To Jerry and Paul, and also all: "High thirds"

Please see message 36018 on this list for more complete background
information.

Bob (at end of above-referenced post):
"This learning experience [referring to an extensive tuning
background] has taught me that the ear learns to correlate frequency
and pitch in an increasingly objective way. I therefore feel that
those with poor intonation sense have simply not "objectified" their
ears in this way and thus easily fall prey to whatever psychoacoustic
anomolies might assail them.

"There are without any doubt, as I see it, psychoacoustic phenomena
that predispose naive ears towards perceptions that do not support
miminum tuning dissonance in the context of harmony, i.e., JI
harmony. Yet the tuning dissonances that arise in sufficiently non-JI
harmonies do not go away simply because some of these phenomena
predispose the ear away from JI."

Bob now:
I think this is the most succinct summary I can offer regarding the
conclusions that for me are inevitable in the context of my personal
experience with precise tuning over many years, both with fixed pitch
keyboard and dynamically tunable instruments such as violin and
voice. The implications of these conclusions for the "high third"
phenomenon under current discussion should be obvious. The re-
injection of the compensatory stand-alone high third (actually high)
into the root and fifth sounds terrible to me (not just in theory,
but literally in terms of sound).

The idea itself also defies any logical paradigm to which I can
personally subscribe. After all, here we are taking a perceptual
anomaly that does not accord with any objectively measurable
phenomenon, namely the apparent lowering of the stand-alone third,
and compensating for its apparent lowness by raising it literally in
terms of objective frequency, and then injecting this literally
higher third back into a context in which it **ALREADY** sounds
higher subjectively! How can we propose that this will accomplish
anything but the exaggeration of an already deceptive perceptual
anomaly?!?!

I sincerely did not expect my perception of this anomaly to go away
(in Jerry00), but it surprised me by doing so anyway. Although it is
not necessary to the points I just made above, for me this further
confirms what my previous long history in dealing with such things
has taught me, namely that the the ear does indeed learn to ignore or
at least compensate in some way these perceptual anomalies over time,
just as in sports, in order to become successful in certain contexts,
experience has to impart the ability to null out optical illusions
and other deceptive perceptual anomalies in order to respond
accurately with our aim, or other physically objective, result-
oriented responses.

--- In tuning@y..., "robert_wendell" <rwendell@c...> wrote:

> The idea itself also defies any logical paradigm to which I can
> personally subscribe. After all, here we are taking a perceptual
> anomaly that does not accord with any objectively measurable
> phenomenon, namely the apparent lowering of the stand-alone third,
> and compensating for its apparent lowness by raising it literally
in
> terms of objective frequency, and then injecting this literally
> higher third back into a context in which it **ALREADY** sounds
> higher subjectively! How can we propose that this will accomplish
> anything but the exaggeration of an already deceptive perceptual
> anomaly?!?!

well, as so often in the past, i find myself in complete agreement
with bob w.. again, by no means am i trying to foster alliances or
rivalries around here -- it just so happens that, since bob w. joined
last year, an overwhelming number of the posts here that make me
think, 'wow, that's exactly what i've been trying to say' have been
by bob w.. of course, where we disagree, i make no bones about saying
so.

i'd love it if bob w. and others will listen to the latest 'jerry10'
example and tell us what they hear . . .

-paul

--- In tuning@y..., "emotionaljourney22" <paul@s...> wrote:

> i'd love it if bob w. and others will listen to the latest 'jerry10'
> example and tell us what they hear . . .

What are we listening *for*?

--- In tuning@y..., "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@j...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@y..., "emotionaljourney22" <paul@s...> wrote:
>
> > i'd love it if bob w. and others will listen to the latest 'jerry10'
> > example and tell us what they hear . . .
>
> What are we listening *for*?

does the upper note appear to rise, fall, or stay put?

--- In tuning@y..., "emotionaljourney22" <paul@s...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_36035.html#36083

> --- In tuning@y..., "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@j...> wrote:
> > --- In tuning@y..., "emotionaljourney22" <paul@s...> wrote:
> >
> > > i'd love it if bob w. and others will listen to the
latest 'jerry10'
> > > example and tell us what they hear . . .
> >
> > What are we listening *for*?
>
> does the upper note appear to rise, fall, or stay put?

***My feeling in this experiment was that it appeared to "stay put"
but "jiggled..." !

jp

>>>i'd love it if bob w. and others will listen to the
>>>latest 'jerry10' example and tell us what they hear . . .
>>
>>What are we listening *for*?
>
>does the upper note appear to rise, fall, or stay put?

I listened through very high quality headphones.

The 10th does not clearly evoke a single pitch for me. I
can hear one very high component that does not seem to change.
If I listen for the root of the tenth, it seems to rise after
the beating starts, but also becomes louder and changes in
tone color. I think the 'perfection' of this timbre, the
total lack of spatial separation, and relative amplitudes of
the notes damage this experiment's bearing on real-world
phenomena.

Note: I haven't read any posts on this thread since I found
jerry10, so I could do my listening with less bias than I
already have. I'll swing back and pick them up now.

Jerry, comments on the following files:

Rt-5th-lo3.mpeg

Despite Gene's request for mpeg, you never know what kind of
distortion is being introduced, and for a topic this
controversial, we're much better off with wavs. Do you have
the original wav files?

The pitch of the 10th seems to waver a lot. Other than
that -- yeah sounds pretty smooth.

Rt-5th-hi3.mpeg

Again waver, and the vocal quality / recording values seem to
have changed here from "Rt-5th-lo3.mpeg", making direct
comparison difficult.

The synth you're using? Can you try to match what you're
singing with the pitch bend wheel?

Rt-add5-adj.mpeg

I can't really notice anything here.

HighThirdDemo.mpeg

The most important one, and the quality is really bad! Indeed,
on the first check the piano seems sharp, and not on the second.
But I can hardly hear a thing. And we don't know the basses and
tenors haven't gone sharp too?

But most importantly: Can the singers hear the piano!?
This experiment should be done just so, and later the
piano track could be added.

-Carl

--- In tuning@y..., Carl Lumma <carl@l...> wrote:

> The 10th does not clearly evoke a single pitch for me. I
> can hear one very high component that does not seem to
change.

what exactly do you mean by this? please be very clear --
otherwise i guarantee someone will misinterpret you :)

> If I listen for the root of the tenth,

you mean the fundamental of the tenth, or upper voice, yes?

> it seems to rise after
> the beating starts,

ok -- that's what the question was (assuming you meant
'fundamental of the tenth' and not 'root of the major tenth chord'
above).

> but also becomes louder and changes in
> tone color.

well, that's probably a result of the phase-locking (and the
resulting tendency to perceive the chord as a single note) before
the beating starts!

thanks for your responses, robert walker, bob, joseph, jon, and
carl!

--- In tuning@y..., "emotionaljourney22" <paul@s...> wrote:
> thanks for your responses, robert walker, bob, joseph, jon, and
> carl!

Well, glad to be of help. But please, Paul, would you kindly and succinctly tell me what the f***ing point of all this is? I'm happy to listen to something, in a thread that has been going on forever, about some minute point or other. I can hear a pitch change - what more is there to say? How could something this small (the experiment) mean anything more than a grain of sand in the entire musical continuum???

I'm not angry, I am just a puzzled human wondering what alllllll the fuss is about!

Cheers,
Jon

--- In tuning@y..., "jonszanto" <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@y..., "emotionaljourney22" <paul@s...> wrote:
> > thanks for your responses, robert walker, bob, joseph, jon, and
> > carl!
>
> Well, glad to be of help. But please, Paul, would you kindly and
>succinctly tell me what the f***ing point of all this is?

since you're asking so nicely,

>I can hear a pitch change - what more is there to say?

what more is there to say? if you want more background on this, you
might have to dig through the recent (and not-so-recent) archives on
jerry's 'high third'. but very simply, the fact is that there is a
very prominent musical director and author on this list who is
claiming he hears the pitch of the upper voice in this example go
*down*, and is claiming that musical practice among vocalists today
across the country, and perhaps even everywhere and every-when, is
influenced by this 'illusion'. i'm trying to determine if anyone
else, anyone at all, actually hears the pitch of the upper voice go
down (even while its frequency actually increases). so far, the
results are negative . . . but why dismiss it out of hand before
every possible angle has been explored (think _twelve angry men_)?

>>The 10th does not clearly evoke a single pitch for me. I
>>can hear one very high component that does not seem to
>>change.
>
>what exactly do you mean by this? please be very clear --
>otherwise i guarantee someone will misinterpret you :)

A high-pitched component, probably a harmonic of the bass,
does not change at all for the duration. Interestingly, I
can't listen to (in fact, hear) it and to the 10th at the
same time.

>>If I listen for the root of the tenth,
>
>you mean the fundamental of the tenth, or upper voice, yes?

Yes.

>>it seems to rise after the beating starts,
>
>ok -- that's what the question was (assuming you meant
>'fundamental of the tenth' and not 'root of the major tenth chord'
>above).

ok.

>>but also becomes louder and changes in tone color.
>
>well, that's probably a result of the phase-locking (and the
>resulting tendency to perceive the chord as a single note) before
>the beating starts!

yup. Have you tried using different timbres for different voices,
increasing the amplitude of the 10th, or putting a little stereo
separation in?

By the way, while I can't make out the kind of detail that Bob appears
to have made out in the fuzziness of Jerry's mpeg, my best guess as to
what's happening there is exactly what he claims.

-Carl

On 4/1/02 6:07 PM, "tuning@yahoogroups.com" <tuning@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Carl said:
>
> Jerry, comments on the following files:
>
> Rt-5th-lo3.mpeg
>
> Despite Gene's request for mpeg, you never know what kind of
> distortion is being introduced, and for a topic this
> controversial, we're much better off with wavs. Do you have
> the original wav files?

I checked around and evidently not. It was recorded well over a year ago and
I have no recollection as to the procedure.
>
> The pitch of the 10th seems to waver a lot. Other than
> that -- yeah sounds pretty smooth.

Hey, man! That's my 67-year-old wobbly voice you're talking about. Too bad I
didn't recording these when I was 35 and could sing a decent straight tone.
My hope is that there is enough focus between the wobbles to tell where my
intended focus is. In other words, read my mind. :-)
>
> Rt-5th-hi3.mpeg
>
> Again waver, and the vocal quality / recording values seem to
> have changed here from "Rt-5th-lo3.mpeg", making direct
> comparison difficult.

Yeah. I hear that, too. (Perhaps I was subconsciously skewing the evidence.)
Again, I'm hoping there is enough pitch focus there to overcome the timbral
difference.
>
> The synth you're using? Can you try to match what you're
> singing with the pitch bend wheel?

I've tried that in the past, Carl, with little success. My understanding is
that my M-1 moves pitches in whole cents. I suspected that we would need
something more sensitive than that to find the actual pitch of the "high
third." That's why Paul has and is preparing some listening examples that
explore differences finer than one cent.
>
> Rt-add5-adj.mpeg
>
> I can't really notice anything here.

The question is: does the pitch of the third move in response to the
inclusion of the fifth. I think it does. That's why we're here. Whether that
is true is the present focus of our "search."
>
> HighThirdDemo.mpeg
>
> The most important one, and the quality is really bad!

Sorry, Carl. Capital Records wasn't available that day. :-)

> Indeed, on the first check the piano seems sharp, and not on the second.

That is the "expected" perception since the girls are singing a 4:5 third
to the basses at that point. (Unfortunately, the basses immediately lifted
the pitch given to them at the outset, so no accurate measurement can be
made from this recording (even if it were a good one).

At the second check, the tenors have entered, causing (I believe) the pitch
of the women's third to sound (be?) higher than ET, thus giving the
perceptual impression that the piano has moved while in fact that cannot be
the case. The logical conclusion is that the women's pitch has moved, or at
least appears to have moved. That's what we're trying to discover.

> But I can hardly hear a thing. And we don't know the basses and
> tenors haven't gone sharp too?

They have, but once the pitch is established before the women enter, the
root/fifth stays steady.
>
> But most importantly: Can the singers hear the piano!?
> This experiment should be done just so, and later the
> piano track could be added.

What a great idea, Carl. That way there can be no influence to the women to
consciously move the pitch before the tenors enter with the fifth. Hear
that, Bob? Record the voices from a given pitch and dub in the reference
pitches later. Brilliant!

Thanks, Carl.

Jerry

--- In tuning@y..., "emotionaljourney22" <paul@s...> wrote:
> since you're asking so nicely,

Just a colorful guy using colorful language in an attempt to get your attention! :)

> what more is there to say? if you want more background on this, you
> might have to dig through the recent (and not-so-recent) archives on
> jerry's 'high third'

Nonononono. No time for that, and you must respect our time. All I wanted was a simple paragraph on what this was all about, since you were semi-pleading for other people to give a listen. See below...

> very prominent musical director and author on this list who is
> claiming he hears the pitch of the upper voice in this example go
> *down*

...and etc. Well, good enough. A one sentence listing of the file, along with a tiny paragraph about what you expected us to hear (did it go up, down, or stay the same) was all we needed.

> so far, the results are negative . . . but why dismiss it out of
> hand before every possible angle has been explored
> (think _twelve angry men_)?

Oh, I agree. But out of 575 'members' you only got about 3 or 4 to listen before your plea, so maybe a bit of though in presentation (a simple post about the 'experiment' that you could either cite by msg # or cut-and-paste the body if people need to know) would help immensely. Sometimes the amount of 'packaging' of your experiements and positings seems to be in directly inverse proportion to the importance that you value in them - if it is important to you, spend the extra couple of minutes to make it simple for others to participate.

After all the messages, and after all the hunting down what was being looked at, listening to that file and hearing the direction seems such a small thing. I hope you get a large enough sample to satisfy you (and anyone else), but it is such an extrapolated and cordoned-off example that I'm unclear as to how it could be the bedrock of some new understanding.

But I clearly heard it go up! :)

Cheers,
Jon

--- In tuning@y..., "jonszanto" <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:

> Oh, I agree. But out of 575 'members' you only got about 3 or 4 to
>listen before your plea, so maybe a bit of though in presentation (a
>simple post about the 'experiment' that you could either cite by msg
># or cut-and-paste the body if people need to know) would help
>immensely. Sometimes the amount of 'packaging' of your experiements
>and positings seems to be in directly inverse proportion to the
>importance that you value in them - if it is important to you, spend
>the extra couple of minutes to make it simple for others to >participate.

great suggestion. i think i'll do this on the new list once it's up
and running . . .

peace,
paul

On 4/3/02 7:18 AM, "tuning@yahoogroups.com" <tuning@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

> Message: 14
> Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 01:14:13 -0000
> From: "jonszanto" <JSZANTO@ADNC.COM>
> Subject: Re: To Jerry and Paul, and also all: "High thirds"
>
>> so far, the results are negative . . . but why dismiss it out of
>> hand before every possible angle has been explored
>> (think _twelve angry men_)?
>
> Oh, I agree. But out of 575 'members' you only got about 3 or 4 to listen
> before your plea, so maybe a bit of though in presentation (a simple post
> about the 'experiment' that you could either cite by msg # or cut-and-paste
> the body if people need to know) would help immensely. Sometimes the amount of
> 'packaging' of your experiements and positings seems to be in directly inverse
> proportion to the importance that you value in them - if it is important to
> you, spend the extra couple of minutes to make it simple for others to
> participate.
>
> After all the messages, and after all the hunting down what was being looked
> at, listening to that file and hearing the direction seems such a small thing.
> I hope you get a large enough sample to satisfy you (and anyone else), but it
> is such an extrapolated and cordoned-off example that I'm unclear as to how it
> could be the bedrock of some new understanding.

Actually, it could be very helpful, Jon, no matter which way the tally comes
up. I don't know that we'll get to any bedrock here, but if we turn over any
significant amount of topsoil, we'll be sure to post it.
>
> But I clearly heard it go up! :)
>
Thanks for responding, Jon.

Jerry