Master Scale

I read Acoustics for my degree. I remember there being lectures on psycho-acoustics. There were also presentations on the 'average' resolution of the human ear, and of the effects of octave stretching, and of other issues relating to how we hear, purely in the mechanistic sense.

All I'll say is that what one hears, another will not. That the resolution of the ear varies over its range, and its sensitivity. And on top of this there is one of the most sophisticated pattern recognition and audio processing devices - our brains.

To assume there is a master scale is pointless. The only thing that could be determined with any 'statistical validity' is the smallest interval readily perceivable over the normal range of hearing (often taken to be 20Hz 20KHz, but in reality is far less).

Whether this would be a 'scale' is another matter.

And in any case, how we determine intervals is based on context, and most audiological testing attempts to remove this.

Mark G

thanks for all the great points mark. there is also the classical
uncertainty principle to consider -- frequency and time cannot both be
determined with simultaneous precision for an arbitrary signal. a
purely mathematical limitation stemming directly from the definitions
of thse things.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mark Gould <mark.gould@a...> wrote:
> I read Acoustics for my degree. I remember there being lectures on
> psycho-acoustics. There were also presentations on the 'average'
> resolution of the human ear, and of the effects of octave
stretching,
> and of other issues relating to how we hear, purely in the
mechanistic
> sense.
>
> All I'll say is that what one hears, another will not. That the
> resolution of the ear varies over its range, and its sensitivity.
And
> on top of this there is one of the most sophisticated pattern
> recognition and audio processing devices - our brains.
>
> To assume there is a master scale is pointless. The only thing that
> could be determined with any 'statistical validity' is the smallest
> interval readily perceivable over the normal range of hearing (often
> taken to be 20Hz 20KHz, but in reality is far less).
>
> Whether this would be a 'scale' is another matter.
>
> And in any case, how we determine intervals is based on context, and
> most audiological testing attempts to remove this.
>
>
> Mark G