Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning New file uploaded to this tuning list

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

> Clicking on the link below will play a new midi file:
>
> /tuning/files/Bob%20Wendell/Novel%20JI%
> 20seq.mid
>
> This file is in four-part just harmony without any compromises in
> either the melodic intervals or the harmonic purity, yet moving
> rapidly through extensive harmonic territory in 5-limit JI to end
on
> a pitch that is essentially the same as the beginning pitch (+2
cents
> or 1 schisma).
>
> The harmonic path was deliberately designed to accomplish this,
> taking advantage of the near equivalence of a JI diesis and two
> syntonic commas. The melody in the soprano moves from Ab to G# and
> then repeats. In JI, G# is 41 cents (1 JI diesis) lower than Ab.
> However, this progression migrates the pitch upward by two syntonic
> commas (2 X 21.5 cents = 43 cents), so the G# actually ends up two
> cents (1 schisma) higher than the Ab. Even when the same note is
> repeated with a slight gap or "breath" before restarting the
> sequence, this is barely detectable even to the most highly trained
> ears. You might find it fun to check that out for your own ear.
>
> This was conceived as an exercise for four-part a cappella
ensembles
> that would demand no compromises, either melodic or harmonic, in
the
> purity of the intervals, yet rather than being harmonically static
> would cover extensive harmonic territory. (Copyright Robert P.
> Wendell, May 2002. All rights reserved.)
>
> Members of this list who wish to use this for their own
organizations
> and personal projects only (not including paid professional
> consulting to other organizations), have my permission to do so.
>
> The realization of this as a midi file was implemented by my good
and
> generous friend, John deLaubenfels, who worked with me by email
> during several days of exchanges to get everything right (in spite
of
> some niggling but crucial little oversights on my part).
>
> Hope you enjoy it!
>
> Bob

***Thanks so much, Bob, for this fascinating tuning example which
also happens to be intriguing music! Glad John deLaubenfels was
working on this... haven't heard much from him of late. Thanks for
the great contribution and interesting thesis.

Joe Pehrson

🔗robert_wendell <rwendell@cangelic.org>

Thanks for the mini-review, Joe! Quite appropriate for a mini-midi
(tee-hee). For many like me, I assume the link I gave got truncated
by Yahoo (Yaho-oo-o-o-o!), so here's a shorter one that will get you
in the door so you can see my files list and click on the one that
interests you. Hope this works better:

/tuning/files/Bob%20Wendell/

--- In tuning@y..., "jpehrson2" <jpehrson@r...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@y..., "robert_wendell" <rwendell@c...> wrote:
>
> /tuning/topicId_36814.html#36814
>
> > Clicking on the link below will play a new midi file:
> >
> > /tuning/files/Bob%20Wendell/Novel%
20JI%
> > 20seq.mid
> >
> > This file is in four-part just harmony without any compromises in
> > either the melodic intervals or the harmonic purity, yet moving
> > rapidly through extensive harmonic territory in 5-limit JI to end
> on
> > a pitch that is essentially the same as the beginning pitch (+2
> cents
> > or 1 schisma).
> >
> > The harmonic path was deliberately designed to accomplish this,
> > taking advantage of the near equivalence of a JI diesis and two
> > syntonic commas. The melody in the soprano moves from Ab to G#
and
> > then repeats. In JI, G# is 41 cents (1 JI diesis) lower than Ab.
> > However, this progression migrates the pitch upward by two
syntonic
> > commas (2 X 21.5 cents = 43 cents), so the G# actually ends up
two
> > cents (1 schisma) higher than the Ab. Even when the same note is
> > repeated with a slight gap or "breath" before restarting the
> > sequence, this is barely detectable even to the most highly
trained
> > ears. You might find it fun to check that out for your own ear.
> >
> > This was conceived as an exercise for four-part a cappella
> ensembles
> > that would demand no compromises, either melodic or harmonic, in
> the
> > purity of the intervals, yet rather than being harmonically
static
> > would cover extensive harmonic territory. (Copyright Robert P.
> > Wendell, May 2002. All rights reserved.)
> >
> > Members of this list who wish to use this for their own
> organizations
> > and personal projects only (not including paid professional
> > consulting to other organizations), have my permission to do so.
> >
> > The realization of this as a midi file was implemented by my good
> and
> > generous friend, John deLaubenfels, who worked with me by email
> > during several days of exchanges to get everything right (in
spite
> of
> > some niggling but crucial little oversights on my part).
> >
> > Hope you enjoy it!
> >
> > Bob
>
>
> ***Thanks so much, Bob, for this fascinating tuning example which
> also happens to be intriguing music! Glad John deLaubenfels was
> working on this... haven't heard much from him of late. Thanks for
> the great contribution and interesting thesis.
>
> Joe Pehrson

🔗jonszanto <JSZANTO@ADNC.COM>

🔗robert_wendell <rwendell@cangelic.org>

Sorry about the delay in getting back to you on this, Jon, but here
goes:

--- In tuning@y..., "jonszanto" <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@y..., "robert_wendell" <rwendell@c...> wrote:
> > Clicking on the link below will play a new midi file:
>
> Bob, very nice!

Bob:
Thanks, Jon!

Bob previously:
> > This file is in four-part just harmony without any compromises in
> > either the melodic intervals or the harmonic purity, yet moving
> > rapidly through extensive harmonic territory in 5-limit JI to end
> on
> > a pitch that is essentially the same as the beginning pitch (+2
> cents
> > or 1 schisma).
>
Jon replied:
> I'm looking forward to firing up my rack of synths so I can hear
this
> with some more vocal-like patches. It is nice to listen to example
of
> this kind of movement/resolution rather than just reading about it!

> Question: as a choral director, how hard would you say it would be
to
> reproduce this with average singers? with very good choral artists?
> And would you need to rehearse slowly, to hear the harmonic
movements
> in their purity, or do people start to click with the intervals and
> then proceed naturally?

Bob:
I can only go by my own experience, of course, and I have to project
a little to get from that to this specific sequence, but I believe I
can do that with reasonable accuracy since I have dealt with bits and
pieces of this sort of thing and lots of adaptive JI in general.

Very shortly, after I've had a chance to actually implement this
sequence with my choir, I will have concrete feedback on "average
amateur singers". That phrase applies to my group as a whole, but not
to all individuals. Some are well above "average" and some
significantly below. I will use myself and others I have worked with
to project for "very good choral artists".

"...how hard would you say it would be to reproduce this with average
singers?"

Well, first they would have to have been trained for some time in
recognizing just intervals reliably. I have a specific warmup routine
that is mathematically designed to culitivate this ability in any
singer with even a modestly musical ear. It starts from simple
intervals, fifths, fourths, thirds, against an electronic keyboard
drone with the difference tones reinforced in the bass with unisons
to them. I use a standard 12-EDO keyobard and employing octaves,
fifths and fourths exclusively, since they are the only "quasi-JI"
intervals.

The vowel should be "ooh" as in the Latin or Italian "u". This is
important for maximizing the feedback from difference tones. I
encourage active but relaxed listening for the difference tones, that
is, with no anxiety if they don't hear them. They still respond to
them intuitively even if they don't. Some will hear them explicitly
and some never do.

The exercises go from simple to more complex till they are pretty
much like "real" music. The simplest exercises at the start are
specifically designed to maximize the acoustic handles singers
intuitively use to adjust intonation for purity of vertical harmony.

This provides maximum clarity of experience. Once singers have
experienced what purity feels/sounds like, the context can be
gradually made more complex (less clearly isolated) and they will
continue to recognize it well enough to respond accurately to it
intuitively.

After some time of practicing these warmups, any reasonably viable
amateur choir will begin to spontaneously adjust for pure intonation
in singing actual compositions as long as a chord lasts for a little
while. Part of what I do to reinforce this for faster passages is to
slow down challenging passages for intonation and have them sing
on "looh" or "dooh", depending on the articulation desired.

It is important also to use variations on the exercises or accelerate
them in a way that eliminates the possibility of remaining in "search
mode". The longer chords tune themselves, as mentioned above, because
the singers are trained to adjust for pure harmonies. At accelerated
tempos or shorter note values, there is no time for this.

So a crucial part of training for adaptive JI is to allow search mode
to take place, then repeat the same thing at a faster tempo so they
are required to find the same pitches through melodic memory of what
the search mode yielded for them. This way you are training them to
convert the products of search mode tuning to a more developed sense
of interval prediction without "reinventing the wheel" each time.

"...with very good choral artists?"

I would use the same procedures, but extrapolating from experience
with the more musical members of my choirs the process is greatly
accelerated with any significant talent. An extremely important
factor that you cannot ignore, however, is the value they place on
taking the trouble. You have to have some means available to let them
hear what an enormously beautiful difference it makes. You can't
assume they will "get it" just from doing it while buried in the
middle of a choir. Some do and others don't. There are huge
individual variations in this.

Some people just can't seem to sing and hear what's going around them
well at the same time. You have to get them out of the choir. Two
important ways of handling this is to use modern recording technology
and/or to rotate people onto the "bench" to listen. I do both, but
mostly the rotation. Recording and playing back is very time
consuming. I never cease to be amazed, though, at how some people
remain total clueless as to how good we sound till they hear us on he
way back from the bathroom or something.

"And would you need to rehearse slowly, to hear the harmonic
movements in their purity, or do people start to click with the
intervals and then proceed naturally?"

Yes, and yes... As I've already implied, it is important to stop and
deal with some passages very slowly on "looh" or "dooh". It is also
very effective and even essential to do this SOFTLY (he shouts
ironically). Over time they will begin to "click with the intervals
and then proceed naturally".

Jon:
> I wish I had better ways of describing what listening to music like
> this is for me; I know in my heart that numbers would describe it
> best, but all I know is that some of the resolutions simply do
funny
> things to my head, like breathing in a straight shot of pure
oxygen,
> or opening a door from a heated room and getting a bracing, cold
> blast of outside air.

Bob:
Ha-ha! Well, this sequence deliberately avoids any basis in
traditional functional harmonic principles. It is a variation of a
row I came up with ages ago in composition class (circa 1966). It was
an experiment in integrating the pantonal concepts of Schoenberg with
the "free tonal counterpoint" I was studying based on Hindemith's
ideas.

Hindemith liked the idea of a tonal center, as do I. I think it is
fundamental to psychoacoustically friendly music for human beings.
Hindemith also revered the properties of Gregorian chant as "ideal
melody". I concur that singing and singability (no prejudice here, of
course, being the singer that I am) is fundamental to the appeal of
music to the extent of not being completely disposable even if not
omnipresent where pitch-based music is concerned. (I like the melodic
tuning of percussion and the melodic nature of percussion performance
as evidenced in Max Roach's album "A Drum Also Waltzes" and much
African percussion.

So the row I wrote this variation of is:

Ab F G (up a fifth)D A B(natural) G#

In 12-EDO the tonal center is Ab/G#, which of course are equivalent
in that tuning. This row has the interesting properties of adhering
strictly to Hindemith's rules for free-tonal counterpoint and going
from one side of the circle fifths to the opposite side in the least
number of notes while doing so. It's retrograde and inversion are the
same except for the octave displacement of the D. Its retrograde
inversion is the same sequence as itself.

It also contains implicit within it the potential for very
fascinating contrapuntal/harmonic exploitation that relates quartal
harmonies (harmony built in fourths) and the 12-EDO chromatic scale
at different rhythmic strata. I actually demonstrated this
practically once with an Alleluia I wrote for SATB choir.

I taught it to the humble little amateur church choir I was directing
at the time. They loved it and they sang it beautifully,
demonstrating that pantonal music (no meaningful key signature
possible) with a clear tonal center can be quite singable. What was
more interesting was that the very musically unsophisticated
congregation loved it, too.

Now I have come full circle and with a slight twist of the
wrist "adapted" it ironically to "non-adaptive" JI, where it also
comes out to a G# "equivalent" to Ab (+2 cents), although by a subtly
different but vastly purer harmonic path.

>
> Gad, words are useless sometimes, but the best I have at the moment.
>
> Cheers,
> Jon
>
Ø P.S. Thanks to JdL, say hello, and have him drop a line
sometime...

Bob:
Will do!!! And many thanks for the feedback, Jon

Jon earlier:
Before I go on, one thing to note: if you want the
> file names to be 'tidy', try leaving out spaces, or replace them
with
> an under_score - it will read easier for people trying to find it,
> without the %20 (ascii code for a space).
>
Bob:
I just reposted with a shortened the path to the page on which the
file icons inside my folder are listed.

🔗jonszanto <JSZANTO@ADNC.COM>

Bob,

Thank you for the generous and elaborate backgroung/explanation. Most of it requires no commentary whatsoever, as you very much answered my questions! It is heartening to see the good mix of items: solid theoretical materials, the preceding transformed into a musical example, and real-world insight into the translation of this into an experiential realm.

In other words, you thunk it up and then got your hands dirty!

(As an aside, I'm in no way a singer, but what little singing I've done in either just intervals, and/or microtonal intervals, is almost singularly my work in the Harry Partch Ensemble. My most memorable moments, beyond learning/feeling the warmth and value of singing in-tune intervals and the wonderful melodies/harmonies that lay outside of the 12tet prison cell, is the process of focussing in on the small intervals, until they became as large and identifiable (internally) as any other interval I had previously encountered. IOW, it *is* learnable, and it is possible to internalize these things!)

--- In tuning@y..., "robert_wendell" <rwendell@c...> wrote:
> That phrase applies to my group as a whole, but not
> to all individuals. Some are well above "average" and some
> significantly below. I will use myself and others I have worked
> with to project for "very good choral artists".

Yes, and it should be obvious: I meant 'average' and/or 'amateur' with no attachment of negativity - we are all average or amateur at many things in life...

> The vowel should be "ooh" as in the Latin or Italian "u". This is
> important for maximizing the feedback from difference tones.

Makes sense, and also probably makes it easier for others to hear what is going on if the formant/syllibants/whatever are very round, clear vocal tones.

> This provides maximum clarity of experience. Once singers have
> experienced what purity feels/sounds like, the context can be
> gradually made more complex (less clearly isolated) and they will
> continue to recognize it well enough to respond accurately to it
> intuitively.

Great job of thinking out this process. Probably good for *all* musicians to do things like this!

> It is important also to use variations on the exercises or
> accelerate them in a way that eliminates the possibility of
> remaining in "search mode".

Fascinating.

> So a crucial part of training for adaptive JI is to allow search
> mode to take place, then repeat the same thing at a faster tempo
> so they are required to find the same pitches through melodic
> memory of what the search mode yielded for them.

This is exactly how I remember working on some of these passages. Of course, we had the 'luxury' of playing the microtonal vocal lines on the Chromelodeon, so you could practice matching pitches, and then take it away. And then sing in context, as well as in the ultimate performance tempo.

> Some do and others don't. There are huge individual variations in
> this.

Humanity.

> Hindemith liked the idea of a tonal center, as do I.

And drones exist throughout the world, etc. I think many, if not most of the significant musics, operate with some sense of 'gravity' where you are pulled to a core value (be it a drone, or tonal center, or tonic chord, or whatever). It doesn't always have to be our Western harmony idea of a I chord, but something about us wants to return home, in some sense.

> I concur that singing and singability (no prejudice here, of
> course, being the singer that I am) is fundamental to the appeal of
> music to the extent of not being completely disposable even if not
> omnipresent where pitch-based music is concerned.

I can't entirely disagree with you, though I know from our discussions that I, for myself, am comfortable with musics that are considerably more chaotic and, I suppose, 'non-singable'!

> (I like the melodic tuning of percussion and the melodic nature
> of percussion performance as evidenced in Max Roach's album
> "A Drum Also Waltzes" and much African percussion.

Well, you've picked a lovely example, Max indeed. One of my real treasures is a CD by Doudou Ndaiay Rose title "Djabote" (RealWorld recordings CAROL 2340-2), that captures, as the liner notes say:

"...one week recording on the Island of Goree, with 50 drummers and 80 singers. The last day of the recording was Good Friday, in the middle of Ramadan, and under the full moon, fifty Muslim drummers and eighty Catholic singers playing, singing, and dancing together, witha a perfect mastery of their art and an amazing joy for living."

Quite powerful.

> I taught it to the humble little amateur church choir...

Great anecdotal background: all is made worthwhile when put into action...

So, Bob, thanks. I've enjoyed your discourse, and am glad to see the synergistic way that you approach these matters. All this, and I never mentioned the enriching rehearsals (many) I spent with Robert Shaw...

Cheers,
Jon

🔗robert_wendell <rwendell@cangelic.org>

--- In tuning@y..., "jonszanto" <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:
> Bob,
>
> Thank you for the generous and elaborate backgroung/explanation.
Most of it requires no commentary whatsoever, as you very much
answered my questions! It is heartening to see the good mix of items:
solid theoretical materials, the preceding transformed into a musical
example, and real-world insight into the translation of this into an
experiential realm.
>
> In other words, you thunk it up and then got your hands dirty!
>
> (As an aside, I'm in no way a singer, but what little singing I've
done in either just intervals, and/or microtonal intervals, is almost
singularly my work in the Harry Partch Ensemble. My most memorable
moments, beyond learning/feeling the warmth and value of singing in-
tune intervals and the wonderful melodies/harmonies that lay outside
of the 12tet prison cell, is the process of focussing in on the small
intervals, until they became as large and identifiable (internally)
as any other interval I had previously encountered. IOW, it *is*
learnable, and it is possible to internalize these things!)
>
> --- In tuning@y..., "robert_wendell" <rwendell@c...> wrote:
> > That phrase applies to my group as a whole, but not
> > to all individuals. Some are well above "average" and some
> > significantly below. I will use myself and others I have worked
> > with to project for "very good choral artists".
>
> Yes, and it should be obvious: I meant 'average' and/or 'amateur'
with no attachment of negativity - we are all average or amateur at
many things in life...
>
> > The vowel should be "ooh" as in the Latin or Italian "u". This is
> > important for maximizing the feedback from difference tones.
>
> Makes sense, and also probably makes it easier for others to hear
what is going on if the formant/syllibants/whatever are very round,
clear vocal tones.
>
> > This provides maximum clarity of experience. Once singers have
> > experienced what purity feels/sounds like, the context can be
> > gradually made more complex (less clearly isolated) and they will
> > continue to recognize it well enough to respond accurately to it
> > intuitively.
>
> Great job of thinking out this process. Probably good for *all*
musicians to do things like this!
>
> > It is important also to use variations on the exercises or
> > accelerate them in a way that eliminates the possibility of
> > remaining in "search mode".
>
> Fascinating.
>
> > So a crucial part of training for adaptive JI is to allow search
> > mode to take place, then repeat the same thing at a faster tempo
> > so they are required to find the same pitches through melodic
> > memory of what the search mode yielded for them.
>
> This is exactly how I remember working on some of these passages.
Of course, we had the 'luxury' of playing the microtonal vocal lines
on the Chromelodeon, so you could practice matching pitches, and then
take it away. And then sing in context, as well as in the ultimate
performance tempo.
>
> > Some do and others don't. There are huge individual variations in
> > this.
>
> Humanity.
>
> > Hindemith liked the idea of a tonal center, as do I.
>
> And drones exist throughout the world, etc. I think many, if not
most of the significant musics, operate with some sense of 'gravity'
where you are pulled to a core value (be it a drone, or tonal center,
or tonic chord, or whatever). It doesn't always have to be our
Western harmony idea of a I chord, but something about us wants to
return home, in some sense.
>
> > I concur that singing and singability (no prejudice here, of
> > course, being the singer that I am) is fundamental to the appeal
of
> > music to the extent of not being completely disposable even if
not
> > omnipresent where pitch-based music is concerned.
>
> I can't entirely disagree with you, though I know from our
discussions that I, for myself, am comfortable with musics that are
considerably more chaotic and, I suppose, 'non-singable'!
>
> > (I like the melodic tuning of percussion and the melodic nature
> > of percussion performance as evidenced in Max Roach's album
> > "A Drum Also Waltzes" and much African percussion.
>
> Well, you've picked a lovely example, Max indeed. One of my real
treasures is a CD by Doudou Ndaiay Rose title "Djabote" (RealWorld
recordings CAROL 2340-2), that captures, as the liner notes say:
>
> "...one week recording on the Island of Goree, with 50 drummers and
80 singers. The last day of the recording was Good Friday, in the
middle of Ramadan, and under the full moon, fifty Muslim drummers and
eighty Catholic singers playing, singing, and dancing together, witha
a perfect mastery of their art and an amazing joy for living."
>
> Quite powerful.
>
> > I taught it to the humble little amateur church choir...
>
> Great anecdotal background: all is made worthwhile when put into
action...
>
> So, Bob, thanks. I've enjoyed your discourse, and am glad to see
the synergistic way that you approach these matters. All this, and I
never mentioned the enriching rehearsals (many) I spent with Robert
Shaw...
>
> Cheers,
> Jon

Bob:
Well, it lights my fire to receive the good questions about practice,
Jon . I guess it's because we're both practical musicians. I also
have an engineering background, and engineering is all about the
practical application of theory to create something that actually
works!

So why should music be any different, right? Now to check out my new
exercise with the choir. The midi I uploaded to this list is intended
to give the choir something to chew on similar to what you describe
with Partch's training. This is a subtler level of exercise, and more
comprehensive than any they've had in the past, so I felt they needed
a perfect template right "in front" of their ears.

I'll give you feedback as soon as I have any. I'll probably be
feeding back on this over time, since I expect it to yield both
immediate and long-term benefits...like planting a seed, you know.

Chau amigo (Spanish spelling of "ciao"),

Bob

🔗francois_laferriere <francois.laferriere@oxymel.com>

Hi Bob,

I would like to add some comments to your very interresting post

bob:
> The vowel should be "ooh" as in the Latin or Italian "u". This is
> important for maximizing the feedback from difference tones. I
> encourage active but relaxed listening for the difference tones,
that
> is, with no anxiety if they don't hear them. They still respond to
> them intuitively even if they don't. Some will hear them explicitly
> and some never do.

I do not know why "ooh" is the best phoneme. For instance with "eeh",
formants are much more evently distributed, but for reason I cannot
understand, it is easier to keep a stable pitch with "ooh".

> After some time of practicing these warmups, any reasonably viable
> amateur choir will begin to spontaneously adjust for pure intonation
> in singing actual compositions as long as a chord lasts for a little
> while. Part of what I do to reinforce this for faster passages is to
> slow down challenging passages for intonation and have them sing
> on "looh" or "dooh", depending on the articulation desired.

> It is important also to use variations on the exercises or
accelerate
> them in a way that eliminates the possibility of remaining in
"search
> mode". The longer chords tune themselves, as mentioned above,
because
> the singers are trained to adjust for pure harmonies. At accelerated
> tempos or shorter note values, there is no time for this.

I would add that the shorter the chord, the less likely it is that the
"out-of-tuneness" is audible. I explain it by the much debated
"uncertainty principle" but there is a more pragmatic (but
mathematically equivalent) explanation: if the period of the beat (due
to difference wrt to JI) is longer than the chord itself, it cannot be
perceived.

Nevertheless, the goal of the rehersal is obviously not to be fast
enough so that lack of justness cannot be perceived. The goal is for
each singer to acquire a mental image of each note and of its
placement in the chord BEFORE its realisation. Thus, the "search mode"
with slower tempo is necessary to reach this goal.

As I noted previously, when discussing my analysis of the "high third"
experiment, it seems likely that the most "natural" interval mental
image for average singer is 12ET, so it may take some work to get
anything near JI.

> So a crucial part of training for adaptive JI is to allow search
mode
> to take place, then repeat the same thing at a faster tempo so they
> are required to find the same pitches through melodic memory of what
> the search mode yielded for them. This way you are training them to
> convert the products of search mode tuning to a more developed sense
> of interval prediction without "reinventing the wheel" each time.

> "...with very good choral artists?"

For a capella singers, being very good solo singers is not sufficient:
the habit of singing together is necessary in order that each voice
know its place, i.e. when modulation takes place, it is necessary to
settle in advance who will contribute to compensate the comma drift.

My feeling is that it is usually the extreme voices (soprano I and
Bass II) who take the lead. I noted that realisation of some chords is
different when one extreme voice crosses middle a voice (e.g. when
soprano II goes above soprano I).

> "And would you need to rehearse slowly, to hear the harmonic
> movements in their purity, or do people start to click with the
> intervals and then proceed naturally?"

If my idea about "uncertainty principle" is correct, no wonder that
long chords are necessary to expose the justness of the intonation.

Yours truly

François Laferrière

🔗robert_wendell <rwendell@cangelic.org>

Thank you, Francois! My responses to your comments are interspersed
and signaled by ***.

--- In tuning@y..., "francois_laferriere" <francois.laferriere@o...>
wrote:
>
> Hi Bob,
>
> I would like to add some comments to your very interresting post
>
> bob:
> > The vowel should be "ooh" as in the Latin or Italian "u". This is
> > important for maximizing the feedback from difference tones. I
> > encourage active but relaxed listening for the difference tones,
> that
> > is, with no anxiety if they don't hear them. They still respond
to
> > them intuitively even if they don't. Some will hear them
explicitly
> > and some never do.
>
Francois:
> I do not know why "ooh" is the best phoneme. For instance
with "eeh",
> formants are much more evently distributed, but for reason I cannot
> understand, it is easier to keep a stable pitch with "ooh".
>
***
Bob:
It is the lack of an overly rich harmonic structure that makes it
easier to hear the difference tone feedback that aids so much in
accurately tuning just harmonic intervalse. More on that later.

Bob before:
> > After some time of practicing these warmups, any reasonably
viable
> > amateur choir will begin to spontaneously adjust for pure
intonation
> > in singing actual compositions as long as a chord lasts for a
little
> > while. Part of what I do to reinforce this for faster passages is
to
> > slow down challenging passages for intonation and have them sing
> > on "looh" or "dooh", depending on the articulation desired.
>
> > It is important also to use variations on the exercises or
> accelerate
> > them in a way that eliminates the possibility of remaining in
> "search
> > mode". The longer chords tune themselves, as mentioned above,
> because
> > the singers are trained to adjust for pure harmonies. At
accelerated
> > tempos or shorter note values, there is no time for this.
>
Francois:
> I would add that the shorter the chord, the less likely it is that
the
> "out-of-tuneness" is audible. I explain it by the much debated
> "uncertainty principle" but there is a more pragmatic (but
> mathematically equivalent) explanation: if the period of the beat
(due
> to difference wrt to JI) is longer than the chord itself, it cannot
be
> perceived.

***
Bob:
I teach the use of beats for judging intonation only for unisons and
octaves. For other intervals, beats alone are inadequate for the very
reasons you mention and because common harmonics are often quite
attenuated or even absent from some timbres, making it difficult at
best for the ear to hear reliably.

Difference tones are stronger and always present, and are actually
beats occuring at rates orders of magnitude higher, explaining why
accurate intervals can be discriminated at durations much lower than
the famous classical uncertainty principle would seem to justify. I
plan to post someday some rapid scales in thirds contrasting
Pythagorean, 12-EDO, and just intervals to demonstrate how obvious
the differences are for even very fast passages. And don't forget
that according to aeronautical engineers, bees shouldn't be able to
fly (unless they have come up with some new theories recently of
which I'm unaware).

>
> Nevertheless, the goal of the rehersal is obviously not to be fast
> enough so that lack of justness cannot be perceived. The goal is for
> each singer to acquire a mental image of each note and of its
> placement in the chord BEFORE its realisation. Thus, the "search
mode"
> with slower tempo is necessary to reach this goal.

***
Bob:
Precisely what I stated in your next quote of my post.

>
> As I noted previously, when discussing my analysis of the "high
third"
> experiment, it seems likely that the most "natural" interval mental
> image for average singer is 12ET, so it may take some work to get
> anything near JI.

***
Bob:
Remember that what I am describing is actually how I have trained our
choir for many years. It is well-founded in theory, but the methods I
use are the result of long experience in applying theory to practice
and then refining the methods on the basis of empirical results; just
good old-fashioned engineering principles applied to ear training.

The resulting evolution of my approach has taught me clearly that the
twelve-tone ET bias for judging melodic intervals is quickly and
efficiently replaced by using the slow "search mode" first, then
accelerating it gradually so pitch MEMORY can cut in and eliminate
the need for the search as the tempo increasingly disallows
the "search mode".

Bob before:
> > So a crucial part of training for adaptive JI is to allow search
> mode
> > to take place, then repeat the same thing at a faster tempo so
they
> > are required to find the same pitches through melodic memory of
what
> > the search mode yielded for them. This way you are training them
to
> > convert the products of search mode tuning to a more developed
sense
> > of interval prediction without "reinventing the wheel" each time.
>
Francois:
> > "...with very good choral artists?"
>
> For a capella singers, being very good solo singers is not
sufficient:
> the habit of singing together is necessary in order that each voice
> know its place, i.e. when modulation takes place, it is necessary to
> settle in advance who will contribute to compensate the comma drift.
>
***
Bob:
I never implied that being a very good soloist was enough. What some
people call "very good" often differs from my definition. I
frequently hear so-called world-class opera stars sing way off pitch.
I do not consider such people to be good musicians. In the "golden
age" of voice, singers had to be excellent musicians. They read
wonderfully well, could play at least one instrument well, and they
knew how to improvise, embellish, and understood the rules of
counterpoint for current compositional practice. That would eliminate
99%+ of today's singers.

Some may not care about pitch and argue that the off-pitch stars are
wonderful singers, but being as off pitch as some are totally
destroys any aesthetically positive reaction in me. It's like a
painter who doesn't know how to use color well. In my book, that's
not much of a painter. He/she should work in pencil, charcoal or
whatever, but not watercolor or paint.

What I intended to convey was my expreience that a MUSICALLY TALENTED
singer is much easier to train for just intonation than a singer who
is not so musical. The variation in learning time is often enormous.

Francois:
> My feeling is that it is usually the extreme voices (soprano I and
> Bass II) who take the lead.

***
Bob:
I agree that the outer voices are more influential, and since the
bass is the harmonic foundation as a rule, it is the very most
crucial. Your basses must be in tune in a cappella singing, since
everyone else is trained to tune justly to the bass part.

It is unfortunately typical for men to sing with a perpetual pitch
offset to the flat side. This is sadly almost universal in American
amateur choirs and often even professional ones. This can work for
undiscriminating audiences when their is accompaniment, but it is
death to a cappella, since a choir that is trained to adjust for pure
harmonies will tune down to the bass, then the basses will tend to be
flat to that. Even the slightest flat bias in your bass section will
wreak havoc with pitch stability and the whole choir will rapidly
drift "south" when singing a cappella.

Francois:
I noted that realisation of some chords is
> different when one extreme voice crosses middle a voice (e.g. when
> soprano II goes above soprano I).

***
Bob:
Could be, but that would only be in the case that not all the singers
have been trained to sing just intervals.

Jon to Bob, earlier:
> > "And would you need to rehearse slowly, to hear the harmonic
> > movements in their purity, or do people start to click with the
> > intervals and then proceed naturally?"
>
> If my idea about "uncertainty principle" is correct, no wonder that
> long chords are necessary to expose the justness of the intonation.

***
Bob:
I have addressed this earlier above. I use difference tones as the
basis for intonation training except for unisons and octaves, and
they are orders of magnitude faster in yeilding the necessary
information on tuning adjustments than beats between common
harmonics.

> Yours truly
>
> François Laferrière

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@lumma.org>

Francois wrote...

>I do not know why "ooh" is the best phoneme. For instance with "eeh",
>formants are much more evently distributed, but for reason I cannot
>understand, it is easier to keep a stable pitch with "ooh".

That may be related to air pressure -- thoughts, Bob?

"Ah" is the phoneme of choice for checking intonation in Barbershop.

Bob wrote...

>Difference tones are stronger and always present,

Really? I've rarely heard them when singing. I often hear what may
be sum tones, or perhaps just common overtones.

>and are actually beats occuring at rates orders of magnitude higher,

Could you clarify this?

>explaining why accurate intervals can be discriminated at durations
>much lower than the famous classical uncertainty principle would seem
>to justify.

Also, the elimination of beats is not the only way to tune in JI.

>I plan to post someday some rapid scales in thirds contrasting
>Pythagorean, 12-EDO, and just intervals to demonstrate how obvious
>the differences are for even very fast passages.

Looking forward to it!

>And don't forget that according to aeronautical engineers, bees
>shouldn't be able to fly (unless they have come up with some new
>theories recently of which I'm unaware).

Do you have a source on this? I think it's an urban myth. At least
that's what my friend who used to work in aerospace said when I
asked him last week.

>I never implied that being a very good soloist was enough. What some
>people call "very good" often differs from my definition. I
>frequently hear so-called world-class opera stars sing way off pitch.
>I do not consider such people to be good musicians.

Well, I won't go that far, but a cappella vocal harmony is my favorite
instrumentation, and as I've said on metatuning, I don't like 99% of
the vocal soloists that I hear.

As an update to that thread on metatuning (which I'm no longer subscribed
to, BTW), I recently had my first experience preferring operatic style
vocals to choir style vocals. I got Hogwood's Messiah, and found that
indeed, I was hooked on vibrato -- at least some vibrato -- for the
Messiah. I actually sold the Hogwood to a used-cd store. Amazing!

-Carl

🔗robert_wendell <rwendell@cangelic.org>

Hi, Carl! Long time no talk (write?). My current responses are
interspersed below and signaled with ***:

--- In tuning@y..., Carl Lumma <carl@l...> wrote:
> Francois wrote...
>
> >I do not know why "ooh" is the best phoneme. For instance
with "eeh",
> >formants are much more evently distributed, but for reason I
cannot
> >understand, it is easier to keep a stable pitch with "ooh".
>
> That may be related to air pressure -- thoughts, Bob?
>
> "Ah" is the phoneme of choice for checking intonation in Barbershop.
>
>
> Bob wrote...
>
> >Difference tones are stronger and always present,
>
Carl:
> Really? I've rarely heard them when singing. I often hear what may
> be sum tones, or perhaps just common overtones.
>
> >and are actually beats occuring at rates orders of magnitude
higher,
>
> Could you clarify this?

***
Bob:
As you know, beats occur when two tones of approximately the same
pitch actually do differ by some few cycles per second more or less.
Difference tones are created when the difference between pitches is
great enough to cause the beats to occur at a rate that represents a
new pitch. There is a psychological phenomemon called masking that
occurs whenever our perceptual apparatus, including the neurological
components and processing in the brain, generates products that are
not part of the primary objects of perception. Our brain learns to
treast them as "not there"; just nulls them out. It therefore usually
takes some training before people are able to hear them explicitly,
and some never learn.

However, I have two approaches to get around this problem:

First, I use exercises I designed specifically to present the
difference tone phenomenon in the simplest, most isolated, and
exaggerated form possible.

Second, I have an electronic device that nulls out the two source
tones and only allows the difference tones to be amplified and fed
back to the ears through earphones. The singer sings tones against an
electronic drone from a keyboard output and listens to the amplified
difference tone, which I then attenuate gradually unitil it's gone.
Then I turn the mic off without their noticing. They continue to hear
the difference tones because they are still there acoustically, but
not so isolated and exaggerated. In a word, I led them from an
electronically exaggerated to a more normal acoustic situation.

The very act of putting our attention on hearing these difference
tones familiarizes us with what I call the "sweet spot" that occurs
between frequencies related by simple whole number rations (i.e.,
just intervals). It is important to recognize that difference tones
generated by frequencies in simple integer ration to each other are
also related by simple integer ration to both source tones. I
reinforce these difference tones by actually playing them under the
reference drone and the justly tuned vocal pitches sung against them.

For a example, if we use C5 an octave above middle C as the drone, we
can have the singers sing the F4 a fifth under, then move to G4 a
fourth under, then A4 a minor third under. The difference tones these
three tones generate with the C5 drone are F3, C3, and
F2 respectively. I can use a standard 12-EDO electronic keyboard to
reinforce this since the fifths are "quasi-just" at only two cents
flat. IN this way, I can use the standard keyboards available
everwhere by restricting simultaneously sounding keyboard pitches to
octaves, fifths, and fourths, with vocalists filling in the thirds
and sixths, etc.

This provides what I call "leveraged" feedback, since when a singer
is off by three cycles per second at F4, this represents a relatively
small pitch error from the ideal F4 the singer should be singing for
a just tuning. However, the difference tone at F3 is also going to be
three cycles per second off, but an octave lower, three cycles
represents twice as much pitch error. If the A4 is off by three
cycles per second, the F2 difference frequency will also be three
cycles different from the reinforced difference tone we're playing on
the keyboard and represents four times the pitch error at that
frequency.

The first time I experimented with this using my choir, I was blown
away at how they would, given a little time to adjust, all
spontaneously gravitate to the justly tuned pitches with not verbal
guidance as to how to move pitch or where to go. All I had to do was
wait.

In real, practical performance we are seldom explicity aware of
difference tones even after learning to hear them in this way, but we
have become much more attuned intuitively to their presence and react
to them anyway. Even those who never learn to recognize them
explicitly in a pure acoustical context are able to quickly and
easily adjust for pure JI intervals after receiving this training.

> >explaining why accurate intervals can be discriminated at
durations
> >much lower than the famous classical uncertainty principle would
seem
> >to justify.
>
> Also, the elimination of beats is not the only way to tune in JI.
>
> >I plan to post someday some rapid scales in thirds contrasting
> >Pythagorean, 12-EDO, and just intervals to demonstrate how obvious
> >the differences are for even very fast passages.
>
> Looking forward to it!
>
> >And don't forget that according to aeronautical engineers, bees
> >shouldn't be able to fly (unless they have come up with some new
> >theories recently of which I'm unaware).
>
> Do you have a source on this? I think it's an urban myth. At least
> that's what my friend who used to work in aerospace said when I
> asked him last week.

***
Bob:
Could well be an urban rumor. I have no reliable source on this. The
point is we don't always understand everthing, and but this should
not artistic endeavors base on empirical methods that clearly work.
That stands whether the illustration I chose is accurate or not.

> >I never implied that being a very good soloist was enough. What
some
> >people call "very good" often differs from my definition. I
> >frequently hear so-called world-class opera stars sing way off
pitch.
> >I do not consider such people to be good musicians.
>
> Well, I won't go that far, but a cappella vocal harmony is my
favorite
> instrumentation, and as I've said on metatuning, I don't like 99% of
> the vocal soloists that I hear.

***
Bob:
I do go that far. For me, if a person performing pitch-based music
can't accurately reproduce the pitches the tuning of choice dictates,
whatever that tuning may be, then that person is not competent as a
musician to perform that music. Many singers today do not qualify as
musicians, and many musicians implicity recognize this with
statements like, "Oh, he's not a musician. He's a singer." I am a
singer, but I happen to believe singers should be musicians,
otherwise even the word singer is a bit of a misnomer.
>

> As an update to that thread on metatuning (which I'm no longer
subscribed
> to, BTW), I recently had my first experience preferring operatic
style
> vocals to choir style vocals. I got Hogwood's Messiah, and found
that
> indeed, I was hooked on vibrato -- at least some vibrato -- for the
> Messiah. I actually sold the Hogwood to a used-cd store. Amazing!
>
> -Carl

***
Bob:
I believe it is very unnatural to force singers to eliminate vibrato
entirely. It is not necessary to precise intonation as long as the
vibrato is not exaggerated. A good, healthy vocal vibrato consist
mostly of intensity and timbre modulation on the order of 5 to 7
cycles per second and very little pitch modulation. It is an
essential tool of good vocal expression and only a very stiff,
unnatural, and unhealthy vocal production can eliminate it entirely.

🔗robert_wendell <rwendell@cangelic.org>

Carl, I just realized I didn't answer you first quesiton.

***
Bob:
In proper vocal technique, there is very little air pressure in the
first place, not to mention significant differences between vowels.
There obviously has to be some difference in the internal pressure of
the lungs and the air outside the body for there to be any airflow at
all, but the difference in pressure needed to provide the extremely
small rate of airflow a GOOD singer uses to produce a rather
voluminous sound is quite low.

That's why a good singer can sing such long phrases with no breath.
He/she is hardly using any. I like to say a good singer lives, while
singing, in a state of exhilarated suspension between breathing in
and breathing out. This refined, delicately balanced internal posture
of the vocal tract and breathing mechanism is based on a fine,
vitalized but essentially relaxed tension between the opposing muscle
systems involved in inhalation and exhalation, very much like what
happens during laughter or the thrill and exhilaration felt just
before the roller coaster plunges down the next hill. More on this
after the next paragraph.

The answer to your query is that it is well known that differential
tones are most easily recognized using relatively pure tones with
almost sine-wave like qualities, that is, not very rich in harmonic
structure, and a high degree of harmonicity in what structure there
is. The "ooh" sound is the vowel that conforms best to this vocally.

Back to the pressure issue, I have seen vocal "teachers" who hold a
lighted candle in front of a singer's mouth and try to get the singer
to vocalize without blowing it out. They are supposedly
teaching "breath control" this way. Absurd in the extreme!!!! This is
based on total ignorance, and I do mean total, no matter whose toes
I'm stepping on (readers beware!).

This little trick originated as a TEST of already developed technique
and has nothing to do with how to develop it. A good singer, contrary
to what you will read in many a textbook, does not hold his glottal
lips shut (often erroneously called "vocal cords", an unfortunate
misnomer, but I will go along with "vocal folds") and then force air
through them to produce a vocal tone. On the contrary, the glottal
lips (more like membranes with internal musculature, which lips also
have) are held in close approximation without closing them, just like
the aperture between a clarinet's reed and the bouquette to which it
is fastened.

The air is then passed between them and draws the tone out via the
Bernoulli effect. That is, the air passing between them produces a
suction that draws them together, breaking the partial vacuum, and
the cycle begins anew. This is quite the opposite from squeezing the
glottal lips together and cyclically bursting them apart with air.
First, in the latter instance the pressure required to blow them
apart is dependent on the arbitrary muscular force with which they
are squeezed together.

In the extreme, this is an ugly grunt. At best, it is a mild grunt.
This is not a very aesthetically pleasing way to sing and is damaging
to the whole vocal mechanism, not to mention the prejudicial effects
of unnecessary tension and muscular tightness in wrong places and the
inevitable imbalance produced in the whole internal posture of the
vocal tract and the entire breathing mechanism.

It is impossible to sing beautifully with this pushing approach. Of
course, in most "pop" genres these days, beautiful singing is not at
a premium at all. It unfortunately seems to embarrass many people to
hear a truly beautiful vocal tone today, and with "beautiful" I'm not
referring to the silly, wide, wobbling vibratos of some opera singers.

Using the Bernoulli effect, however, to set the glottal lips into
vibration imitates what happens, for example, in the clarinet. If the
reed were in contact with the bouquette already, the musician
wouldn't even be able to get any air through it, but would simply be
creating pressure to close it even tighter. But since there is a gap,
the player simply blows air through this gap and the reed is set into
vibration through the Bernoulli effect. When a singer draws the sound
out with the Bernoulli effect, this automatically optimizes all the
parameters of good singing.

First, physics, rather than arbitrary muscular force squeezing the
glottal lips together, determines just how much air the singer needs
to actuate the desired tone and dynamic level. The Bernoulli effect
intrinsically minimizes the amount of air needed for any given pitch
and dynamic level, so the singer can last much longer without putting
any attention whatsoever on breath control, but simply on maintaining
the internal vocal posture that supports this style of vocalizing,
which we can call Bernoulli phonation.

The rest is just like talking, during which we spontaneously and
unconsciously meter just the right amount of air for our needs,
assuming reasonably healthy vocal mechanisms and speech habits.
Teaching "breath control" is like trying to get a centipede to think
about the order in which it moves its hundred legs. It will probably
roll over in the ditch in wonder and never walk again.

Before the advent of modern vocal science (which is only useful to
vocal pedagogy when used to illuminate sound empirical principles
that have been around and working beautifully well for centuries)
they used to use poetic means to describe this. They talked in terms
of "swallowing the vowels" or "drinking the vowels" or "singing on
the gesture of inhalation". All these poetic descriptions are simply
attempts to communicate subjectively a technique that is objectively
observable as Bernoulli phonation.

Rare is the voice teacher today who understands diddly about this and
since those teachers ignorant of this clearly have a substantial
vested interest in their own supposed "expertise", they are loath to
admit it has any importance whatsoever. This includes people in some
very high places, as should be obvious from some of the pitifully
inadequate soloists they choose to sing important roles in concerts
and opera productions.

I can tell you, however, that those who do use this approach, and
there are significant number if a small minority of people who do,
develop over time tremendous range, vocal agility and power, and the
ability to do amazing ornaments and coloratura embellishments of
every kind that would be otherwise absolutely beyond reach. I seldom
hear a singer today who can execute a truly clean whole step trill at
a reasonable rate, for example.

The usual pitiful subsitute is a wide vibrato calibrated to place
it's extremes on two pitches a whole tone apart. This is substituting
garbage for what should be a clear, clean trill, and many are
convinced that this is all anyone ever did historically. This
thinking exists inevitably in a society of vocal "professors"
(derived advisedly from the verb "to profess") who teach vocal
technique that eliminates out of hand the ability to ever execute a
good, clean, clear trill of a whole step, or a good clean "Caccini
trillo", or any of the other ornaments the beautiful execution of
which were the order of the day from the sixteenth century until the
ninenteenth century.

More than you ever wanted to know about vocal technique? The pressure
thing hit a hot button that catapulted me onto my little soapbox
(chuckle).

Cheers,

Bob

🔗francois_laferriere <francois.laferriere@oxymel.com>

Hi Bob!

Thanks for your responses. I whish I could sign in your chorus, I
would learn a lot, but it is a little far from Paris :-)

I sing bass II in a small (mostly classical) chorus where only the
choirmaster is a professionnal musician (he is a faily good pianist
and excellent choir master IMHO). But it seems that even if he is not
especially aware of JI theory, he would agree with you on many points:

- Sing first on "ooh" without consonnant, put back the text afterward,
- Sign first as slowly as possible to settle just harmony.
- Even for accompanied work, sing a capella until every singer is
really self assured and the tendency to "go south" (good expression)
is under controll.
- I noted that when piano accompanment is used during first rehersals,
he outline clearly the bass line but keep the upper voices relatively
light.

We suffered for a few years from a pianist who was quite bad at
understanding those principles, but we eventually got rid of him a
year ago and made tremendeous progress since.

> Bob:
> In proper vocal technique, there is very little air pressure in the
> first place, not to mention significant differences between vowels.
> There obviously has to be some difference in the internal pressure
of
> the lungs and the air outside the body for there to be any airflow
at
> all, but the difference in pressure needed to provide the extremely
> small rate of airflow a GOOD singer uses to produce a rather
> voluminous sound is quite low.

Theoritically, stationnary wave in a pipe do not require air flow at
all. But in practice dissipating sound energy require to compensate at
the glottal source. When the vocal technique is good, it is right that
the amount of air needed may be quite low, especially in mezzo-forte
range. What is very disconcerting for beginners is that a good piano
require much more air than mezzo-forte and that a good pianissimo
require a HUGE amount of air, because the vocal folds must remain
tense but more and more wide appart. What many people seems to ignore
is that a very good pianissimo (for instance by a chorus) may be
extremely SPECTACULAR.

I would be happy to know how to produce a good forte. Most singer
simply increase the subglottal pressure to do so: that increases the
emphasis on high frequencies (in other words, reduce the damping: the
number of dB per octave reduction of the overall spectrum). That
produce a "shouting" tone and usually reduce the capability to
efficiently control the pitch. That's why many amateur choirs have
ugly fortissimo.

> Bob:
> Back to the pressure issue, I have seen vocal "teachers" who hold a
> lighted candle in front of a singer's mouth and try to get the
singer
> to vocalize without blowing it out. They are supposedly
> teaching "breath control" this way. Absurd in the extreme!!!! This
is
> based on total ignorance, and I do mean total, no matter whose toes
> I'm stepping on (readers beware!).

I aggree with you that most vocal teacher are not sufficiently
informed on physiology and accoustics. More should be done in musical
education. Nevertheless some of them are able to produce efficent
pedagogic images even though they are based on theoritical rubbish. I
remember of reading a book of A. Tomatis who is considered to be an
authority in orthophony. Almost everything he wrote on accoustics is
ridiculous, all the curves he shows are outrageously wrong.
Nevertheless he developped seemingly efficient therapies for various
disorders. So I would not be so drastic in making all ill informed in
physiology and accoustics, bad teachers (and conversely, an accoustic
expert is not necessarilly a good voice teacher).

That remain true that there are a too many especially incompetent
vocal "teachers" who are downright harmfull, but it is not the
majority.

> I can tell you, however, that those who do use this approach, and
> there are significant number if a small minority of people who do,
> develop over time tremendous range, vocal agility and power, and the
> ability to do amazing ornaments and coloratura embellishments of
> every kind that would be otherwise absolutely beyond reach. I seldom
> hear a singer today who can execute a truly clean whole step trill
at
> a reasonable rate, for example.
>
> The usual pitiful subsitute is a wide vibrato calibrated to place
> it's extremes on two pitches a whole tone apart. This is
substituting
> garbage for what should be a clear, clean trill, and many are
> convinced that this is all anyone ever did historically. This
> thinking exists inevitably in a society of vocal "professors"
> (derived advisedly from the verb "to profess") who teach vocal
> technique that eliminates out of hand the ability to ever execute a
> good, clean, clear trill of a whole step, or a good clean "Caccini
> trillo", or any of the other ornaments the beautiful execution of
> which were the order of the day from the sixteenth century until the
> ninenteenth century.

Absolutely correct IMHO. It is a pity that Carl get rid of Hogwood's
Messiah: it is excellent wrt to those ornementation aspects. and it is
by far my favorite. By the way Carl, what operatic version do you
propose?

> carl:
> I recently had my first experience preferring operatic style
> vocals to choir style vocals. I got Hogwood's Messiah, and found
that
> indeed, I was hooked on vibrato -- at least some vibrato -- for the
> Messiah. I actually sold the Hogwood to a used-cd store. Amazing!

> Bob:
> More than you ever wanted to know about vocal technique? The
pressure
> thing hit a hot button that catapulted me onto my little soapbox
> (chuckle).

I never have enough of your prose on vocal technique!!!!

Yours truly

François Laferrière

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@lumma.org>

Bob wrote...
>Hi, Carl! Long time no talk (write?). My current responses are
>interspersed below and signaled with ***:

I'm trying to keep the addiction at bay. :)

>As you know, beats occur when two tones of approximately the same
>pitch actually do differ by some few cycles per second more or less.
>Difference tones are created when the difference between pitches is
>great enough to cause the beats to occur at a rate that represents a
>new pitch.

I don't think that's right. Difference tones occur whenever there is
enough amplitude in the signal to cause non-linear response in the ear.
Amplitude variation at a given frequency does not result in a sensation
of pitch at that frequency. It may result in something like side bands,
I don't know.

A difference tone by itself cannot beat, it must beat against something
else -- another difference tone, or a bass note. I would think the rate
of beating in such cases would be slower, not faster, than normal
beating for a given rate of mistuning. For example, if sopranos and
altos sing a fifth between 450 and 300 Hz., the 1st-order difference tone
of their fundamentals would be at 150 hz. If the sopranos go sharp to
455 Hz., there will be beating between their 1st partial and the altos'
2nd partial at the rate of 10 Hz. The new diff. tone would be at 155 Hz.
If the basses had been singing 150 Hz. all along, they would beat against
this difference tone at 5 Hz.

It's tempting to appeal to the cancelation effects that give rise to
beating to explain difference tones, but I think the latter are in
fact caused by period-doubling of the resonators in the ear when driven
by certain kinds of signals (esp. loud ones). Paul and crew know much
more about this than I do. I'm not sure when or why cancelation effects
are no longer significant...

>Second, I have an electronic device that nulls out the two source
>tones and only allows the difference tones to be amplified and fed
>back to the ears through earphones. The singer sings tones against an
>electronic drone from a keyboard output and listens to the amplified
>difference tone, which I then attenuate gradually unitil it's gone.
>Then I turn the mic off without their noticing. They continue to hear
>the difference tones because they are still there acoustically, but
>not so isolated and exaggerated. In a word, I led them from an
>electronically exaggerated to a more normal acoustic situation.

This sounds fascinating. If Paul is around, I'm sure he'd love to
hear about this.

>It is important to recognize that difference tones generated by
>frequencies in simple integer ration to each other are also related
>by simple integer ration to both source tones.

Right.

>This provides what I call "leveraged" feedback, since when a singer
>is off by three cycles per second at F4, this represents a relatively
>small pitch error from the ideal F4 the singer should be singing for
>a just tuning. However, the difference tone at F3 is also going to be
>three cycles per second off, but an octave lower, three cycles
>represents twice as much pitch error.

So it isn't beating, but perceived pitch mismatch, that makes it work?

>Could well be an urban rumor. I have no reliable source on this. The
>point is we don't always understand everthing, and but this should
>not artistic endeavors base on empirical methods that clearly work.
>That stands whether the illustration I chose is accurate or not.

Agreed!

Francois wrote...
>It is a pity that Carl get rid of Hogwood's Messiah: it is excellent
>wrt to those ornementation aspects. and it is by far my favorite. By
>the way Carl, what operatic version do you propose?

I have four recordings of the Messiah, none of which I am completely
pleased with:

Taverner Choir & Players, Andrew Parrott (Virgin)
Trinity Choir and Orchestra, Owen Burdick (Naxos)
London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis (Philips)
Toronto Symphony, Andrew Davis (EMI)

I haven't listened much to the Taverner or Trinity ones yet, as
they're new. Taverner seems quite good, but the tempos are all
strangely slow. Trinity took an unusual approach -- the soloists
are selected from the choir, specially for each number. London
is one of the first I heard, so it has a special place in my heart
even though it is a large orchestra and a low-fidelity recording.
Toronto is pure marksmanship for the lover of modern orchestras.

-Carl

🔗robert_wendell <rwendell@cangelic.org>

Thanks for your heart-warming reply, Francois. You're very kind. My
comments are interpersed and signaled with ***:

--- In tuning@y..., "francois_laferriere" <francois.laferriere@o...>
wrote:
> Hi Bob!
>
> Thanks for your responses. I whish I could sign in your chorus, I
> would learn a lot, but it is a little far from Paris :-)

***
Bob:
Yes. A bit far, but we'd love to have you if you could handle the
commute!

> I sing bass II in a small (mostly classical) chorus where only the
> choirmaster is a professionnal musician (he is a faily good pianist
> and excellent choir master IMHO). But it seems that even if he is
not
> especially aware of JI theory, he would agree with you on many
points:
>
> - Sing first on "ooh" without consonnant, put back the text
afterward,
> - Sign first as slowly as possible to settle just harmony.
> - Even for accompanied work, sing a capella until every singer is
> really self assured and the tendency to "go south" (good expression)
> is under controll.
> - I noted that when piano accompanment is used during first
rehersals,
> he outline clearly the bass line but keep the upper voices
relatively
> light.

***
Bob:
This man is clearly on the right track and is exceptional. At least
he would be here in the U.S. I do notice that fewer amateur choirs in
Europe seem to have the "going south" and flat males syndromes so
typical here even in semi-professional groups that put out recordings
on commercial labels.

Francois earlier:
> We suffered for a few years from a pianist who was quite bad at
> understanding those principles, but we eventually got rid of him a
> year ago and made tremendeous progress since.
>
> > Bob earlier:
> > In proper vocal technique, there is very little air pressure in
the
> > first place, not to mention significant differences between
vowels.
> > There obviously has to be some difference in the internal pressure
> of
> > the lungs and the air outside the body for there to be any airflow
> at
> > all, but the difference in pressure needed to provide the
extremely
> > small rate of airflow a GOOD singer uses to produce a rather
> > voluminous sound is quite low.
>
> Theoritically, stationnary wave in a pipe do not require air flow at
> all. But in practice dissipating sound energy require to compensate
at
> the glottal source. When the vocal technique is good, it is right
that
> the amount of air needed may be quite low, especially in mezzo-forte
> range. What is very disconcerting for beginners is that a good piano
> require much more air than mezzo-forte and that a good pianissimo
> require a HUGE amount of air, because the vocal folds must remain
> tense but more and more wide appart. What many people seems to
ignore
> is that a very good pianissimo (for instance by a chorus) may be
> extremely SPECTACULAR.

***
Bob:
Pianissimo should not pass unphonated air to be soft. This is a wrong
way to reduce dynamic level, by simply shunting unphonated air
through the glottal lips. Bernoulli phonation and good register
coordination eliminate this, and the "very good pianissimos" become
even more "SPECTACULAR" and conserve air for long phrases!

> I would be happy to know how to produce a good forte. Most singer
> simply increase the subglottal pressure to do so: that increases the
> emphasis on high frequencies (in other words, reduce the damping:
the
> number of dB per octave reduction of the overall spectrum). That
> produce a "shouting" tone and usually reduce the capability to
> efficiently control the pitch. That's why many amateur choirs have
> ugly fortissimo.

***
Bob:
It requires a fairly well-developed vocal coordination collectively
in a choir to avoid the "ugly fortissimo". The current incarnation of
my choir (we have had some significant turnover due to moving, having
babies, going back to school, you name it) is very refined at low
levels and tends to go a bit toward ugly as we get really strong with
dynamic levels.

Part of this is simply attention. They get what I call "emotionally
overheated", fall out of the driver's seat, and go off pitch. Pitch
accuracy, once the ability to judge it independently has developed,
becomes almost strictly a matter of attention to pitch in combination
with vocal technique. Attention to pitch can even overcome bad vocal
technique in terms of accuracy, but that is not an optimal solution,
of course.

They're both very important. The "shouting" tone is mostly bad
register coordination, often trying to push the heavier phonation
sometimes called "chest voice" up too high or at least overbalancing
lighter phonation at a given pitch and volume, combined with
additional wrong internal vocal postures and the extraneous muscular
tensions that go with that. It is death to good choral blend.

>
> > Bob:
> > Back to the pressure issue, I have seen vocal "teachers" who hold
a
> > lighted candle in front of a singer's mouth and try to get the
> singer
> > to vocalize without blowing it out. They are supposedly
> > teaching "breath control" this way. Absurd in the extreme!!!! This
> is
> > based on total ignorance, and I do mean total, no matter whose
toes
> > I'm stepping on (readers beware!).
>
> I aggree with you that most vocal teacher are not sufficiently
> informed on physiology and accoustics. More should be done in
musical
> education. Nevertheless some of them are able to produce efficent
> pedagogic images even though they are based on theoritical rubbish.
I
> remember of reading a book of A. Tomatis who is considered to be an
> authority in orthophony. Almost everything he wrote on accoustics is
> ridiculous, all the curves he shows are outrageously wrong.
> Nevertheless he developped seemingly efficient therapies for various
> disorders. So I would not be so drastic in making all ill informed
in
> physiology and accoustics, bad teachers (and conversely, an
accoustic
> expert is not necessarilly a good voice teacher).

***
Bob:
Didn't intend to imply otherwise, Francois. I did say that vocal
science is not useful except when it illuminates the in-some-corners-
still-surviving and highly developed empirical methods that have
worked wonderfully well for centuries. That implies directly that
vocal science is not essential to teaching good singing, since
Caccini, Monteverdi, and others had truly great singers around them,
taught them and wrote for them.

Very few ensembles today are capable of doing more than making a sad
and aesthetically disgusting joke of Monteverdi's more sophisticated
and highly ornamental stuff. One notable exception is John Eliot
Gardiner's recording on Deutsche Grammaphon of his "Vespro della
Beata Vergine" of 1610 in the venue of its original performance in
San Marcos in Venice. There is some really fantastic singing and
wonderful examples of properly executed Caccini trillos and other
virtuosic embellishments that are absolutely dependent on a very
refined bel canto technique. I hesitate to use the term "bel canto",
though, since so many grossly misinterpret it.

And you're also right, of course, that good vocal science does not
guarantee knowledge of good vocal technique. Absolutely not! This is
even more obviously implied by my statement above about the value of
vocal science.

Francois:
> That remain true that there are a too many especially incompetent
> vocal "teachers" who are downright harmfull, but it is not the
> majority.

***
Bob:
It would be a bit extreme to say the majority are "downright
harmful", unless you simply mean that they develop less than optimal
vocal habits that are not necessarily damaging. Even then, that is
dependent on how delicate or robust the individual mechanism happens
to be. Good technique builds the voice in a literal, physical sense
as well its proper use, hence the German term "stimmbildung" for what
is essentially, at its best at least, just good bel canto technique.

At the finest level and for really clean agility in the performance
of virtuosic embellishments and coloratura passages, the music simply
is impossible to get right without virtually flawless vocal technique
a la ancient bel canto school. Here, I make no apologies in saying
that the VAST MAJORITY of vocal teachers today are clueless as to how
to teach this and many MAJOR performers SIMPLY DO NOT HAVE THE
TECHNICAL BASIS for doing this music well.

Monteverdi wrote coloratura passages for BASSES. It takes real know-
how to teach basses to sing that way, but don't let anyone tell you
it can't be done. If anyone tries, chalk them up as clueless.

Bob earlier:
> > I can tell you, however, that those who do use this approach, and
> > there are significant number if a small minority of people who
do,
> > develop over time tremendous range, vocal agility and power, and
the
> > ability to do amazing ornaments and coloratura embellishments of
> > every kind that would be otherwise absolutely beyond reach. I
seldom
> > hear a singer today who can execute a truly clean whole step trill
> at
> > a reasonable rate, for example.
> >
> > The usual pitiful subsitute is a wide vibrato calibrated to place
> > it's extremes on two pitches a whole tone apart. This is
> substituting
> > garbage for what should be a clear, clean trill, and many are
> > convinced that this is all anyone ever did historically. This
> > thinking exists inevitably in a society of vocal "professors"
> > (derived advisedly from the verb "to profess") who teach vocal
> > technique that eliminates out of hand the ability to ever execute
a
> > good, clean, clear trill of a whole step, or a good
clean "Caccini
> > trillo", or any of the other ornaments the beautiful execution of
> > which were the order of the day from the sixteenth century until
the
> > ninenteenth century.
>
Francois:
> Absolutely correct IMHO. It is a pity that Carl get rid of Hogwood's
> Messiah: it is excellent wrt to those ornementation aspects. and it
is
> by far my favorite. By the way Carl, what operatic version do you
> propose?
>
> > carl:
> > I recently had my first experience preferring operatic style
> > vocals to choir style vocals. I got Hogwood's Messiah, and found
> that
> > indeed, I was hooked on vibrato -- at least some vibrato -- for
the
> > Messiah. I actually sold the Hogwood to a used-cd store.
Amazing!
>
> > Bob:
> > More than you ever wanted to know about vocal technique? The
> pressure
> > thing hit a hot button that catapulted me onto my little soapbox
> > (chuckle).
>
> I never have enough of your prose on vocal technique!!!!
>
***
Bob:
Very kind of you, Francois! Thanks again.

> Yours truly
>
> François Laferrière

🔗robert_wendell <rwendell@cangelic.org>

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

> >As you know, beats occur when two tones of approximately the same
> >pitch actually do differ by some few cycles per second more or
less.
> >Difference tones are created when the difference between pitches
is
> >great enough to cause the beats to occur at a rate that
represents a
> >new pitch.
>
> I don't think that's right. Difference tones occur whenever there
is
> enough amplitude in the signal to cause non-linear response in the
ear.

Bob now:
There is no conflict here, Carl. I just didn't give a complete
explanation. I have an electronics and physics background, although I
haven't used electronics knowledge professionally since 1982. Sum and
difference tones occur when two frequencies are mixed in a non-linear
device. In human beings this non-linearity has both physical and
neurological components, and I understand there is also some
neurological contribution that is not based on non-linear mixing.

The essential point remains intact, however. At low differences in
frequency, there is simply a perception of variation in amplitude at
the difference frequency, and we call this "beating".
Difference "tones" also occur at a frequency that is the difference
of the two source frequencies. In order for these difference
frequencies to be audible as "tones" the difference in frequency must
correspond to a frequency that would generate an audible tone.

For example, when you sound C4 at middle C against the fifth above at
G4, the difference frequency is at C3 an octave below the root at C4.
No matter how you move two frequencies a P5 apart around, the
difference tone will always be an octave below the lower tone. This
is simply because 2:3 is the ration for a P5, and 3 - 2 = 1, and
octave below 2. Simple, right?!

You do not need loud levels to generate enough non-linearity to hear
difference tones. Have you read my recent posts on this completely
where I explain the psychological masking phenomenon? I train my
choir members to hear these tones at mezzo piano dynamic levels. I
myself hear them all the time at these levels. They always occur
where theory says they should. What more do we need? It works. Like
gangbusters!

Cheers,

Bob

> Amplitude variation at a given frequency does not result in a
sensation
> of pitch at that frequency. It may result in something like side
bands,
> I don't know.
>
> A difference tone by itself cannot beat, it must beat against
something
> else -- another difference tone, or a bass note. I would think the
rate
> of beating in such cases would be slower, not faster, than normal
> beating for a given rate of mistuning. For example, if sopranos and
> altos sing a fifth between 450 and 300 Hz., the 1st-order
difference tone
> of their fundamentals would be at 150 hz. If the sopranos go sharp
to
> 455 Hz., there will be beating between their 1st partial and the
altos'
> 2nd partial at the rate of 10 Hz. The new diff. tone would be at
155 Hz.
> If the basses had been singing 150 Hz. all along, they would beat
against
> this difference tone at 5 Hz.
>
> It's tempting to appeal to the cancelation effects that give rise to
> beating to explain difference tones, but I think the latter are in
> fact caused by period-doubling of the resonators in the ear when
driven
> by certain kinds of signals (esp. loud ones). Paul and crew know
much
> more about this than I do. I'm not sure when or why cancelation
effects
> are no longer significant...
>
> >Second, I have an electronic device that nulls out the two source
> >tones and only allows the difference tones to be amplified and fed
> >back to the ears through earphones. The singer sings tones
against an
> >electronic drone from a keyboard output and listens to the
amplified
> >difference tone, which I then attenuate gradually unitil it's
gone.
> >Then I turn the mic off without their noticing. They continue to
hear
> >the difference tones because they are still there acoustically,
but
> >not so isolated and exaggerated. In a word, I led them from an
> >electronically exaggerated to a more normal acoustic situation.
>
> This sounds fascinating. If Paul is around, I'm sure he'd love to
> hear about this.
>
> >It is important to recognize that difference tones generated by
> >frequencies in simple integer ration to each other are also
related
> >by simple integer ration to both source tones.
>
> Right.
>
> >This provides what I call "leveraged" feedback, since when a
singer
> >is off by three cycles per second at F4, this represents a
relatively
> >small pitch error from the ideal F4 the singer should be singing
for
> >a just tuning. However, the difference tone at F3 is also going
to be
> >three cycles per second off, but an octave lower, three cycles
> >represents twice as much pitch error.
>
> So it isn't beating, but perceived pitch mismatch, that makes it
work?
>
> >Could well be an urban rumor. I have no reliable source on this.
The
> >point is we don't always understand everthing, and but this should
> >not artistic endeavors base on empirical methods that clearly
work.
> >That stands whether the illustration I chose is accurate or not.
>
> Agreed!
>
> Francois wrote...
> >It is a pity that Carl get rid of Hogwood's Messiah: it is
excellent
> >wrt to those ornementation aspects. and it is by far my favorite.
By
> >the way Carl, what operatic version do you propose?
>
> I have four recordings of the Messiah, none of which I am completely
> pleased with:
>
> Taverner Choir & Players, Andrew Parrott (Virgin)
> Trinity Choir and Orchestra, Owen Burdick (Naxos)
> London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis (Philips)
> Toronto Symphony, Andrew Davis (EMI)
>
> I haven't listened much to the Taverner or Trinity ones yet, as
> they're new. Taverner seems quite good, but the tempos are all
> strangely slow. Trinity took an unusual approach -- the soloists
> are selected from the choir, specially for each number. London
> is one of the first I heard, so it has a special place in my heart
> even though it is a large orchestra and a low-fidelity recording.
> Toronto is pure marksmanship for the lover of modern orchestras.
>
> -Carl

🔗francois_laferriere <francois.laferriere@oxymel.com>

Hello

Vocal teaching, non-linearity, Handel and Monteverdi, bee flight...
here are many threads in this threads

> Bob:
> As you know, beats occur when two tones of approximately the same
> pitch actually do differ by some few cycles per second more or less.
> Difference tones are created when the difference between pitches is
> great enough to cause the beats to occur at a rate that represents a
> new pitch.

Francois:
I do not buy (yet) this difference tone stuff. From a digital theory
viewpoint, when a linear transformation from time to frequency domain
takes place, there is no such thing as beating: two near frequencies
are resolved as individual if the analysis window is long enough. If
the analysis window is too short, frequencies are not resolved, the
amount of energy it contains depends on the location of the window on
the time axis and it "beats" at f1-f2. That is it for the linear
analysis.

In the inner ear, there are well known non-linear effect (such as
frequency masking), but they are concerned with neighbour frequencies,
not for frequencies separated by third or fifth. We already talked
about it with the misleading exemple of ondes Martenot.

> Carl:
> A difference tone by itself cannot beat, it must beat against
something
> else -- another difference tone, or a bass note. I would think the
rate
> of beating in such cases would be slower, not faster, than normal
> beating for a given rate of mistuning. For example, if sopranos and
> altos sing a fifth between 450 and 300 Hz., the 1st-order difference
tone
> of their fundamentals would be at 150 hz. If the sopranos go sharp
to
> 455 Hz., there will be beating between their 1st partial and the
altos'
> 2nd partial at the rate of 10 Hz. The new diff. tone would be at
155 Hz.
> If the basses had been singing 150 Hz. all along, they would beat
against
> this difference tone at 5 Hz.

Basically, the beating frequencies are correct, but may be derived
with no need to use "difference tone". if the basses sing at 150 Hz,
their 2nd partial (450 Hz) beats at 5Hz with soprano F0. That's all.

> Bob:
> Second, I have an electronic device that nulls out the two source
> tones and only allows the difference tones to be amplified and fed
> back to the ears through earphones.

What is it? How does that work? It is a non-linear device but based on
which principle?

Bob:
> The singer sings tones against an
> electronic drone from a keyboard output and listens to the amplified
> difference tone, which I then attenuate gradually unitil it's gone.
> Then I turn the mic off without their noticing. They continue to
hear
> the difference tones because they are still there acoustically, but
> not so isolated and exaggerated. In a word, I led them from an
> electronically exaggerated to a more normal acoustic situation.
>
> Carl:
> This sounds fascinating. If Paul is around, I'm sure he'd love to
> hear about this.

It is nevertheless fascinating indeed. But in my mind, it is feedback
help to perceive something that is basically in the domain of linear
analysis.

A few months ago I was firmly thinking that the tuning of voices to JI
ratio used, basically, the same technique as piano tuning, i.e. the
beat of the common harmonics. But looking more closely at actual a
capella voices recording make this less obvious. Due to vibrato and
other natural features of the voice, upper frequencies (let say above
5-6th harmonics) are not very accurate and can probably not provide
reliable beat. So the beat may be used (consciously or not) for
interval such as 1:1, 1:2, 2:3, 4:3, 5:4, 6:5, but that become more
doubtful for more complex ratios. Nevertheless good singers can
produce very accurate ratios up to 24:25 and probably more !! Even
though I do not buy (yet) the differnce tone stuff, I feel that there
are more complex mechanism at work than simple use of beat, but I do
not know how this work.

By the way, is there a perception of beat when using pure sine tones
with ratio slightly off 1:2, 2:3 and so on? If so that would be a good
argument in favor of difference tone (and a big surprise for me).
There is perhaps some litterature on that.

> And don't forget that according to aeronautical engineers, bees
> shouldn't be able to fly (unless they have come up with some new
> theories recently of which I'm unaware).

Science makes progress. there was a good recent article on insect
flight in Scientific American
http://www.sciam.com/2001/0601issue/0601dickinson.html.

> Francois wrote...
> It is a pity that Carl get rid of Hogwood's Messiah: it is excellent
> wrt to those ornementation aspects. and it is by far my favorite. By
> the way Carl, what operatic version do you propose?
>
> Carl:
> I have four recordings of the Messiah, none of which I am completely
> pleased with:
>
> Taverner Choir & Players, Andrew Parrott (Virgin)
> Trinity Choir and Orchestra, Owen Burdick (Naxos)
> London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis (Philips)
> Toronto Symphony, Andrew Davis (EMI)
>
> I haven't listened much to the Taverner or Trinity ones yet, as
> they're new. Taverner seems quite good, but the tempos are all
> strangely slow. Trinity took an unusual approach -- the soloists
> are selected from the choir, specially for each number. London
> is one of the first I heard, so it has a special place in my heart
> even though it is a large orchestra and a low-fidelity recording.
> Toronto is pure marksmanship for the lover of modern orchestras.

To be honnest, Hogwood's is also my first "Messiah" so I may not be
totally objective ;).

> Bob:
> Very few ensembles today are capable of doing more than making a sad
> and aesthetically disgusting joke of Monteverdi's more sophisticated
> and highly ornamental stuff. One notable exception is John Eliot
> Gardiner's recording on Deutsche Grammaphon of his "Vespro della
> Beata Vergine" of 1610 in the venue of its original performance in
> San Marcos in Venice. There is some really fantastic singing and
> wonderful examples of properly executed Caccini trillos and other
> virtuosic embellishments that are absolutely dependent on a very
> refined bel canto technique. I hesitate to use the term "bel canto",
> though, since so many grossly misinterpret it.

I have got this wonderful recording, but I have another one that has
propably never been available in North-America. It is an italian
recording, song and directed by Nigel Rogers. Nigel Rogers is, in my
mind the best tenor I ever heard for Monteverdi. He is capable of what
is sometime called "throat vibrato" in an excellent way (is "throat
vibrato" the same technique as Caccini Trillos? ) His interpretation
with few voices per part is more like chamber than liturgical music.
It is very different from Gardiner's larger ensemble vision. There is
so much in those vesper that there is room for various good
interpretations.

> Bob:
> It would be a bit extreme to say the majority are "downright
> harmful", unless you simply mean that they develop less than optimal
> vocal habits that are not necessarily damaging.

I heard first hand story about harmful teachers who made permanent
dommage to the voice. I was thinking about this small but dangerous
minority.

François Laferrière

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@lumma.org>

>A few months ago I was firmly thinking that the tuning of voices to JI
>ratio used, basically, the same technique as piano tuning, i.e. the
>beat of the common harmonics. But looking more closely at actual a
>capella voices recording make this less obvious. Due to vibrato and
>other natural features of the voice, upper frequencies (let say above
>5-6th harmonics) are not very accurate and can probably not provide
>reliable beat. So the beat may be used (consciously or not) for
>interval such as 1:1, 1:2, 2:3, 4:3, 5:4, 6:5, but that become more
>doubtful for more complex ratios. Nevertheless good singers can
>produce very accurate ratios up to 24:25 and probably more !! Even
>though I do not buy (yet) the differnce tone stuff, I feel that there
>are more complex mechanism at work than simple use of beat, but I do
>not know how this work.

I agree that the elimination of beats is not used (or at least,
not the primary) way that a cappella singers tune in JI. I've always
thought this. I believe they are able to tune by minimizing
dissonance. There are two components of dissonance -- roughness, and
harmonic entropy.

Roughness and beating are often confused, but they are independent.
Beating, as I understand it, is a physical phenomenon caused by
cancelation and reinforcement of sound pressure in the air. It is
how pianos are tuned, since counting of beats is the only way to
precisely find irrational intervals by ear, and elimination of beats
is the only way to get very accurate unisons. Roughness is a
psychoacoustic phenomenon caused by the inability of the ear to
spectrally resolve frequencies that are too close together -- this
has to do with the limitations of the basilar membrane.

Harmonic entropy is a psychoacoustic phenomenon caused by the inability
of the brain to recognize patterns of nerve firings representing high-
numbered ratios. Just how high is a matter of some debate.

It is generally thought that periodicity effects (harmonic entropy)
are not available to the ear for frequencies over 4 KHz. and that
spectral effects (roughness) are dominant in this range. While both
spectral and periodicity effects are available below 4 KHz., there
is reason to believe that periodicity is dominant.

I suspect that minimizing roughness is the primary way in which
a cappella singers tune accurate JI.

>By the way, is there a perception of beat when using pure sine tones
>with ratio slightly off 1:2, 2:3 and so on? If so that would be a good
>argument in favor of difference tone (and a big surprise for me).
>There is perhaps some litterature on that.

Again, beating occurs before sound ever reaches the ear, I think.
Roughness does occur between pure tones, also.

-Carl

🔗emotionaljourney22 <paul@stretch-music.com>

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

> Roughness and beating are often confused, but they are independent.

actually, they are extremely closely related, and far from
independent.

> Beating, as I understand it, is a physical phenomenon caused by
> cancelation and reinforcement of sound pressure in the air. It is
> how pianos are tuned, since counting of beats is the only way to
> precisely find irrational intervals by ear, and elimination of beats
> is the only way to get very accurate unisons. Roughness is a
> psychoacoustic phenomenon caused by the inability of the ear to
> spectrally resolve frequencies that are too close together -- this
> has to do with the limitations of the basilar membrane.

beating is what results from these very limitations, and does not
occur "in the air". as for roughness, read this:

http://www.mmk.ei.tum.de/persons/ter/top/roughness.html

> It is generally thought that periodicity effects (harmonic entropy)
> are not available to the ear for frequencies over 4 KHz. and that
> spectral effects (roughness) are dominant in this range. While both
> spectral and periodicity effects are available below 4 KHz., there
> is reason to believe that periodicity is dominant.

it seems you're confusing theories of pitch perception with theories
of dissonance.

> I suspect that minimizing roughness is the primary way in which
> a cappella singers tune accurate JI.

minimizing roughness to achieve simple JI ratios is exactly the same
thing as minimizing beating to acheive the same simple JI ratios.

> Again, beating occurs before sound ever reaches the ear, I think.

carl, i'm afraid that you've got some basic science to go over. you
might want to start with francois' posts today, which explain beating
accurately.

> Roughness does occur between pure tones, also.

yes, but only when they're less than a minor third apart (or further
in the bass register).

New file uploaded to this tuning list

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