AP

Carl, what has the latest scientific study of AP said about migraine
headaches and mental illness?

Back in the day, when AP was considered a gene, it was said to have some
negatives attached.

BTW, tons of misinformation on AP on this List? Gee, this is surely an
exaggeration. Sounds like you think AP is your missing inheritance.

So far, I trust my annecdotal experience over the speculations by some
scientists. If it is not a gene, it should be stated with the same authority as
all the publications stated that it was (The New York Times, Science Magazine,
etc.)

And back to my question to you that you disagreed with, but didn't say why:
If George Ives had AP, and he trained young Charles Ives from the earliest
age in AP, why didn't Charles Ives develop AP? Please explain how great
musicians grow up in musical families, but do not develop AP.

Johnny

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Hi Johnny,

I do not have all of my father's skills. Maybe I don't
even have half of them. But I do have half of his genes.

The genetic hypothesis still has adherents, and if you
read my posts on this thread you'll see that I've been
saying all along there could be genetic factors involved.
An apparently well-designed study is now underway that
will tell us exactly how much they're involved. I'm not
expecting too much.

Here's a PDF from list-related person Martin Braun:
http://tinyurl.com/2ppo4a
It hypothesizes AP as a 'normative precognitive trait'
in humans. Ditto this paper by Levitin,
http://cogprints.org/643/00/pitch.HTM
which I've mentioned several times in this thread
already. You can read the abstracts at least to find
out what they're about.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Afmmjr@... wrote:
> Carl, what has the latest scientific study of AP said
> about migraine headaches and mental illness?
>
> Back in the day, when AP was considered a gene, it was
> said to have some negatives attached.
>
> BTW, tons of misinformation on AP on this List? Gee, this
> is surely an exaggeration. Sounds like you think AP is
> your missing inheritance.
>
> So far, I trust my annecdotal experience over the
> speculations by some scientists. If it is not a gene, it
> should be stated with the same authority as all the
> publications stated that it was (The New York Times,
> Science Magazine, etc.)
>
> And back to my question to you that you disagreed with,
> but didn't say why: If George Ives had AP, and he trained
> young Charles Ives from the earliest age in AP, why didn't
> Charles Ives develop AP? Please explain how great musicians
> grow up in musical families, but do not develop AP.
>
> Johnny

I thought of something else. Does anyone know a person
who learned to sightread piano music proficiently, who
started learning after the age of 20? I don't (or do I?
I have to ask...) It's certainly rare.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
> Hi Johnny,
>
> I do not have all of my father's skills. Maybe I don't
> even have half of them. But I do have half of his genes.
>
> The genetic hypothesis still has adherents, and if you
> read my posts on this thread you'll see that I've been
> saying all along there could be genetic factors involved.
> An apparently well-designed study is now underway that
> will tell us exactly how much they're involved. I'm not
> expecting too much.
>
> Here's a PDF from list-related person Martin Braun:
> http://tinyurl.com/2ppo4a
> It hypothesizes AP as a 'normative precognitive trait'
> in humans. Ditto this paper by Levitin,
> http://cogprints.org/643/00/pitch.HTM
> which I've mentioned several times in this thread
> already. You can read the abstracts at least to find
> out what they're about.
>
> -Carl
>
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Afmmjr@ wrote:
> > Carl, what has the latest scientific study of AP said
> > about migraine headaches and mental illness?
> >
> > Back in the day, when AP was considered a gene, it was
> > said to have some negatives attached.
> >
> > BTW, tons of misinformation on AP on this List? Gee, this
> > is surely an exaggeration. Sounds like you think AP is
> > your missing inheritance.
> >
> > So far, I trust my annecdotal experience over the
> > speculations by some scientists. If it is not a gene, it
> > should be stated with the same authority as all the
> > publications stated that it was (The New York Times,
> > Science Magazine, etc.)
> >
> > And back to my question to you that you disagreed with,
> > but didn't say why: If George Ives had AP, and he trained
> > young Charles Ives from the earliest age in AP, why didn't
> > Charles Ives develop AP? Please explain how great musicians
> > grow up in musical families, but do not develop AP.
> >
> > Johnny

>
>
>
> Posted by: "Carl Lumma" clumma@yahoo.com
> <mailto:clumma@yahoo.com?Subject=%20Re%3A%20AP> clumma
> <http://profiles.yahoo.com/clumma>
>
>
> Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:22 pm (PST)
>
> I thought of something else. Does anyone know a person
> who learned to sightread piano music proficiently, who
> started learning after the age of 20? I don't (or do I?
> I have to ask...) It's certainly rare.
>
> -Carl

I know a composer, now a full professor at a conservatory, who suddenly had an interest in music during his freshman year at Yale. So he began from scratch at 18 or 19 and is now quite a proficient piano player. I have what might be called "passive AP": when I concentrate, I can sing and identify pitches by name, but I don't rely on it, preferring to work interval-by-interval, which I find more helpful in flexible tuning environments, and especially those in which note names get a bit slippery.

Interestingly enough, considering my involvement with gamelan started only when I was 18, my memory for central Javanese pitches is even more stable, and when I sing or play in a particular gamelan, I conciously adjust my pitch away from those of the gamelan at RRI Solo, which is a kind of standard nowadays.

djw

> Interestingly enough, considering my involvement with gamelan
> started only when I was 18, my memory for central Javanese
> pitches is even more stable, and when I sing or play in a
> particular gamelan, I conciously adjust my pitch away from
> those of the gamelan at RRI Solo, which is a
> kind of standard nowadays.
>
> djw

Daniel,

Do you have any insight into the use and/or prevalence of
absolute pitch in gamelan culture?

-Carl

Carl wrote:

"Do you have any insight into the use and/or prevalence of
absolute pitch in gamelan culture?"

I've known several javanese musicians with astonishing pitch memory. The best example was the late Suhardi, who, in advance of any concert, would retune his own gamelan (the one rehearsed on, in his home) to the laras of the gamelan to be used in the concert. He could recall the tunings of each of the important gamelans in town (he demonstrated this on a siter, to me) and had different strategies for playing or singing in tune with each of them, all of which he insisted on rehearsing. Of course, retuning your gamelan for every concert is a big deal -- all of his iron instruments were quite dented from being hammered into tune, and his bronze gender had holes like swiss cheese on the ends and in the middle of each bar from the constant re-tuning. (Needless to say, the constant changes in shape of bars or gongs constantly changed the timbres as well, one reason for which I am very cautious about over-specific claims of the effects of timbre on gamelan tuning). One of the most amazing things I've ever experienced.

The lessons I drew from Suhardi were these -- not all Javanese were sensitive to tunings, most, especially singers, were sensitive to general tessitura (is the tuning especially high or low?) and tones in particular gamelan that were too high or low, but a few were very sensitive, indeed obsessive; differences in melodic interval sizes were remarked up more than the qualities of intervals played simultaneously except for the gender seleh and the open strings of the rebab, in which cases, beatless intervals were preferred; and the main effect of the metallic timbres and near-unisons was not to push the tuning in any way in particular (i.e stretching or shrinking) but rather to allow the tuner to cover-up whatever compromises were needed in order to temper the scale to accommodate playing in all three pathet.

djw

Hi Herman,

Interesting. I expect that is true of most musicians who
learnt at an early age, whether they are stronger in AP or RP.

Perhaps more evidence that it is actually learnt
can come from untrained adults singing monophonic
chants - often a few men if they can't sing an
octave below may sing a 3/2 below, not intentionally
for effect - they believe that they are singing the
"same notes" as the women voices.

Perhaps it is learnt at an even younger age than AP
for children who are very musical from a very early age,
so early that one can't remember acquiring it.

For me the similarity is mainly due to the shared partials,
to the extent that on the recorder, I listen out for the 2/1
partial to help pitch the octave exactly. Though in my
training in mental play that I'm doing right now -
when playing back music in my mind I can easily play
a tune on parallel octaves, e.g. on recorder + harp
say, indeed, on instruments two or more octaves
apart such as recorder + double bass,
so obviously I have some idea of what they are
somewhere independent of the shared partials. I can't
play it back in parallel multiples of 3/1s easily. Perhaps
because you seldom hear tunes played in parallel
3/1s.

I don't know if that is evidence that it is somehow
built in, as it may just because one so rarely hears
tunes played in parallel 3/1s.

Robert

> The way I perceive things, the 3/1 similarity is of an entirely
different kind from the 2/1 similarity. Notes a 3/1 interval apart share
many of the same partials, if they are harmonic sounds, so if the 3rd
harmonic is prominent in the lower note, it's possible that some general
similarity may be perceived. But the difference between notes an octave
apart is almost more a difference of timbre than pitch. Except in the
extreme ranges (where pitch sensation starts getting "muddy" in the
lower octaves and vague or indistinct in the higher octaves), an A
sounds like an A, a C# sounds like a C#, and the notes don't even need
to share partials to sound similar in that way. I've just always assumed
that everyone perceived sounds this way (even if they couldn't identify
a pitch by name).

Here's Lou Harrison on AP: http://renewablemusic.blogspot.com/2007/07/neural-exhaustion-industrial-orchestras.html