phonemic
distinctions, will recognize it as being incorrect.

But he made another point which bears further examination:

[Daniel Wolf, private communication]
>
> English orthography happens to combine both sounds in
> one symbol, which is sufficient, since the aspirated form
> only occurs in particular contexts not shared with the
> unaspirated form.

In other words, in general (we who use English as our native
tongue know about spelling exceptions!), a language will find
written symbols for all the distinct phonemes it needs but will
employ an economical means of realizing these distinctions,
sharing symbols for different sounds when it can, i.e, when
there is no possibility for confusion of meaning.

I feel that it is necessary to state the possibility that this
may be true in only a minority of cases, because I know about
some languages where there is an extremely close correspondence
between the written symbol and the phonetic, such as Finnish.
But based on what I know about linguistics, I believe it
holds for the majority of cases.

And I do believe that a musical style may dictate intonational
'rules' in the same way that a language dictates phonemic rules,
and that much information may be gained by the application
of these linguistic ideas to a study of intonation.

Joseph L. Monzo monz@juno.com
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
|"...I had broken thru the lattice barrier..."|
| - Erv Wilson |
--------------------------------------------------

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Joe Monzo wrote,

> >This is *exactly* what I was talking about in my long posting
> >[TD 207.14] where I discuss 'musical phonemes'.
>
> >As an example, The 'p' sound in the two words 'pat' and 'spat'
> >is actually, phonetically, two different sounds: after the initial
> >'plosive' created by forcing the lips apart in both sounds,
> >the first one has a puff of air while the second one does not.

Ray Tomes wrote,

> I learned about the two "th" sounds from a Yugoslav friend.
> Try "thin" and "this" which have the same puff and non puff.

Actually, the two "th" sounds, unlike the two "p" sounds, are distinguished in the English language. Consider the words "thigh" and "thy", for example.

Also, the distinction between the two "th" sounds is not the puff at all, it's that one is voiced and the other is voiceless. Other pairs of phonemes that differ in this way are f/v, s/z, sh/zh, p/b, t/d, and k/g.