Carrillo, Balzano, etc.

Several items: I listened last Wednesday night to an 'old time radio
show' on KNX1070's Drama Hour that mentioned Julian Carrillo. The show
was an episode of SUSPENSE called "The 13th Sound" starring Agnes
Morehead as an hysterically nervous murderess whose dying husband had
scraped his nails down the side of a house after she shot him. Later,
she attends a chamber music concert in which the first piece on the
program is a quarter-tone composition, "The 13th Sound" by "young Julian
Carrillo." She becomes hysterical upon hearing the quarter-tones and
this episode leads to her eventual exposure and confession.

Unfortunately, all one hears is a string quartet tuning up and playing
briefly out of tuneThe piece was described as having been controversial
in New York a week or so earlier, but as far as I know, Carrillo called
his movement Sonido Trece, but never applied it to any single piece. The
date of the original broadcast was Feb 13, 1947. I didn't quite catch
the writers' names but they sounded something like "Kathy Lewis (and her
husband)."

The second is that I have finally located a copy of the 1992 edition of
J.R. Pierce's "The Science of Musical Sound," and I haven't found any
place where he is terribly critical of Plomp and Levelt's theory of
sensory consonance. He does say that it doesn't explain common-practice
harmony, but then, I don't recall them making very strong claims that
it did, either. Pierce does say that some listeners prefer wide 12-tet
thirds to JI ones and that violinists do not use JI when performing
western music, but that's nothing new. He does say that Barber Shop
quartets and some early music may be in JI.

Finally, I was at panel discussion Friday at UCSD and heard Gerald
Balzano, David Wessel and Steve McAdams discuss musical form and time
relations. Balzano was surprised to hear that his CMJ article was still
being referred to on the Tuning List.

The take-home lesson from the panel is that most listeners cannot
perceive musical forms longer than 5-7 seconds unless specially trained
and attentive. Roger Reynolds, the moderator, described an experiment in
which a Mozart piano sonata was cut into 2 measure segments and
randomly reassembled. When the resulting score was played by a pianist,
most ordinary listeners perceived nothing odd, though those with musical
training thought there was something vaguely wrong with the piece.

--John

John Chalmers wrote...
>The take-home lesson from the panel is that most listeners cannot
>perceive musical forms longer than 5-7 seconds unless specially trained
>and attentive. Roger Reynolds, the moderator, described an experiment in
>which a Mozart piano sonata was cut into 2 measure segments and
>randomly reassembled. When the resulting score was played by a pianist,
>most ordinary listeners perceived nothing odd, though those with musical
>training thought there was something vaguely wrong with the piece.

Sounds cooked. Many Mozart pieces have blocks of 2 measures each.

5-7 sounds like a Miller thing. But how would the brain know about
seconds? I can't believe this is the correct units. Unless they're
thinking of something different, and the numbers 5 and 7 are just a
coincidence.

And what counts as a form? A continuous melody? There must by many
at slow tempos longer than 7 seconds. 1812 overture comes to mind.

-Carl

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

> 5-7 sounds like a Miller thing. But how would the brain know about
> seconds? I can't believe this is the correct units.

I can't believe this, period. What sense does a movement of a Bruckner symphony make on this time scale?

--- In tuning@y..., John Chalmers <JHCHALMERS@U...> wrote:

> The second is that I have finally located a copy of the 1992
edition of
> J.R. Pierce's "The Science of Musical Sound," and I haven't found
any
> place where he is terribly critical of Plomp and Levelt's theory
of
> sensory consonance.

no, he isn't. nor is Terhardt, if you read his website articles on
the subject.

(http://www.mmk.ei.tum.de/persons/ter/top/senscons.html)

but the key point is that, while Sethares tends to equate musical
consonance with sensory consonance, Terhardt sees sensory consonance
as the *less important* of the two primary components of musical
consonance

(http://www.mmk.ei.tum.de/persons/ter/top/muscons.html)

-- the *more important* being the one he terms 'harmony'

(http://www.mmk.ei.tum.de/persons/ter/top/harmony.html)

which involves the so-called Rameau basse fondametale

(http://www.mmk.ei.tum.de/persons/ter/top/basse.html)

Pierce seems quite aligned with Terhardt both in philosophy and in
the terms he uses. after the chapter 'Helmholtz and Consonance',
which presents, essentially, the Plomp and Levelt theory of
consonance, the next chapter is entitled 'Rameau and Harmony'. in
this chapter Pierce tells how a naive, Plomp/Levelt based view was
surprisingly overturned in the course of some experiments with
stretched partials, once the degree of stretching became large
enough. the resulting insight into the nature of music led Pierce to
the subjects associated with the terms 'Rameau' and 'harmony', by
Terhardt at least.

the point is that one cannot simply take the relationships between
spectra and tuning present in common-practice music, or any other
style, preserve those relationships under some arbitrary (let's say
continuous) mapping from frequency to frequency, and expect the
result to be remotely musical, even as regards preserving the
consonance/dissonance patterns. and yet this is exactly the
impression that one gets from most of Sethares's writings.

i'd love to hear dissenting opinions about this,
paul

--- In tuning@y..., "emotionaljourney22" <paul@s...> wrote:
'Rameau and Harmony'. in
> this chapter Pierce tells how a naive, Plomp/Levelt based view was
> surprisingly overturned in the course of some experiments with
> stretched partials,

We discussed this in 36129 and I think you made a good point there.
Here I only disagree with the phrase "surprisingly overturned" and
would substitute "found incomplete" or "found limited in scope".

What I think Pierce is saying is:
(1) Plomp's model works well for sounds made by traditional
musical instruments based on harmonic vibrations.
(2) Artificial sounds made by electronically manipulating the
placement of partials are identified as "wierd" by the ear
and not processed in the same way, so they are outside Plomp's
model.
(3) Given the adaptability of humans, musical training can condition
(like Pavlov's dog) people to percieve what they expect to
percieve (within limits).

I still haven't read Terhardt's web site yet in detail, but I
hope to someday.

Jeff

--- In tuning@y..., "jjensen142000" <jjensen14@h...> wrote:

> What I think Pierce is saying is:
> (1) Plomp's model works well for sounds made by traditional
> musical instruments based on harmonic vibrations.

well, it doesn't explain a major component of musical consonance in
traditional instruments, which is where Rameau comes in (look at
where Pierce bring Rameau in, and how he gets there).

> (2) Artificial sounds made by electronically manipulating the
> placement of partials are identified as "wierd" by the ear
> and not processed in the same way, so they are outside Plomp's
> model.

i really don't think Pierce is saying or ever would say anything like
this. if he did, he'd be attacking the whole premise behind
Sethares's body of work in a particularly severe way -- much more
severely than even i ever would.

actually, i think Pierce, like Terhardt, understands that
Plomp/Levelt's model works at least as well for explaining
consonance, if the partials are moved from their "natural" harmonic
locations. either way, it's just a *component* of consonance.

> (3) Given the adaptability of humans, musical training can condition
> (like Pavlov's dog) people to percieve what they expect to
> percieve (within limits).

hmm . . . i agree that conditioning is key, but i'm not sure i see an
analogy with Pavlov's dog (where's the reward?). as for conditioning
people to perceive what they expect to perceive, that sounds like a
reference to categorical perception or something, but how does that
tie in to what Pierce is saying . . . maybe you meant "conditioning
people to expect to perceive what they expect to perceive" or
something?

> I still haven't read Terhardt's web site yet in detail, but I
> hope to someday.

also get a copy of Roederer's book, if you can. sometimes language
that is unclear (and hence potentially misleading) in one book can
become cleared up if it is taken as part of a body of literature on
some topic.

keep in touch,
paul

Hi Paul. I was just reading a posting of yours from 1994,
back when you went by the name of "Public Cluster Macintosh"
at Yale, and used capital letters : ) Many of the topics
then are the same as now...

--- In tuning@y..., "emotionaljourney22" <paul@s...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@y..., "jjensen142000" <jjensen14@h...> wrote:
>
> > (2) Artificial sounds made by electronically manipulating the
> > placement of partials are identified as "wierd" by the ear
> > and not processed in the same way, so they are outside Plomp's
> > model.
>
> i really don't think Pierce is saying or ever would say anything
like
> this. if he did, he'd be attacking the whole premise behind
> Sethares's body of work in a particularly severe way -- much more
> severely than even i ever would.
>
> actually, i think Pierce, like Terhardt, understands that
> Plomp/Levelt's model works at least as well for explaining
> consonance, if the partials are moved from their "natural" harmonic
> locations. either way, it's just a *component* of consonance.
>

Ok, maybe I paraphrased a little liberally here, but I draw
your attention to Ch 6 Rameau and Harmony p.87 (1983 edition):

"This was something of a suprise for me...The ear does not
analyze these sounds into separate componenets; yet that is
just what out hearing did to the computer produced tones with
stretched partials. The ear simply refused to hear such a
collection of partials as a distinct tone with a single pitch and a
single distinctive quality. Instead, the ear picked these stretched
tones to pieces...That is why Boulez could hear no structure in
Old Hundredth...by the rules of Plomp consonance and disonance
were preserved"

> > (3) Given the adaptability of humans, musical training can
condition
> > (like Pavlov's dog) people to percieve what they expect to
> > percieve (within limits).
>
> hmm . . . i agree that conditioning is key, but i'm not sure i see
an
> analogy with Pavlov's dog (where's the reward?). as for
conditioning
> people to perceive what they expect to perceive, that sounds like a
> reference to categorical perception or something, but how does that
> tie in to what Pierce is saying . . . maybe you meant "conditioning
> people to expect to perceive what they expect to perceive" or
> something?
>

At the end of Ch 5 p.80, Pierce talks about trained musicians
recognizing intervals and calling them consonant or dissonant
based on their previous experience, even if he deleted all
the offending partials. Likewise for dominant 7th chords in a
cadence. I'm the one using the word "conditioning", not Pierce,
because that's what I think is happening. Maybe its not
"pavlovian conditioning", maybe its that other kind "operant"?
Anyway, music students are repeatedly exposed to the stimulus
of hearing an interval and identifying it. Then they hear a
tweaked version of the interval but they recognize enough
similiarity with what they heard before, and they give the
answer that they always gave before.

> > I still haven't read Terhardt's web site yet in detail, but I
> > hope to someday.
>
> also get a copy of Roederer's book, if you can. sometimes language
> that is unclear (and hence potentially misleading) in one book can
> become cleared up if it is taken as part of a body of literature on
> some topic.

I had it in my hand a few weeks ago, but on quick inspection,
it looked like a dud. I am going to try to grab that Allen Forte
tonality book this week, if possible. On the other hand, I
am still working on understanding periodicity blocks....

Jeff

--- In tuning@y..., "jjensen142000" <jjensen14@h...> wrote:
>
> Hi Paul. I was just reading a posting of yours from 1994,
> back when you went by the name of "Public Cluster Macintosh"
> at Yale,

well, i had no choice in the matter, that was the only computer(s) i
could post from at the time (that's right, many college seniors
didn't own their own computer in 1994) ;)

> --- In tuning@y..., "emotionaljourney22" <paul@s...> wrote:
> > --- In tuning@y..., "jjensen142000" <jjensen14@h...> wrote:
> >
> > > (2) Artificial sounds made by electronically manipulating the
> > > placement of partials are identified as "wierd" by the ear
> > > and not processed in the same way, so they are outside
Plomp's
> > > model.
> >
> > i really don't think Pierce is saying or ever would say anything
> like
> > this. if he did, he'd be attacking the whole premise behind
> > Sethares's body of work in a particularly severe way -- much more
> > severely than even i ever would.
> >
> > actually, i think Pierce, like Terhardt, understands that
> > Plomp/Levelt's model works at least as well for explaining
> > consonance, if the partials are moved from their "natural"
harmonic
> > locations. either way, it's just a *component* of consonance.
> >
>
> Ok, maybe I paraphrased a little liberally here, but I draw
> your attention to Ch 6 Rameau and Harmony p.87 (1983 edition):
>
> "This was something of a suprise for me...The ear does not
> analyze these sounds into separate componenets; yet that is
> just what out hearing did to the computer produced tones with
> stretched partials. The ear simply refused to hear such a
> collection of partials as a distinct tone with a single pitch and a
> single distinctive quality. Instead, the ear picked these stretched
> tones to pieces...That is why Boulez could hear no structure in
> Old Hundredth...by the rules of Plomp consonance and disonance
> were preserved"

exactly -- plomp's rules work just fine (for what they work for at
all) when the partials are stretched.

> > > (3) Given the adaptability of humans, musical training can
> condition
> > > (like Pavlov's dog) people to percieve what they expect to
> > > percieve (within limits).
> >
> > hmm . . . i agree that conditioning is key, but i'm not sure i
see
> an
> > analogy with Pavlov's dog (where's the reward?). as for
> conditioning
> > people to perceive what they expect to perceive, that sounds like
a
> > reference to categorical perception or something, but how does
that
> > tie in to what Pierce is saying . . . maybe you
meant "conditioning
> > people to expect to perceive what they expect to perceive" or
> > something?
> >
>
> At the end of Ch 5 p.80, Pierce talks about trained musicians
> recognizing intervals and calling them consonant or dissonant
> based on their previous experience, even if he deleted all
> the offending partials.

ah -- this is still chapter 5 -- at this point, pierce is failing to
fully realize the implications of Rameau and "harmonic entropy",
which only dawn on him in chapter 6! consonance and dissonance is
*not* all about "offending partials".

> Likewise for dominant 7th chords in a
> cadence.

that gets into musical style and conditioning, yes.

[but there are certain psychological qualities that drew musicians
using the diatonic scale toward using chords with tritones (like
dominant 7ths) and resolving them in certain ways. my paper tries to
get into this.]

> I'm the one using the word "conditioning", not Pierce,
> because that's what I think is happening. Maybe its not
> "pavlovian conditioning", maybe its that other kind "operant"?
> Anyway, music students are repeatedly exposed to the stimulus
> of hearing an interval and identifying it. Then they hear a
> tweaked version of the interval but they recognize enough
> similiarity with what they heard before, and they give the
> answer that they always gave before.

yes -- this is a very, very important effect. as one consequence, one
has a big "hump" to get over when trying to use an alternative tuning
in its "own right", as it were (or at least more so).

just rambling,
paul