Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning What drives "scales"

Greetings everyone. I've been away a while. Mainly working with
an essentially 12-tet rock band "Darktown Saints"
(www.darktownsaints.com) but on the more interesting side the
band is also a barbershop quartet. Anyway, I've gained a lot of
insight into things lately and I wanted to pose a question.

I've read Helmlholtz, Partch, Danielou, Mathieu, Jeans,
Blackwood, Doty, Catler, Lou Harrison, and I just finished Bill
Sethares new 2nd edition of Tuning Timbre Spectrum Scale. I
also have a music degree and studied classical theory. Still, I
haven't come to get a solid idea of what drives the concept of
"scale."

I know about tetrachord theory and I undertand the observation
that nearly all music cultures function around a more or less
defined "scale" or multiple scales. I'm aware of theories as to
various scale's origins as far as tuning goes. And I understand
the simple concept of continuity such that once a sound or tuning
is established it tends to stabalize to the listener such that any
new or altered sound will increase interest or tension.

Still this doesn't explain the predominance of 7 or 5 note scales.
More significantly I don't have an explanation as to WHY scales
are so powerful. As much as theory explains THAT a particular
state exists of the use of scales is clear. What is the driving
force behind scales? Am I missing something? Is it related to
numbers in the range of 5-8 items being more easily withing the
human capacity to concieve of at once? Does the general
chromaticism of scales have a major impact? (meaning that the
scale can somewhat simulate a sliding up or down pitch vs. a
strange scale like C-C#-D-E-F-F#-B would not because of the
leap from F#-B) Obviously there are cultural norms that make
studies harder to do objectively, but could we establish 3 or 4
note scales and then provide musical interest through
modulation? Or if we try a 12 or 15 or more note scale can it
really be established as a scale or will the perception be that of
constant modulation or confusion?

I guess I'm mainly hoping to get at understanding some
psychoacoustic effect or something that explains perception of
"scale" in addition to the practical reasons scales developed and
the simple discussion of what does or doesn't currently exist in
the world's musics. Would a hypothetical person who grew up in
a society where the only music was unaccompanied singing and
harmonization absent still percieve of their songs as ordered by
some sort of "scale?"

One thought: A friend came up with the analogy of "digital" vs.
"analog" that perhaps melody can be thought of more as analog
in that the driving force of melody is pitch moving up or down with
no particular points, whereas harmony has points of
consonance or dissonance that are more or less defined-
"digital." And perhaps every other parameter of what we call
"melody" is actually rhythmic effects or *harmonic* effects that
are due to pitch memory. So a related question: is pitch memory
supporting "scales" due to the harmonic effects of the scale even
when seperated as melody or does pitch memory guide people
towards a sense of scale even (hypothetically) if we could not
percieve harmonic relations by memory?

-Aaron Wolf
www.darktownsaints.com

🔗jjensen142000 <jjensen14@hotmail.com>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "backfromthesilo"
<backfromthesilo@y...> wrote:
>

> I've read Helmlholtz, Partch, Danielou, Mathieu, Jeans,
> Blackwood, Doty, Catler, Lou Harrison, and I just finished Bill
> Sethares new 2nd edition of Tuning Timbre Spectrum Scale. I
> also have a music degree and studied classical theory. Still, I
> haven't come to get a solid idea of what drives the concept of
> "scale."

With all that background, I'm not sure what I could add!
To my way of thinking, a scale is not the primary object, but
a secondary effect. Meaning you start with a collection of
pitches that you can make nice harmonies, chords and whatnot
with, and once you put them in order you have a scale. I note
what you said at the end about pitch memory, so one can be
making "chords" even if the sounds aren't quite happening
simultaneously.

> Still this doesn't explain the predominance of 7 or 5 note scales.
> More significantly I don't have an explanation as to WHY scales
> are so powerful. As much as theory explains THAT a particular
> state exists of the use of scales is clear. What is the driving
> force behind scales? Am I missing something? Is it related to
> numbers in the range of 5-8 items being more easily withing the
> human capacity to concieve of at once?

For me anyway, I don't concieve of the scale all at once, unless
someone is playing a pattern of notes and I recognize it as
the major scale and then I can anticipate what note will come next.

> Does the general
> chromaticism of scales have a major impact? (meaning that the
> scale can somewhat simulate a sliding up or down pitch vs. a
> strange scale like C-C#-D-E-F-F#-B would not because of the
> leap from F#-B)

If by scale you mean these are the only allowable notes, then
I don't see why you couldn't make melodies with only those
notes, but your harmony is what would have problems.

>
> I guess I'm mainly hoping to get at understanding some
> psychoacoustic effect or something that explains perception of
> "scale" in addition to the practical reasons scales developed and
> the simple discussion of what does or doesn't currently exist in
> the world's musics. Would a hypothetical person who grew up in
> a society where the only music was unaccompanied singing and
> harmonization absent still percieve of their songs as ordered by
> some sort of "scale?"

If the singers always hit the same definite pitches, then I
think yes. Otherwise no. But I think there are psycho-acoustical
reasons why they would tend to stick to a definite set of
pitches, or evolve to that over time.

>
> One thought: A friend came up with the analogy of "digital" vs.
> "analog" that perhaps melody can be thought of more as analog
> in that the driving force of melody is pitch moving up or down with
> no particular points, whereas harmony has points of
> consonance or dissonance that are more or less defined-
> "digital." And perhaps every other parameter of what we call
> "melody" is actually rhythmic effects or *harmonic* effects that
> are due to pitch memory. So a related question: is pitch memory
> supporting "scales" due to the harmonic effects of the scale even
> when seperated as melody or does pitch memory guide people
> towards a sense of scale even (hypothetically) if we could not
> percieve harmonic relations by memory?

I'd vote for the former.

--Jeff
>
> -Aaron Wolf
> www.darktownsaints.com

🔗backfromthesilo <backfromthesilo@yahoo.com>

> To my way of thinking, a scale is not the primary object, but
> a secondary effect. Meaning you start with a collection of
> pitches that you can make nice harmonies, chords and
whatnot
> with, and once you put them in order you have a scale. I note
> what you said at the end about pitch memory, so one can be
> making "chords" even if the sounds aren't quite happening
> simultaneously.
>

I used to have this sort of idea, but have lately become quite
uncertain that this is all that is taking place. The dominance of
scales in seemingly all musical contexts seems to point to
something more.

>
> For me anyway, I don't concieve of the scale all at once, unless
> someone is playing a pattern of notes and I recognize it as
> the major scale and then I can anticipate what note will come
next.
>

So by this, you're saying that scale is essentially pitch memory or
contextual consistency that exists within a whole culture or style
rather than just a piece of music. The implication would be that
the idea of scale is just based on cultural familiarity. I guess I'm
wondering again if the answer is really that simple.

> > Does the general
> > chromaticism of scales have a major impact? (meaning that
the
> > scale can somewhat simulate a sliding up or down pitch vs.
a
> > strange scale like C-C#-D-E-F-F#-B would not because of
the
> > leap from F#-B)
>
> If by scale you mean these are the only allowable notes, then
> I don't see why you couldn't make melodies with only those
> notes, but your harmony is what would have problems.
>
>

Well, I'm kinda asking if the ability of a set scale to simulate a
smoothly rising or lowering pitch has an impact on its likelihood
of being used or feel natural. Without considering harmony, or
actual cultural norms, maybe universal psychoacoustics give
favor to relatively more equal scales. Even though whole and
half steps are quite different, the major scale still rises and falls
much more smoothly than that hypothetical scale I mention for
example.

> >
> > I guess I'm mainly hoping to get at understanding some
> > psychoacoustic effect or something that explains perception
of
> > "scale" in addition to the practical reasons scales developed
and
> > the simple discussion of what does or doesn't currently exist
in
> > the world's musics. Would a hypothetical person who grew
up in
> > a society where the only music was unaccompanied singing
and
> > harmonization absent still percieve of their songs as ordered
by
> > some sort of "scale?"
>
> If the singers always hit the same definite pitches, then I
> think yes. Otherwise no. But I think there are psycho-acoustical
> reasons why they would tend to stick to a definite set of
> pitches, or evolve to that over time.
>
>

Ok, now we're getting at it. What do people think? Are there
such psycho-acoustic reasons? What are they? How do they
work? How much is related to language? How much is
universal vs. contextual?

> >
> > One thought: A friend came up with the analogy of "digital"
vs.
> > "analog" that perhaps melody can be thought of more as
analog
> > in that the driving force of melody is pitch moving up or down
with
> > no particular points, whereas harmony has points of
> > consonance or dissonance that are more or less defined-
> > "digital." And perhaps every other parameter of what we call
> > "melody" is actually rhythmic effects or *harmonic* effects
that
> > are due to pitch memory. So a related question: is pitch
memory
> > supporting "scales" due to the harmonic effects of the scale
even
> > when seperated as melody or does pitch memory guide
people
> > towards a sense of scale even (hypothetically) if we could not
> > percieve harmonic relations by memory?
>
> I'd vote for the former.
>
> --Jeff
> >

So in this sense, you're going back to saying that scale is a
byproduct rather than an effect of its own. I don't really disagree
strongly, I just don't want to jump to conclusions. I suppose I'm
looking to be able to say that the origin of "scale" is dependant
on a specific list of phenomena that come back to
psycho-acoustics. Then it could be determined what aspects of
scale are potentially universal vs. contextual.

I'm also trying to figure out how to explain these things to
students. Typical teaching explains everything musical as it
relates to the scale. If scale is only the byproduct than it is very
difficult to reconcile the two ways of looking at things.

To acknowledge the bias in my thinking, I'm wishing there was a
universal psychoacoustical explanation for scale such that I
could teach things as they relate to scale without constant
prefacing that scale is actually just a byproduct or that it just
happens to be the way western music is at the moment (since it
SEEMS more universal than that), or without doing what
everyone else does, which is to completely ignore physical
realities of tuning and harmonics and beats etc. I'm also
interested in such an explanation for myself too.

-Aaron

🔗Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@anaphoria.com>

🔗Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@melbpc.org.au>

Hi Aaron,

You wrote:
... I haven't come to get a solid idea of what drives the concept of
"scale."

... What is the driving force behind scales? Am I missing something?

... Is it related to numbers in the range of 5-8 items being more easily
within the human capacity to conceive of at once?

... Does the general chromaticism of scales have a major impact?

... could we establish 3 or 4 note scales and then provide musical
interest through
modulation?

... Or if we try a 12 or 15 or more note scale can it really be
established as a scale or will the perception be that of constant modulation
or confusion?

... Would a hypothetical person who grew up in a society where the only
music was unaccompanied singing and harmonization absent still percieve of
their songs as ordered by some sort of "scale?"
Plenty of questions! :-) I'd like to offer my ideas - based only on my
experience and (unsystematic) thinking over many years. That is, I have no
grand unified theory that "explains" scales, certainly not scientifically.
Perhaps that's what you're looking for, when you ask for a possible
explanation in terms of 'some psychoacoustic effect or something that
explains perception of "scale"'? But I too have read Helmholtz and Ellis,
also Shankar on the sruti system of north Indian music, and have been
composing music for decades, so may have some insight you could use. I'll
repeat your questions and offer my answers for your consideration.
... I haven't come to get a solid idea of what drives the concept of
"scale."
[YA] All melody comes from the human voice. It begins in expressive
vocalisation, and can encompass any use of the voice, whether shouting,
speaking or singing. The basic notion of a tetrachord is not that of four
strings tuned in step interval; it is that of a natural speaking range for a
human voice. The scale is the ladder, or set of steps, we have likened our
natural pitch variations in speech to, codified, simplified, abstracted. We
raise our speaking pitch from its base level with emotion or to question.
We lower our speaking pitch for emphasis, finality, or command. Three or
four notes cover the general speech of most of us in our daily
conversations.

When I speak of "natural range", of course I'm oversimplifying. The
speaking ranges we find appropriate for men and women, boys and girls, are
largely influenced by culture as well as the physiology of the larynx.
Putting two tetrachords together comes much later! It's analogous to
having one voice that combines the natural speaking range of two different
voices. It's an artifice. A good singer has a better vocal range than a
poor one - why? because he or she has a better emotional range available to
express.
Looking at the history of western harmony, we find unison singing giving
way to organum - where men's and boys' voices sing in parallel fourths,
fifths or octaves - long before the acceptance of those incredibly dissonant
intervals, the thirds :-). What is happening here? Men and boys are
singing in the natural (ie culturally appropriate) ranges, but singing the
same melody.

... What is the driving force behind scales? Am I missing something?

[YA] I believe the driving force behind scales is the expressiveness of
the human voice speaking in its culturally appropriate range, enriched by
the idea of someone able to speak with, effectively, many voices, by adding
one range on top of another.

... Is it related to numbers in the range of 5-8 items being more easily
within the human capacity to conceive of at once?

[YA] Simple systems are certainly more easily grasped, learned,
remembered and promulgated. Our short-term memory has a limit of about
seven - or, as you say, 5-8 - items, and surely this is relevant to grasping
a melody - you can only relate the current note to those you can keep in
memory. But hte fact that there are few notes in most practical scales
comes, I think, from the fact that there are few notes in each natural
speaking range.

... Does the general chromaticism of scales have a major impact?

[YA] We don't speak in octaves, do we? We speak in steps, glides, bends
and microtones! But we only hear a few distinct pitch levels as being
significant. Let me draw an analogy to the production of different speech
sounds; you or I might pronounce our /r/s differently; yours might roll,
while mine flaps, but we recognise both sounds (allophones) as members of
the same sound class or phoneme /r/. In like manner, when Mother calls us
for dinner, you and I might answer "Coming!" with different micro melodies,
or on different pitches; but relative to our own normal vocies, we both
answer in the "affirmative response" pitch - and are understood as such. We
might call these allopitches of one pitcheme.

... could we establish 3 or 4 note scales and then provide musical
interest through
modulation?

[YA] Sure, you can establish a 3 or 4 note scale; try this one: C Db E F;
and then provide musical interest through many musical techniques - rhythmic
variation, by stretching or compressing a melody note lengths by a factor of
2, 3 or 4; by interval inversion; by retrograde motion (all standard
contrapuntal techniques); or by adding a fixed or variable amount to each
note length (ï¿½ la Olivier Messiaen); or by serialisation (ï¿½ la Arnold
Schoenberg and his followers); to name a few!

It's a useful exercise for any composer to write music with restricted
tools - limiting the scale to a subset of the usual notes opens up more
possiblities, I think, than it closes. Try writing in pentatonic scales; in
modes (you probably do "guitar modes" in the rock band, don't you?); then
try dropping one more note from your pentatone and seeing how to make the
music interesting.

... Or if we try a 12 or 15 or more note scale can it really be
established as a scale or will the perception be that of constant modulation
or confusion?

[YA] Schoenberg et al used a 12-TET scale, with surprisingly unconfusing
results. So did the late romantics, in all but name - Wagner, Richard
Strauss, Mahler, Liszt all wrote works so chromatic that you could not
justify the "return" to any particular tone centre.

... I guess I'm mainly hoping to get at understanding some psychoacoustic
effect or something that explains perception of "scale" in addition to the
practical reasons scales developed and the simple discussion of what does or
doesn't currently exist in the world's musics.
[YA] Well, I guess I've focussed on the hypothetical ealrist practical
reasons scales developed. But I'd say that the emotional force of those
reasons is not spent; by and large, they still drive our response to music,
as wordless expressions of the emotions that our voices can convey.

... Would a hypothetical person who grew up in a society where the only
music was unaccompanied singing and harmonization absent still percieve of
their songs as ordered by some sort of "scale?"

[YA] What's hypothetical about it? Most people thru history have grown
up without harmonisation in the western sense. Most people born today will
certainly grow up with it. However, all the singers of yore sang using
scales. I'd say it was a very hard notion to abolish ...
Regards,
Yahya

--
Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.10 - Release Date: 10/1/05

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@lumma.org>

>> To my way of thinking, a scale is not the primary object, but
>> a secondary effect. Meaning you start with a collection of
>> pitches that you can make nice harmonies, chords and
>> whatnot with, and once you put them in order you have a scale.
>> I note what you said at the end about pitch memory, so one can
>> be making "chords" even if the sounds aren't quite happening
>> simultaneously.
>
>I used to have this sort of idea, but have lately become quite
>uncertain that this is all that is taking place. The dominance of
>scales in seemingly all musical contexts seems to point to
>something more.

Indeed. The vast majority of music has nothing like Western
harmony, but almost all music can be heard to employ scales.

>> > I guess I'm mainly hoping to get at understanding some
>> > psychoacoustic effect or something that explains perception
>> > of "scale" in addition to the practical reasons scales
>> > developed and the simple discussion of what does or doesn't
>> > currently exist in the world's musics. Would a hypothetical
>> > person who grew up in a society where the only music was
>> > unaccompanied singing and harmonization absent still percieve
>> > of their songs as ordered by some sort of "scale?"
>>
>> If the singers always hit the same definite pitches, then I
>> think yes. Otherwise no. But I think there are psycho-acoustical
>> reasons why they would tend to stick to a definite set of
>> pitches, or evolve to that over time.
>
>Ok, now we're getting at it. What do people think? Are there
>such psycho-acoustic reasons? What are they? How do they
>work? How much is related to language? How much is
>universal vs. contextual?

Music needs to communicate something and in order for that to
happen, listeners need to be able to take apart and manipulate
what they hear. Much of this is done using the same sort of
processing that is used in language. There are clearly universal
tendencies governed by biology, but other than that most of the
details of a particular school or genre or area are cultural/accidental.

>> > And perhaps every other parameter of what we call
>> > "melody" is actually rhythmic effects or *harmonic* effects
>> > that are due to pitch memory.

That's one neat way to think about it.

>> > So a related question: is pitch memory
>> > supporting "scales" due to the harmonic effects of the scale
>> > even when seperated as melody or does pitch memory guide
>> > people towards a sense of scale even (hypothetically) if we
>> > could not percieve harmonic relations by memory?
>>
>> I'd vote for the former.

There are several mechanisms at play in melodic perception. All
of them depend on events referencing other events in time, but
not all of them involve harmony in the western sense. Different
aspects of melodic perception may be dominant in different
listeners.

>So in this sense, you're going back to saying that scale is a
>byproduct rather than an effect of its own. I don't really disagree
>strongly, I just don't want to jump to conclusions. I suppose I'm
>looking to be able to say that the origin of "scale" is dependant
>on a specific list of phenomena that come back to
>psycho-acoustics. Then it could be determined what aspects of
>scale are potentially universal vs. contextual.

Scales are largely a theoretical convenience. Though curiously,
very few of them have more than 7 tones per octave.

>To acknowledge the bias in my thinking, I'm wishing there was a
>universal psychoacoustical explanation for scale such that I
>could teach things as they relate to scale without constant
>prefacing that scale is actually just a byproduct or that it just
>happens to be the way western music is at the moment (since it
>SEEMS more universal than that),

I'm not sure I see any problem. When you say "scale," what do
you mean? The diatonic scale? It is by no means unique to
Western music, but it was employed in novel ways in the West.

Obviously everything is a byproduct of some underlying reason,
if you're a reductionist.

>or without doing what everyone else does, which is to completely
>ignore physical realities of tuning and harmonics and beats etc.
>I'm also interested in such an explanation for myself too.

Just because there is some common perception among people governed
by our common biology doesn't mean music must always interact with
that perception in the same way. If I write dissonant music, is
there any reason to say I have used the common perception of beats
any less sincerely than harmonious music?

-Carl

🔗Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@superonline.com>

🔗Patrick Heddles <p_heddles@yahoo.com>

🔗Mohajeri Shahin <shahinm@kayson-ir.com>

For some historical basis of scale , have a look at these 2 links :

1- http://www.webster.sk.ca/GREENWICH/natbasis.htm

2-http://www.webster.sk.ca/greenwich/fl-compl.htm

shaahin

________________________________

From: Yahya Abdal-Aziz [mailto:yahya@melbpc.org.au]
Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2005 5:22 PM
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [tuning] What drives "scales"

Hi Aaron,

You wrote:

... I haven't come to get a solid idea of what drives the concept of "scale."

... What is the driving force behind scales? Am I missing something?

... Is it related to numbers in the range of 5-8 items being more easily within the human capacity to conceive of at once?

... Does the general chromaticism of scales have a major impact?

... could we establish 3 or 4 note scales and then provide musical interest through
modulation?

... Or if we try a 12 or 15 or more note scale can it really be established as a scale or will the perception be that of constant modulation or confusion?

... Would a hypothetical person who grew up in a society where the only music was unaccompanied singing and harmonization absent still percieve of their songs as ordered by some sort of "scale?"

Plenty of questions! :-) I'd like to offer my ideas - based only on my experience and (unsystematic) thinking over many years. That is, I have no grand unified theory that "explains" scales, certainly not scientifically. Perhaps that's what you're looking for, when you ask for a possible explanation in terms of 'some psychoacoustic effect or something that explains perception of "scale"'? But I too have read Helmholtz and Ellis, also Shankar on the sruti system of north Indian music, and have been composing music for decades, so may have some insight you could use. I'll repeat your questions and offer my answers for your consideration.

... I haven't come to get a solid idea of what drives the concept of "scale."

[YA] All melody comes from the human voice. It begins in expressive vocalisation, and can encompass any use of the voice, whether shouting, speaking or singing. The basic notion of a tetrachord is not that of four strings tuned in step interval; it is that of a natural speaking range for a human voice. The scale is the ladder, or set of steps, we have likened our natural pitch variations in speech to, codified, simplified, abstracted. We raise our speaking pitch from its base level with emotion or to question. We lower our speaking pitch for emphasis, finality, or command. Three or four notes cover the general speech of most of us in our daily conversations.

Putting two tetrachords together comes much later! It's analogous to having one voice that combines the natural speaking range of two different voices. It's an artifice. A good singer has a better vocal range than a poor one - why? because he or she has a better emotional range available to express.

Looking at the history of western harmony, we find unison singing giving way to organum - where men's and boys' voices sing in parallel fourths, fifths or octaves - long before the acceptance of those incredibly dissonant intervals, the thirds :-). What is happening here? Men and boys are singing in the natural (ie culturally appropriate) ranges, but singing the same melody.

... What is the driving force behind scales? Am I missing something?

[YA] I believe the driving force behind scales is the expressiveness of the human voice speaking in its culturally appropriate range, enriched by the idea of someone able to speak with, effectively, many voices, by adding one range on top of another.

... Is it related to numbers in the range of 5-8 items being more easily within the human capacity to conceive of at once?

[YA] Simple systems are certainly more easily grasped, learned, remembered and promulgated. Our short-term memory has a limit of about seven - or, as you say, 5-8 - items, and surely this is relevant to grasping a melody - you can only relate the current note to those you can keep in memory. But hte fact that there are few notes in most practical scales comes, I think, from the fact that there are few notes in each natural speaking range.

... Does the general chromaticism of scales have a major impact?

[YA] We don't speak in octaves, do we? We speak in steps, glides, bends and microtones! But we only hear a few distinct pitch levels as being significant. Let me draw an analogy to the production of different speech sounds; you or I might pronounce our /r/s differently; yours might roll, while mine flaps, but we recognise both sounds (allophones) as members of the same sound class or phoneme /r/. In like manner, when Mother calls us for dinner, you and I might answer "Coming!" with different micro melodies, or on different pitches; but relative to our own normal vocies, we both answer in the "affirmative response" pitch - and are understood as such. We might call these allopitches of one pitcheme.

... could we establish 3 or 4 note scales and then provide musical interest through
modulation?

[YA] Sure, you can establish a 3 or 4 note scale; try this one: C Db E F; and then provide musical interest through many musical techniques - rhythmic variation, by stretching or compressing a melody note lengths by a factor of 2, 3 or 4; by interval inversion; by retrograde motion (all standard contrapuntal techniques); or by adding a fixed or variable amount to each note length (à la Olivier Messiaen); or by serialisation (à la Arnold Schoenberg and his followers); to name a few!

It's a useful exercise for any composer to write music with restricted tools - limiting the scale to a subset of the usual notes opens up more possiblities, I think, than it closes. Try writing in pentatonic scales; in modes (you probably do "guitar modes" in the rock band, don't you?); then try dropping one more note from your pentatone and seeing how to make the music interesting.

... Or if we try a 12 or 15 or more note scale can it really be established as a scale or will the perception be that of constant modulation or confusion?

[YA] Schoenberg et al used a 12-TET scale, with surprisingly unconfusing results. So did the late romantics, in all but name - Wagner, Richard Strauss, Mahler, Liszt all wrote works so chromatic that you could not justify the "return" to any particular tone centre.

[YA] Well, I guess I've focussed on the hypothetical ealrist practical reasons scales developed. But I'd say that the emotional force of those reasons is not spent; by and large, they still drive our response to music, as wordless expressions of the emotions that our voices can convey.

... Would a hypothetical person who grew up in a society where the only music was unaccompanied singing and harmonization absent still percieve of their songs as ordered by some sort of "scale?"

[YA] What's hypothetical about it? Most people thru history have grown up without harmonisation in the western sense. Most people born today will certainly grow up with it. However, all the singers of yore sang using scales. I'd say it was a very hard notion to abolish ...

Regards,

Yahya

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🔗backfromthesilo <backfromthesilo@yahoo.com>

Yahya, Thanks for the insightful wonderful in-depth reply.

> [YA] All melody comes from the human voice. The basic
notion of a tetrachord is not that of four strings tuned in step
interval; it is that of a natural speaking range for a human voice.
The scale is the ladder, or set of steps, we have likened our
natural pitch variations in speech to, codified, simplified,
abstracted.

-Yes, I'm familiar with this idea in general, but this is a more
specific view. So some follow up questions- what actually is the
general tessitura of a natural speaking voice? Is it really about a
4/3 interval or is that an approximation made due to harmonic
relations? Second, would it be fair to say that seperating the 4/3
into four parts is analogous to specifying 5 vowels (as some
languages only specify though there exists a continuous
possible spectrum of vowel sounds)? Do cultures that use
fewer scale notes also have languages with less specificity of
meaning between subtly changes in pitch and vice versa? In a
related sense, would a note between two established scale
tones have a similarly confused impression on a listener as
hearing an in-between vowel sound?

> [YA] Our short-term memory has a limit of about seven - or,
as you say, 5-8 - items, and surely this is relevant to grasping a
melody - you can only relate the current note to those you can
keep in memory. But the fact that there are few notes in most
practical scales comes, I think, from the fact that there are few
notes in each natural speaking range.

-So you're saying the capacity of short term memory may be a
factor but your feeling is against that notion?

> ... Does the general chromaticism of scales have a major
impact?
>
> [YA] We don't speak in octaves, do we? We speak in steps,
glides, bends and microtones! But we only hear a few distinct
pitch levels as being significant. Let me draw an analogy to the
production of different speech sounds; you or I might pronounce
our /r/s differently; yours might roll, while mine flaps, but we
recognise both sounds (allophones) as members of the same
sound class or phoneme /r/.

-well this is like my vowel analogy above, but by chromaticism, I
mean to ask is there a natural push towards more evenly
spaced intervals which might better approximate the glides of
speech vs. less evenly spaced intervals?

Overall, it sounds like your thinking is that most aspects of even
(supposedly) absolute music are primarily effective due to
automatic association with environmentally learned sounds and
associated meanings and concepts (whether that of music,
speech, or environmental noises). Which overall leads towards
a conclusion that most aspects of music are culturally based not
universal. I do want to try to avoid trying to find the elusive grand
unification theory of music, but when discussing a particular
phenomenon there is always more or less due to various
factors. Anyway, another way of looking at this view could be
Pavlovian. Like if a bell gets a dog to salivate, then I suppose a
circumstance could come about where a violin makes a man fall
in love or a melody brings someone to tears, all by association.
Is this what you're talking about? Is this a more powerful force
than any biologically universal aspects of music perception?

-Aaron

🔗backfromthesilo <backfromthesilo@yahoo.com>

Carl, well put and to the point. A couple comments:

> Obviously everything is a byproduct of some underlying reason,
> if you're a reductionist.
>

Obviously I am a reductionist. But I take such a path both
honestly and with purpose. I am a reductionist both because of
my obsessive thought tendency and for pedegogical reasons. I
want to be able to explain music in ways that acknowledge the
complexity and huge number of inseperable influences, but I
want to free my teaching from necessarily cultural binds. In other
words, if I were teaching English I would obviously have to teach
everything particular to English. However unlike most teachers I
would want to be able to state what aspects were unique to
English and even what aspects may be nearly universal in
language and why. My feeling as a teacher is that if students
understand this foundation they can much more easily be critical
thinkers in all future related studies. That's how I am at least.
So musically, I don't teach "right" and "wrong" but tell all students
*one* rule: one must strive as much as possible to have the
result be *intentional* when it comes to producing a work of art.
Which is to say that experimentation is fine and fun and
educational, but isn't artistic. Anyway, we shouldn't get into a
philosophy of art discussion on the tuning list. My main point is
that both for myself and for teaching I'm looking to have a
musical viewpoint that steps outside both cultural boundaries
rather than one that is an amalgum of multiple existing cultures.
Then along with that outside viewpoint, I'll still go and accept
cultural facts and appreciate them when writing music intended
for actual audiences that necessarily have cultural backgrounds.
So in that sense, I am a reductionist. And thanks for assisting
me in my reductionism.

>If I write dissonant music, is there any reason to say I have
used the common perception of beats any less sincerely than
harmonious music?
> -Carl

Of course not. As long as you did it knowledgeably and
intentionally. I have no problem with any sort of music, only with
the way some people explain it.

-Aaron

🔗backfromthesilo <backfromthesilo@yahoo.com>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Patrick Heddles
<p_heddles@y...> wrote:

> I think the key to that is the octave, which is
> fundamental to every scale I'm familiar with. As far
> as I'm aware, notes separated by an octave are almost
> always considered to be interchangeable.
> All this means that a scale must cover a complete
> octave; 12-tet, pentatonic etc. all refer to the
> number of tones in an octave. (bear with me, I'm going
> somewhere with this)
>
> This means that any given scale can be thought of as a
> way of dividing up the octave.
>
> As a few people have already said, scales need
> reasonably similar intervals between consecutive notes
> - note the trouble the theorists had with the
> tone-and-a-half in the harmonic minor scale.
>
> I suggest that 5-7 tones is the optimum division of
> the octave to satisfy the two primary demands - the
> consonance and the similarity (in size) of the
> intervals.
>

Patrick, thanks for your input. This idea definitely would go along
with my suggestion/question pertaining to the scale being an
approximation of chromatic movement (as in continuous pitch
change).

Perhaps along with the language influence idea, I could suggest
a possible hypothesis:

Comparable to the aural concepts of just-noticeable-difference
and similar ideas, perhaps there exists a sort of language
based meaning range in pitch. Such that an experiment could
be set up whereby (for example) it is determined at what pitch
change a verbal statement is percieved as a question or not and
there would obviously be an area of uncertainty. Thus a
meaning based pitch change sensitivity could be charted and
discussed. I would wonder how much variation such an
experiment would show between different regions or languages.
Perhaps there would turn out to be a correlation between scale
steps and such a just-noticeable-difference-in-meaning. Thus
could be determined a definite range of pitch whereby scale
steps will be melodically percieved as essentially the same
scale step or not or in the hazy region. This would also give a
potential explanation to number of scale steps in an octave. And
universal vs. contextual differences could be found by studying
many regions and languages. Comments or thoughts on this
idea, everyone?

-Aaron

🔗backfromthesilo <backfromthesilo@yahoo.com>

🔗jjensen142000 <jjensen14@hotmail.com>

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@lumma.org>

>> Obviously everything is a byproduct of some underlying reason,
>> if you're a reductionist.
>>
>
>Obviously I am a reductionist. But I take such a path both
>honestly and with purpose. I am a reductionist both because of
>my obsessive thought tendency and for pedegogical reasons. I
>want to be able to explain music in ways that acknowledge the
>complexity and huge number of inseperable influences, but I
>want to free my teaching from necessarily cultural binds. In other
>words, if I were teaching English I would obviously have to teach
>everything particular to English. However unlike most teachers I
>would want to be able to state what aspects were unique to
>English and even what aspects may be nearly universal in
>language and why. My feeling as a teacher is that if students
>understand this foundation they can much more easily be critical
>thinkers in all future related studies. That's how I am at least.
>So musically, I don't teach "right" and "wrong" but tell all students
>*one* rule: one must strive as much as possible to have the
>result be *intentional* when it comes to producing a work of art.
>Which is to say that experimentation is fine and fun and
>educational, but isn't artistic. Anyway, we shouldn't get into a
>philosophy of art discussion on the tuning list. My main point is
>that both for myself and for teaching I'm looking to have a
>musical viewpoint that steps outside both cultural boundaries
>rather than one that is an amalgum of multiple existing cultures.
>Then along with that outside viewpoint, I'll still go and accept
>cultural facts and appreciate them when writing music intended
>for actual audiences that necessarily have cultural backgrounds.
>So in that sense, I am a reductionist. And thanks for assisting
>me in my reductionism.

Hi Aaron,

What and where do you teach? This might help me understand your
questions.

>>If I write dissonant music, is there any reason to say I have
>used the common perception of beats any less sincerely than
>harmonious music?
>
>Of course not. As long as you did it knowledgeably and
>intentionally. I have no problem with any sort of music, only with
>the way some people explain it.

Indeed. Music theory as it is currently taught in universities is
fairly ignorant of itself. And serialism, atonal music, etc, strikes
me as primarily a deconstructionist movement within academia, rather
than a legitimate genre. Their theories are typically BS in my
experience.

-Carl

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@lumma.org>

🔗Aaron Wolf <backfromthesilo@yahoo.com>

>
> Hi Aaron,
>
> What and where do you teach? This might help me
understand your
> questions.
>

Carl, while I teach everything I am confident in to whomever is
interested my main income source is teaching private guitar
lessons. I have a bachelor's of music and have always
considered working towards various formal teaching situations
and I have some experience as a student tutor at the university
level but I'm currently only teaching privately now. I teach all ages
and levels and I try to bring some basic sense of acoustics and
universality to my teaching from the very beginning.

I don't see why students should first learn all the mistaken ideas
of traditional theory in order to gain an understanding of
harmonics and other important ideas. But it is difficult in that
there exists no written elementary theory introduction that is not
full of traditional bias. Also I recognize that as long as I'm
teaching guitar and not general creative musicianship I am stuck
in that world somewhat. Still I get all my beginning students
improvising with modes over a drone before they worry too much
about chords and key changes.

>
> Indeed. Music theory as it is currently taught in universities is
> fairly ignorant of itself. And serialism, atonal music, etc, strikes
> me as primarily a deconstructionist movement within
academia, rather
> than a legitimate genre. Their theories are typically BS in my
> experience.
>

I actually had professors honest enough to admit that a large
part of the serialist movement was due to internal pressure
within academia. That in the 20th century emphasis on
"research" at universities over "education" it looked better to
present complex hard to understand very heady music. Then
those sorts of people got professorships and in a cyclical
fashion the system perpetuated itself at colleges. It was very
much looked down upon to write any music that didn't require
complex EXPLANATION. Nowadays professors are not so
extreme but they were students at those times and were
educated themselves in that stifling, overly analytic situation.

Harmonic Experience by Mathieu is one of the only attempts I
know of to provide a better theory that is still accessible to
normal musicians and not just theorists. Unfortunately his
theories are less than perfect and are still grounded in traditional
20th century theory enough that large portions of the book are
inappropriate to many students. Still, the Section I of Harmonic
Experience is one of the very best introductions to real theory I've
seen.

I guess part of my struggle as a teacher is that I'm forced to
teach traditional concepts of guitar theory like various chords,
major scales, etc. And yet I'm always kicking myself when I end
up getting a student a book with excellent repertoire but which
explains theories as per the circle of fifths and the worst:
explaining the origin of chords as being every other note in a
scale put together. Among other things, I'm desperately seeking
a way to teach students about chords without teaching such BS
theory but I still have to get them functional on structuring chords
without going through tons of lessons on harmonic theory and
the differences between temperament and just tuning. Currently
my only solution is to guage the student and either head down
the long road of actually teaching them to understand and hear
the harmonic series or I teach the "every other note" theory but
tell them that that isn't really what's going on but it's just a
working way to think about it and if they really want to know more
we can go into that if there's time.

I want to give students a conceptual approach to theory such that
they can understand critically all the future theory they may come
across. Personally, I have been able to conceptually deal with
much more music and theory since becoming familiar with
tuning, harmonics, and acoustics. I can see the confusions in
other theory and make sense of it and actually learn something
useful from an explanation of some style or piece. I want to
provide that sort of critical thinking ability for my students, so I
want to make clear to them what acoustical and perceptual
forces simply exist and govern everything so they can relate
everything to that and understand that everything else is
contextual to the instruments, language, time period, or culture it
is in. And I have to provide such an explanation within the
bounds of normal music introduction, not in some special theory
course. And it can't be otherwise because I want this for
students who have yet to be exposed to all the BS theory.

-Aaron

🔗Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@superonline.com>

All in all, I think some kind of `harmonic equivalance` is sought for every scale. As Rauf Yekta put so succintly, you cannot possibly consider such an arrangement a `valid scale` by right:

1/1
133/121
38/31
19/14
38/25
7/4
532/271
2/1

even though the intervals therein could be acceptable under another context... which brings me to a famous quote:

`All intervals are relevant, since they are derived by the processes in nature, but not all scales are relavant, since only a few out of an unlimited set have a logical, tangible, orderly and culturally appropriate basis.`

Cordially,
Ozan
----- Original Message -----
From: Carl Lumma
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 18 Ocak 2005 Salı 4:23
Subject: Re: [tuning] Re: What drives "scales"

>Ozan, I'm very interested to keep learning more about the pitch
>behaviour of the speaking voice. Thanks for that comment.
>
>As to the cycle of fifths idea, I think it is quite clear that the
>cycle of fifths stems from the intellectual idea of such a cycle
>once the interval of a fifth is initially concieved of.

Paul Erlich has suggested that chains of fifths satisfy a kind of
'fifths equivalence', which functions much like octave-equivalance.
I found this idea fairly compelling.

>And yet "scale" definitely exists outside such intellectual ideas.
>I know I personally experience "scale" in some fashion beyond
>intellectual ideas, but I do not really experience fifths cycles
>in such a way.

Try listening to various "tetrachordal" scales vs. those which are
not tetrachordal, and see if you hear a difference.

>Certainly there also exist many scales quite unrelated to fifths.

Yup. But the most popular scales, the world over, are fifth-based.

-Carl

🔗Aaron Wolf <backfromthesilo@yahoo.com>

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@lumma.org>

🔗Aaron K. Johnson <akjmicro@comcast.net>

On Tuesday 18 January 2005 10:51 am, Carl Lumma wrote:
> >At any rate, my question about scales isn't so much what works or
> >doesn't work or what intervals are good or not, but whether there
> >exists psychoacoustic reason why things must or should be
> >ordered by scale at all (as opposed to it just being a practical
> >convenience).
> >
> >My sense is that even with the unlimited pitch control of computer
> >manipulation there is still reason to stick with the concept of
> >scale.
>
> In fact, even with an unlimited number of pitches, listeners will
> very likely hear the music in reference to some scale they are
> familiar with.

Very true.

Furthermore, I think it was also already mentioned, but the fifth, being the
first 'color' overtone (i.e. non-octave overtone) plays a huge role in our
perception of stable pitch collections and structures. Consider the enormous
role it plays in drones/tonality of any sort, not to mention western chord
progressions.

One might also wonder about the primacy of the diatonic modes. My theory,
apart from looking at a 7-note diatonic as a MOS, is that when you stack
octave-reduced fifths, 7-notes is a special point of arrival not only for
being a MOS, but for the fact that adding one more pitch (the 8th pitch),
makes you have to do *2* octave reductions. Looking at it another way, going
up a 5th (* 3:2) and down a 4th (* 3:4) allows one to stay in an octave until
we get to the 8th pitch (C# if we start at C: C-D-G-A-E-B-F#-[C#]). Simply
doing it this way gives us Lydian mode, and perhaps this was the first way
the chain of fifths idea of scale building was discovered-simply going up in
one direction.

The most logical thing to have happened in natural development might have been
the tetrachordal framework 'C-F-G-C', the ear hears the C-F, C-G, and G-C as
stable structures because of their smaller ratios. Then perhaps because of
proximity, the voice prefers smaller steps when choosing pitches to 'fill in'
the gaps left by the tetrachordal frame. So we get the arrival of 9/8, 81/64
(or 5/4---the argument is still out about medieval monks singing preferences,
right?), etc.

So our major scale is a force of nature, so to speak. More so are pentatonics
of all sorts, which still more or less preserve stability with the presence
of 3/2's of some sort or another, tempered or not.

Anyway, we can probably agree that singing, which is extended speech, probably
started it al off, and it's a small step to discovering and/or sensing the
strong lower partials which are accessible as different resonant vowels (the
AUM of the overtones)

Best,
Aaron Krister Johnson
http://www.akjmusic.com
http://www.dividebypi.com

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@lumma.org>

>I guess part of my struggle as a teacher is that I'm forced to
>teach traditional concepts of guitar theory like various chords,
>major scales, etc. And yet I'm always kicking myself when I end
>up getting a student a book with excellent repertoire but which
>explains theories as per the circle of fifths and the worst:
>explaining the origin of chords as being every other note in a
>scale put together. Among other things, I'm desperately seeking
>a way to teach students about chords without teaching such BS
>theory but I still have to get them functional on structuring
>chords without going through tons of lessons on harmonic theory
>and the differences between temperament and just tuning. Currently
>my only solution is to guage the student and either head down
>the long road of actually teaching them to understand and hear
>the harmonic series or I teach the "every other note" theory but
>tell them that that isn't really what's going on but it's just a
>working way to think about it and if they really want to know more
>we can go into that if there's time.
>
>I want to give students a conceptual approach to theory such that
>they can understand critically all the future theory they may come
>across. Personally, I have been able to conceptually deal with
>much more music and theory since becoming familiar with tuning,
>harmonics, and acoustics. I can see the confusions in other theory
>and make sense of it and actually learn something useful from an
>explanation of some style or piece. I want to provide that sort
>of critical thinking ability for my students, so I want to make
>clear to them what acoustical and perceptual forces simply exist
>and govern everything so they can relate everything to that and
>understand that everything else is contextual to the instruments,
>language, time period, or culture it is in. And I have to provide
>such an explanation within the bounds of normal music introduction,
>not in some special theory course. And it can't be otherwise
>because I want this for students who have yet to be exposed to all
>the BS theory.

Hi Aaron,

Just some general remarks... I commend you on your goal.
I do think there's use in explaining chords in *both*
diatonic (scale degrees) and JI (harmonic series) terms
to students. Guitar is natural for learning elementary
JI stuff because string harmonics provide first-hand
experience of the phenomenon.

As to scales, there are many possible scales, all of them
worth hearing and playing. On a 12-tone guitar, most of
them are not playable, but there are still a great many
scales outside of the diatonic scale. Teaching triads in
both diatonic and octatonic contexts, for example, may be
valuable.

Another area to explore is bending notes. Many genres,
especially blues, make excellent use of this microtonal
feature.

If your students really are interested in non-12, then
19, 22, and 31 are obvious choices. I would think 19
would be the most natural first non-12 system for guitar
pedagogy, and in fact master guitarist Neil Haverstick
has written a book on it...

http://www.microstick.net/custom2.html

...it is called "19 Tones: A New Beginning". I haven't
seen it yet.

Easley Blackwood has written a beautiful guitar suite
for 15-tET guitar in his own notation, and it was
professionally performed and recorded. See...

http://lumma.org/

...for recommended recordings. You could loan them to
your students. Just hearing microtonal music changed
my entire outlook on music.

I wouldn't worry to much about the effects of traditional
teaching materials. The diatonic system is still a great
system, and every musician should know about it. Just
change language like "the" scale to "a" scale, and you'll
be golden.

Oh, and re. your question about the fundamental origins
of scale. There are two theorists whose work on scale
I really like: David Rothenberg and Paul Erlich. Paul's
work has mostly focused on functional harmony concerns,
and, as we discussed, tetrachordality. David's work may
be more along the lines of your inquiry. His papers are
highly technical, but I was able to understand portions
of them. They should be available at a good university
or city library. See the citations in the tuning
bibliography...

http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/doc/bib.html

Also, there has been much discussion of Rothenberg's
theories on this list, and on the tuning-math list.
You can try searching the Yahoo archives, or use google
with a site-restricted query, such as:

"Rothenberg site:groups.yahoo.com"

Good luck!

-Carl

🔗Aaron Wolf <backfromthesilo@yahoo.com>

Carl,

Thanks again for the well thought reply. I definitely find the use of
harmonics on guitar to be essentially useful. Fact is that most of
my students don't really know what they are "interested" in and a
large part of my job as a teacher is to get them interested. So I'm
not really in a position to get them into 19-tet or anything like that,
mostly my goal is to help them listen closer to music and then to
go expressively where their ears lead them and of course to
provide feedback encouragement and answer questions along
the way. Kind of a Montesori approach I guess. So since they've
basically picked guitar and start out with a somewhat traditional
approach, I mostly try to get them to think clearly about what the
guitar is or isn't good at doing, so they can judge things for
themselves.

Anyway, thanks again. I think I've got a good sense now of how
to go about this for now.

-Aaron

>
> Just some general remarks... I commend you on your goal.
> I do think there's use in explaining chords in *both*
> diatonic (scale degrees) and JI (harmonic series) terms
> to students. Guitar is natural for learning elementary
> JI stuff because string harmonics provide first-hand
> experience of the phenomenon.
>
> As to scales, there are many possible scales, all of them
> worth hearing and playing. On a 12-tone guitar, most of
> them are not playable, but there are still a great many
> scales outside of the diatonic scale. Teaching triads in
> both diatonic and octatonic contexts, for example, may be
> valuable.
>
> Another area to explore is bending notes. Many genres,
> especially blues, make excellent use of this microtonal
> feature.
>
> If your students really are interested in non-12, then
> 19, 22, and 31 are obvious choices. I would think 19
> would be the most natural first non-12 system for guitar
> pedagogy, and in fact master guitarist Neil Haverstick
> has written a book on it...
>
> http://www.microstick.net/custom2.html
>
> ...it is called "19 Tones: A New Beginning". I haven't
> seen it yet.
>
> Easley Blackwood has written a beautiful guitar suite
> for 15-tET guitar in his own notation, and it was
> professionally performed and recorded. See...
>
> http://lumma.org/
>
> ...for recommended recordings. You could loan them to
> your students. Just hearing microtonal music changed
> my entire outlook on music.
>
> I wouldn't worry to much about the effects of traditional
> teaching materials. The diatonic system is still a great
> system, and every musician should know about it. Just
> change language like "the" scale to "a" scale, and you'll
> be golden.
>
> Oh, and re. your question about the fundamental origins
> of scale. There are two theorists whose work on scale
> I really like: David Rothenberg and Paul Erlich. Paul's
> work has mostly focused on functional harmony concerns,
> and, as we discussed, tetrachordality. David's work may
> be more along the lines of your inquiry. His papers are
> highly technical, but I was able to understand portions
> of them. They should be available at a good university
> or city library. See the citations in the tuning
> bibliography...
>
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/doc/bib.html
>
> Also, there has been much discussion of Rothenberg's
> theories on this list, and on the tuning-math list.
> You can try searching the Yahoo archives, or use google
> with a site-restricted query, such as:
>
> "Rothenberg site:groups.yahoo.com"
>
> Good luck!
>
> -Carl

🔗Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@superonline.com>

🔗Bill Sethares <sethares@ece.wisc.edu>

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@lumma.org>

🔗Aaron Wolf <backfromthesilo@yahoo.com>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@l...> wrote:
> Hi Bill,
>
> >> my question about scales isn't so much what works or
> >> doesn't work or what intervals are good or not, but whether
there
> >> exists psychoacoustic reason why things must or should be
> >> ordered by scale at all (as opposed to it just being a
practical
> >> convenience).
> >
> >Let's turn this question around. Is it possible to imagine a
> >piece of music that does not use any scale? If so, then scales
> >are unlikely to be a direct result of the psychological
> >makeup of our species. If not, then we would need to search
for
> >what that biological imperative towards a scale could be.
> >
> >I can think of two different kinds of examples of
> >music that shuns any use of scales. First are
> >"electronic noise" pieces. For example, the CD Red Velvet
> >by Eric Lyons (music that "hypernavigates a compressed
informational
> >world) has many tracks that make use of no obvious scales
or
> >discrete pitch sets.
>
> That certainly sounds like it qualifies, but it's a trivial case
> since it isn't using pitched sounds.
>
> >The second example is some of the adaptively
> >tuned pieces. For example, neither Local Anomaly
> >
>
>http://eceserv0.ece.wisc.edu/~sethares/mp3s/localanomaly.ht
ml
> >
> >nor the more recent Aerophonious Intent
> >
>
>http://homepages.cae.wisc.edu/~sethares/aerophonious.mp3
> >
> >have any kind of formalized scale -- the pitches continuously
> >wander (microtonally) all around.
>
> Nevertheless, I clearly hear themes which can be
approximated
> by scales, even on the piano.
>
> -Carl

I agree with Carl definitely. The idea that the existence of a piece
of music can prove or disprove anything is not very useful since
musical is art and can be whatever the artist wants. Does the
existence of abstract painting disprove a psychological basis for
realism or symbolism in art?? The real question is whether
pieces like a noise piece (that cannot possibly be percieved as
related to scale) are a distinctly different experience to a listener
or not. I think they clearly are. To put it another way, I could write
a piece in which loud infrasonic pulses are meant to be fealt
more than heard and it could be valid art but would it disprove
the significance of audibility to music? Obviously there are many
aspects of music and not every piece must include every one but
that doesn't deny their existence.

My experience is that there exists something experiential, which I
guess I'll call the polytonal effect of set scales that is distinctly
absent or harder to percieve in the pieces mentioned. Although
perhaps it is similar in a noise piece to having consistency in
frequency of repeated or returning noises even though they are
"unpitched."

I guess my current thought is really that what I'm describing is
related to both short and long term pitch memory and polytonality
is a useful way to discuss it. The same reason it feels right to
start each new phrase on the same tonic or end on the original
tonic is why it feels more natural to come back to the same third
scale degree each time. Alterations are felt as either mutations
of the scale or additional notes making the scale larger and
more complex. Excessive mutation or many, many note scales
can become overwhelming and cause a loss of sense of scale.
Commatic drift can be slow enough potentially to become
accepted in certain circumstances depending on the listener.
So compositional decisions can influence how strongly felt the
sense of "scale" is, but such a sense certainly exists
independant of being a byproduct of cycles of fifths, harmonics,
or instrument limitations.

I'd relate the effect of disintigration or confusion of scale to
disintigration of verbal language into nonsensical crazy
gibberish. The associative meaning is lost and the listener
becomes aware of other aspects of the experience. Which is a
wonderful effect. This is however distinct from listening to a
foriegn language or unknown scale. In that situation,
association is less immediate but a sense of order will be
present and the listener will start to sense the existence of
specific language behaviors (repeated words or phrasing) or
scale notes.

-Aaron

🔗Rich Holmes <rsholmes@mailbox.syr.edu>

🔗Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@melbpc.org.au>

Aaron,

(Sorry for the delay in replying to this, but I hope you think the reply
pertinent.)

I like it! I think you've hit on a good idea here, to identify
scientifically just when we perceive sounds as different or the same.

There are two distinct but related aspects - one being in the realm of
speech, and the other in music. For tho (as I believe) one stems from the
other, they are by no means equivalent. There is also an area where they
cross over - in song. Here we have not lost the linguistic meanings of
sounds made by voices, yet the words are constrained (more or less) to
follow musical pitches. Some smaller domains within the land of song also
vary in characteristic ways with regard to how important exact intonation is
and how important the linguistic meaning of words is; for example - stage
musicals sung in one's own tongue; opera sung in a foreign tongue; various
kinds of rock music sung, yelled, screeched or growled (as in death metal).

You would probably have to control for musical experience and knowledge in
your subjects, too, since only dedicated musos and tuning enthusiasts
readily identify, for example, the difference between 12-TET and alternative
tunings, at least in their "best" keys. Such subjects may have finer pitch
discrimination in spoken language, too, as may poets.

As to cultural and regional differences, some comments: In tone languages,
intonation conveys meaning in precise ways. For example, most Chinese
languages have 4 to six distinct tones, which function as phonemes (abstract
sound classes), not as meaning markers such as question, statement, doubt
and so on. These tones are believed to have originally started as a
different phoneme, eg a final consonantal /m/, now lost and transmuted to an
emphatic falling (fourth) tone. A rising tone does not convey a question;
usually a separate word at the end of the sentence does this, eg "ma" - in a
level tone - marks a question in Mandarin. Properly tho, these "tones" are
tonemes - since it the assimilation of the actual spoken and heard tones to
a wider, abstract class of tones that produces meaning.

You might reasonably wonder how these tone differences can be combined with
musical notes in a song - I sure did! It was only after I'd heard a fair
bit of Chinese song that I realised that the tone differences of the spoken
word are preserved, mostly as microtonal changes to the musical pitch, but
sometimes, for dramatic effect, exaggerated to the extent of a pitch change
of up to a major third or even a fourth. A good singer produces some
wonderful slides and bends! It can be hard at times to identify the basic
melodic note, as it may be attacked from the high side before being driven
down and up again. Listen to some Chinese opera to see what I mean.
Interestingly, I can produce bends with a similar range on the p'i p'a,
because of the very high frets, just by pressing vertically.

By and large, for musical purposes, we can consider the toneme as a
microtonal melody superposed on the current pitch. The mood of a piece of
Chinese opera still depends largely on the speed and amount of movement
between the scale pitches, as it does in Italian opera.

Regards,
Yahya
-----Original Message-----
From: backfromthesilo [mailto:backfromthesilo@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday 17 January 2005 17:24 pm
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [tuning] Re: What drives "scales"

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Patrick Heddles
<p_heddles@y...> wrote:

Patrick, thanks for your input. This idea definitely would go along
with my suggestion/question pertaining to the scale being an
approximation of chromatic movement (as in continuous pitch
change).

Perhaps along with the language influence idea, I could suggest
a possible hypothesis:

-Aaron

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🔗Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@melbpc.org.au>

Hi all,

Bill wrote:
Aaron wrote:

> my question about scales isn't so much what works or
> doesn't work or what intervals are good or not, but whether there
> exists psychoacoustic reason why things must or should be
> ordered by scale at all (as opposed to it just being a practical
> convenience).

Let's turn this question around. Is it possible to imagine a
piece of music that does not use any scale? If so, then scales
are unlikely to be a direct result of the psychological
makeup of our species. If not, then we would need to search for
what that biological imperative towards a scale could be.

I can think of two different kinds of examples of
music that shuns any use of scales. First are
"electronic noise" pieces. For example, the CD Red Velvet
by Eric Lyons (music that "hypernavigates a compressed informational
world) has many tracks that make use of no obvious scales or
discrete pitch sets.

The second example is some of the adaptively
tuned pieces. For example, neither Local Anomaly

http://eceserv0.ece.wisc.edu/~sethares/mp3s/localanomaly.html

nor the more recent Aerophonious Intent

http://homepages.cae.wisc.edu/~sethares/aerophonious.mp3

have any kind of formalized scale -- the pitches continuously
wander (microtonally) all around.

These two kinds of examples argue against the likelihood
of a firm psychoacoustic basis for scales.

--Bill Sethares

So Bill has shown that not only is it possible to imagine non-scale music,
it is also possible to realise it.

Another example is Percy Grainger's experimental music, produced using
machines of his own devising, in which the pitches produced are determined
entirely by the shape of a curve cut out in cardboard, and other
continuously variable means. These machines have been preserved in the
[Percy] Grainger Museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (where I live).
So have some of his own recordings made on those machines, in which he can
be heard discussing the setup and operation with others who collaborated
with him in performing these pieces; I have a copy on cassette tape of some,
kindly provided by the Museum several years ago when I took my son to visit
it.

For an even more homely example, have you never banged and tapped on a tin
can to make music? Most cans are not as amenable to producing different
pitches as they are to producing different "pitchy" noises, and even the
best of them found by chance lack something in relating the tones you can
imagine you hear from them. In short, few tin cans can produce scales.
(Unless, perhaps, they be cans of imperfectly cleaned fish ...)

However, surely the existence of such music does not argue against scales
reflecting something fundamental to human psychology?

For analogy, consider pictorial art. Much of it is in colour, and uses
pretty much the whole accessible visible spectrum. Yet a significant
portion of the world's interesting art is entirely devoid of colour. It
uses other artistic means - form, line, contrast, chiaroscuro, rhythm,
balance - to achieve perfectly worthwhile artistic aims. A sculpture such
as Michelangelo's David does not deny the existence of colour, or its
importance to our psyche; it simply does not rely on it.

Sure, you can make music without scales, but that doesn't mean that scales
are not based on human psychology and physiology.

Them's my two bits.

Regards,
Yahya

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🔗Pete McRae <ambassadorbob@yahoo.com>

I think Bill's onto something, here. He says "firm [emphasis mine] psychoacoustic basis". All the counter arguments indicate (to me) is that the respondents believe that the foundation of psychoacoustics is solid, which it isn't. It's just yet another construct of human consciousness to describe what it thinks it knows.

As Little Walter once observed, "Jefferson is good [!]/To play the track/If you think you're gonna bring some big bread back" (from his song, _Dead Presidents_).

...and that's my two dollars, Bill.

Thanks!

Pete

Rich Holmes <rsholmes@mailbox.syr.edu> wrote:

"Bill Sethares" writes:

> These two kinds of examples argue against the likelihood
> of a firm psychoacoustic basis for scales.

No, I disagree. They demonstrate that scales are not needed for
something that falls into a category you or I would call 'music' -- of
a few particular sorts. This is not the same as saying there is no
psychoacoustic basis for scales, any more than black and white
photography argues against a psychological and optical basis for
color.

Yahoo! Groups Links

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🔗Aaron Wolf <backfromthesilo@yahoo.com>

Yahya,

Absolutely this is still pertinent. I was hoping to get a reply to
this. I've studied rudimentary introduction to linguistics and I
know about tone languages. I have yet to really check out
Chinese Opera though I know about it from an
ethnomusicalogical perspective. I definitely will check it out.
These specific tones in tonal language... are they generally no
more than 4 distinctions and what range of pitch do they cover
and how much specificity is required to be clearly meaningful?

I'm definitely interested in continuing to explore this side of
things. There is no doubt that voice and language are of
fundamental significance to music.

-Aaron

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Yahya Abdal-Aziz"
<yahya@m...> wrote:
> Aaron,
>
> (Sorry for the delay in replying to this, but I hope you think the
reply
> pertinent.)
>
> I like it! I think you've hit on a good idea here, to identify
> scientifically just when we perceive sounds as different or the
same.
>
> There are two distinct but related aspects - one being in the
realm of
> speech, and the other in music. For tho (as I believe) one
stems from the
> other, they are by no means equivalent. There is also an area
where they
> cross over - in song. Here we have not lost the linguistic
meanings of
> sounds made by voices, yet the words are constrained (more
or less) to
> follow musical pitches. Some smaller domains within the land
of song also
> vary in characteristic ways with regard to how important exact
intonation is
> and how important the linguistic meaning of words is; for
example - stage
> musicals sung in one's own tongue; opera sung in a foreign
tongue; various
> kinds of rock music sung, yelled, screeched or growled (as in
death metal).
>
> You would probably have to control for musical experience and
knowledge in
> your subjects, too, since only dedicated musos and tuning
enthusiasts
> readily identify, for example, the difference between 12-TET
and alternative
> tunings, at least in their "best" keys. Such subjects may have
finer pitch
> discrimination in spoken language, too, as may poets.
>
> As to cultural and regional differences, some comments: In
tone languages,
> intonation conveys meaning in precise ways. For example,
most Chinese
> languages have 4 to six distinct tones, which function as
phonemes (abstract
> sound classes), not as meaning markers such as question,
statement, doubt
> and so on. These tones are believed to have originally started
as a
> different phoneme, eg a final consonantal /m/, now lost and
transmuted to an
> emphatic falling (fourth) tone. A rising tone does not convey a
question;
> usually a separate word at the end of the sentence does this,
eg "ma" - in a
> level tone - marks a question in Mandarin. Properly tho, these
"tones" are
> tonemes - since it the assimilation of the actual spoken and
heard tones to
> a wider, abstract class of tones that produces meaning.
>
> You might reasonably wonder how these tone differences can
be combined with
> musical notes in a song - I sure did! It was only after I'd heard
a fair
> bit of Chinese song that I realised that the tone differences of
the spoken
> word are preserved, mostly as microtonal changes to the
musical pitch, but
> sometimes, for dramatic effect, exaggerated to the extent of a
pitch change
> of up to a major third or even a fourth. A good singer produces
some
> wonderful slides and bends! It can be hard at times to identify
the basic
> melodic note, as it may be attacked from the high side before
being driven
> down and up again. Listen to some Chinese opera to see
what I mean.
> Interestingly, I can produce bends with a similar range on the
p'i p'a,
> because of the very high frets, just by pressing vertically.
>
> By and large, for musical purposes, we can consider the
toneme as a
> microtonal melody superposed on the current pitch. The mood
of a piece of
> Chinese opera still depends largely on the speed and amount
of movement
> between the scale pitches, as it does in Italian opera.
>
> Regards,
> Yahya
> -----Original Message-----
> From: backfromthesilo [mailto:backfromthesilo@y...]
> Sent: Monday 17 January 2005 17:24 pm
> To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [tuning] Re: What drives "scales"
>
>
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Patrick Heddles
> <p_heddles@y...> wrote:
>
> > I think the key to that is the octave, which is
> > fundamental to every scale I'm familiar with. As far
> > as I'm aware, notes separated by an octave are almost
> > always considered to be interchangeable.
> > All this means that a scale must cover a complete
> > octave; 12-tet, pentatonic etc. all refer to the
> > number of tones in an octave. (bear with me, I'm going
> > somewhere with this)
> >
> > This means that any given scale can be thought of as a
> > way of dividing up the octave.
> >
> > As a few people have already said, scales need
> > reasonably similar intervals between consecutive notes
> > - note the trouble the theorists had with the
> > tone-and-a-half in the harmonic minor scale.
> >
> > I suggest that 5-7 tones is the optimum division of
> > the octave to satisfy the two primary demands - the
> > consonance and the similarity (in size) of the
> > intervals.
> >
>
> Patrick, thanks for your input. This idea definitely would go
along
> with my suggestion/question pertaining to the scale being an
> approximation of chromatic movement (as in continuous pitch
> change).
>
> Perhaps along with the language influence idea, I could
suggest
> a possible hypothesis:
>
> Comparable to the aural concepts of
just-noticeable-difference
> and similar ideas, perhaps there exists a sort of language
> based meaning range in pitch. Such that an experiment
could
> be set up whereby (for example) it is determined at what pitch
> change a verbal statement is percieved as a question or not
and
> there would obviously be an area of uncertainty. Thus a
> meaning based pitch change sensitivity could be charted and
> discussed. I would wonder how much variation such an
> experiment would show between different regions or
languages.
> Perhaps there would turn out to be a correlation between
scale
> steps and such a just-noticeable-difference-in-meaning.
Thus
> could be determined a definite range of pitch whereby scale
> steps will be melodically percieved as essentially the same
> scale step or not or in the hazy region. This would also give a
> potential explanation to number of scale steps in an octave.
And
> universal vs. contextual differences could be found by
studying
> many regions and languages. Comments or thoughts on this
> idea, everyone?
>
> -Aaron
>
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.1 - Release Date:
19/1/05

🔗Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@anaphoria.com>

I think we can deal with this part of the question is are there examples of the use of pitch as the main expressive elements without the use of scales. i have recordings of choirs where every single not is slid and glissed into the next. This is an exception and might have to do with the 'otherworldly' nature of the music in its intent. i would say though that pitch develops along scales lines by humans. Lou harrison mentioned his idea of free style based on intervals as opposed to fixed points. such things i believe are much harder for our brain to do and feel counter intuitive
It is hard to consider experimental music cause there will be those that argue that it isn't music to there ears anyway where i believe it might be hard to find anyone that would say this about so much tonal music. Bill does bring up the point that the notes might be shifting with in a certain fuzzy range.
My problem with the Just noticeable difference is the psychological phenomenon that we can hear the difference between two tones but might not think of them as different but as inflections of the same one. Ptolemy thought the 45/44 was the smallest melodic interval, which can be broken by moving slower but is a good observation.

>Message: 2 > Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2005 15:16:30 -0000
> From: "Bill Sethares" <sethares@ece.wisc.edu>
>Subject: Re: What drives "scales"
>
> >
>have any kind of formalized scale -- the pitches continuously >wander (microtonally) all around. >
>These two kinds of examples argue against the likelihood >of a firm psychoacoustic basis for scales.
>
>--Bill Sethares
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
>
> >
>
>
>
>
> From: Rich Holmes<rsholmes@mailbox.syr.edu>
>
> >
>No, I disagree. They demonstrate that scales are not needed for
>something that falls into a category you or I would call 'music' -- of
>a few particular sorts. This is not the same as saying there is no
>psychoacoustic basis for scales, any more than black and white
>photography argues against a psychological and optical basis for
>color.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: "Yahya Abdal-Aziz" <yahya@melbpc.org.au>
>Subject: RE: Re: What drives "scales"
>
>Aaron,
>
>(S
>
>
>
>Sure, you can make music without scales, but that doesn't mean that scales
>are not based on human psychology and physiology.
>
>Them's my two bits.
>
>Regards,
>Yahya
>1/05
>
> >
>
>>
>> Comparable to the aural concepts of >> >>
>just-noticeable-difference
> >
>> and similar ideas, perhaps there exists a sort of language
>> based meaning range in pitch. Such that an experiment >> >>
>could
> >
>> be set up whereby (for example) it is determined at what pitch
>> change a verbal statement is percieved as a question or not >> >>
>and
> >
>> there would obviously be an area of uncertainty. Thus a
>> meaning based pitch change sensitivity could be charted and
>> discussed. I would wonder how much variation such an
>> experiment would show between different regions or >> >>
>languages.
> >
>> Perhaps there would turn out to be a correlation between >> >>
>scale
> >
>> steps and such a just-noticeable-difference-in-meaning. >> >>
>
> >
>
>
>
>
> >

--
Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main.html> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles

🔗Lorenzo Frizzera <lorenzo.frizzera@cdmrovereto.it>

🔗Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@superonline.com>

Do not forget completely rhythmic music with no scales or tones.
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Sethares
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 19 Ocak 2005 Çarşamba 17:16
Subject: [tuning] Re: What drives "scales"

Aaron wrote:

The second example is some of the adaptively
tuned pieces. For example, neither Local Anomaly

http://eceserv0.ece.wisc.edu/~sethares/mp3s/localanomaly.html

nor the more recent Aerophonious Intent

http://homepages.cae.wisc.edu/~sethares/aerophonious.mp3

have any kind of formalized scale -- the pitches continuously
wander (microtonally) all around.

These two kinds of examples argue against the likelihood
of a firm psychoacoustic basis for scales.

--Bill Sethares

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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🔗Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@superonline.com>

🔗Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@melbpc.org.au>

Pete,

Deconstruct all you like, but all human knowledge is about human
consciousness creating constructs to describe what it experiences. Science
in particular tries to validate those constructs in an objective, repeatable
and consistent way. Have you any reason to say the foundation of
psychoacoustics is any less solid than that of say, inverse probability or
of organic chemistry?

Regards,
Yahya
-----Original Message-----
From: Pete McRae [mailto:ambassadorbob@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday 20 January 2005 16:07 pm
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [tuning] Re: What drives "scales"

I think Bill's onto something, here. He says "firm [emphasis mine]
psychoacoustic basis". All the counter arguments indicate (to me) is that
the respondents believe that the foundation of psychoacoustics is solid,
which it isn't. It's just yet another construct of human consciousness to
describe what it thinks it knows.

As Little Walter once observed, "Jefferson is good [!]/To play the
track/If you think you're gonna bring some big bread back" (from his song,
_Dead Presidents_).

...and that's my two dollars, Bill.

Thanks!

Pete

Rich Holmes <rsholmes@mailbox.syr.edu> wrote:

"Bill Sethares" writes:

> These two kinds of examples argue against the likelihood
> of a firm psychoacoustic basis for scales.

Yahoo! Groups Links

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🔗Pete McRae <ambassadorbob@yahoo.com>

Yahya,

I didn't really mean to sound deconstructionist, particularly, I'm just very wary of "scientific" certitudes, and the dogmas they seem to inevitably encourage. I do find attempts to "clinically" delimit musical phenomena particularly repugnant, though. (By which I mean things like thresholds of perceptibility, that I believe are wildly individualized, and what may or may not be "true" or "wholesome"--eg The Mozart Effect, that are almost entirely subjective, if not ruthless propaganda!) I think a humble kind of Science is quite admirable, but seems to me often acutely absent from many of our arguments.

Mainly, I found it a nice "palate-clearer", if you will, to hear Bill Sethares remind us so provocatively that we don't know all there is to know. I get the impression he's a really good teacher, and I thought that was a good indication of it.

Thanks for asking!

Best,

Pete

Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@melbpc.org.au> wrote:
Pete,

Deconstruct all you like, but all human knowledge is about human consciousness creating constructs to describe what it experiences. Science in particular tries to validate those constructs in an objective, repeatable and consistent way. Have you any reason to say the foundation of psychoacoustics is any less solid than that of say, inverse probability or of organic chemistry?

As Little Walter once observed, "Jefferson is good [!]/To play the track/If you think you're gonna bring some big bread back" (from his song, _Dead Presidents_).

...and that's my two dollars, Bill.

Thanks!

Pete

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🔗Lorenzo Frizzera <lorenzo.frizzera@cdmrovereto.it>

🔗Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@melbpc.org.au>

Hi again,

Aaron Wolf wrote:
These specific tones in tonal language... are they generally no
more than 4 distinctions and what range of pitch do they cover
and how much specificity is required to be clearly meaningful?
In Mandarin Chinese, there are four or five tonemes (depending who you
believe; I think four) only, but in Cantonese, five. I believe the number
of tones in Indochinese languages and other Chinese languages is similar.

Each toneme is an abstract class of [allo]tones, just as a phoneme is an
abstract class of [allo]phones. That is to say, your /t/ and my /t/ may
sound different, in that yours is always aspirated, whereas mine is not
aspirated in word-final positions, but most native speakers of English
understand - and classify - both sounds as a /t/ equally well.

The degree of variability in use of tonemes is similar to that for
phonemes - these are meaningful units of language, and must be understood!
This is why it's usually harder for English speakers to learn Chinese than
vice versa - we don't have any, whereas they do, and simply find it
unnecessary to use them in English. They do have to master some new
phonemes, such as the two /th/ consonant sounds in "We think with our
brains." (Sorry, I don't have the IPA symbols to hand for these phonemes.)
But we have to add some new consonants and vowels, and simultaneously learn
and apply the 'tune' of each new word.

The toneme is more than a pitch class. It also includes a particular
stress.

This is how I hear the tones in Mandarin Chinese - it's not a scientific
description!:
| Initial Pitch Tune Stress
Tone 1: | Hi Mid Level LevelTone 2: | Lo
Mid Falling Pressed, then fallingTone 3: | Low
Rising FallingTone 4: | Hi Sharply falling
Sharply falling
Pronouncing the tones thus usually gets me understood. Altho I have heard
native speakers whose second tone consistently has a rising tune, not a
falling one!

To get a good idea of the acceptable level of variability, you need to hear
a fair bit of the language. A reasonable approach for your purpose might be
to use a language learning CD set that uses several native speakers. I've
recently used such a set for Spanish, and was surprised at the variability
in their /d/ and /j/ phonemes - but it was a good way to learn what works
and increase my comprehension.

HTH!

Regards,
Yahya

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🔗Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@melbpc.org.au>

Pete,

And I didn't mean to sound as rude as my message seemed to me on rereading -
Sorry!

I understand how you feel, and have little patience with dogma myself - even
less with the dogmatic! However, I do feel that science does provide a
rational approach to improving our understanding, and hence our enjoyment,
of the world we find ourselves in.

If you ever do find a humble kind of science, please don't admire it too
openly - it may get a swelled head ...!

Thresholds of perceptibility do, as you say, vary with the individual.
Still, the JND - just noticeable difference - is a venerable and useful tool
of psychology, and may yet be appropriate to Aaron's search. More recent
science is presumably a little more sophisticated statistically, and doesn't
lump everyone's experiences into one basket to produce just an average,
"everyman" measure of any variable. Only when a science encompasses the
full range of variability in its inputs can it begin to claim any real
degree of generality. It still has to explain the full range of its output
variables in a cogent, convincing and useful way before you'd call it a
roaring success.

So, now I'm opening my favourite search meta-engine, KartOO, at
www.kartoo.com, to find out what this Mozart effect you mentioned is all
about. Hmmm, I see ... http://skepdic.com/mozart.html has a nice rundown on
this particular scam. I did wonder what the Tomatis method was about .. no
longer! Thanks!

Regards,
Yahya
-----Original Message-----
From: Pete McRae [mailto:ambassadorbob@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday 21 January 2005 16:06 pm
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [tuning] Re: What drives "scales"

Yahya,

I didn't really mean to sound deconstructionist, particularly, I'm just
very wary of "scientific" certitudes, and the dogmas they seem to inevitably
encourage. I do find attempts to "clinically" delimit musical phenomena
particularly repugnant, though. (By which I mean things like thresholds of
perceptibility, that I believe are wildly individualized, and what may or
may not be "true" or "wholesome"--eg The Mozart Effect, that are almost
entirely subjective, if not ruthless propaganda!) I think a humble kind of
Science is quite admirable, but seems to me often acutely absent from many
of our arguments.

Mainly, I found it a nice "palate-clearer", if you will, to hear Bill
Sethares remind us so provocatively that we don't know all there is to know.
I get the impression he's a really good teacher, and I thought that was a
good indication of it.

Thanks for asking!

Best,

Pete

Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@melbpc.org.au> wrote:
Pete,

I think Bill's onto something, here. He says "firm [emphasis mine]
psychoacoustic basis". All the counter arguments indicate (to me) is that
the respondents believe that the foundation of psychoacoustics is solid,
which it isn't. It's just yet another construct of human consciousness to
describe what it thinks it knows.

As Little Walter once observed, "Jefferson is good [!]/To play the
track/If you think you're gonna bring some big bread back" (from his song,
_Dead Presidents_).

...and that's my two dollars, Bill.

Thanks!

Pete

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