Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Oops! (so much for Brad's vaunted hearing...)

Hey! I was just in the middle of writing a reply to Brad's last post,
and then FireFox couldn't retrieve it again (I use the web interface
to view and write to this list). Now it doesn't seem to exist. Me
thinks Brad has pulled it, hoping no one would notice his mistake.

Too late! Here's the response I was writing off line:

[Brad wrote]

> I hear the "Phantom Octave" bass in there (the pure one, not
> the tempered version that comes in later) loudly and clearly as soon
> as the upper note of that tritone gets played;

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the octave "that comes in later" is in
fact NOT "the tempered version", but the very same pure 9/8 whole step
above the C you claim you already hear, loud and clear none the less,
before it comes in.

The tempered one sounds like this:

www.polettipiano.com/faith_based_tuning/indoctrination_tempered.mp3

Quite the difference, eh?

Now, do tell: how on earth are we to have any confidence at all in
your wild claims about what you hear and don't hear when you screw up
something so blatantly obvious as this, especially when you claim it
is ooooh soooo compelling and all that rot?

Me begins to think you're simply talking through your hat, Brad...

Ciao,

🔗Paul Poletti <paul@polettipiano.com>

🔗Petr Parízek <p.parizek@chello.cz>

🔗Paul Poletti <paul@polettipiano.com>

🔗Brad Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>

Paul, what's causing those vigorous beats in your "indoctrinate_me"
file when you bring the Ds in? Must be the decidedly
non-harpsichordistic timbre, then. I turn my computer speakers all
the way up in your supposedly pure sample, and I hear beats. (So much
for trusting electronic samples, eh? I don't trust speakers.) I
tested again on my harpsichord that was already set in 1/6 from
yesterday's practice session. I even moved the 1/6 comma tempered D
up (just now) to where it's really at 16:9 below the C and 5:2 below
the F#. No noticeable beats, playing all three notes together; only a
dead-on starkly resonant chord D-C-F#. It's the same chord I hear,
only with no fundamental played, if I merely play the C and F#
together. The C and F# have that same ringing purity together whether
the D is played or not below them, or a D between them either.

Look, Paul, I think your assertions here are overboard. One of your
messages this morning crowed, and I quote:
> "Nor can Brad's phantom tones be measured, and since nobody else
> hear can hear them, the most likely explanation is indeed that of
> subjective expectation influencing perception. The same might be
> said for Brad's application of the word "pure" to an interval which
> is obviously impure in any normal sense of the word."

Aren't you trying to prove, or at least assert, a negative there?
NOBODY ELSE can hear them (according to you), nor do any handy devices
known to you register the phenomenon in a measurable way, and
therefore the phenomenon of these "phantom" tones could not possibly
exist for anyone else but you? You somehow have complete and
omniscient knowledge of everybody else's perception, while you
discount mine as the only one that's invalid? You're also arrogating
to yourself the only sense of the word pure/purity that makes sense TO
YOU, which apparently is the coincidence of upper partials. Is it
absolutely impossible that other people, including me, may hear
somewhat differently from you, or describe a "pure" effect in a way
that you happen not to hear? And is it possible that any 18th century
people in THEIR assertions of pure/rein ever meant things other than
the coincidence of upper partials?

Your assertion "while Brad thought he was hearing the above, what he
actually heard was this" is also pretty presumptuous...and incorrect.
How do you presume to know what "Brad thought"? Brad heard beats in
your recording. Brad still hears beats in your recording, on the
computer speakers here. Brad therefore thinks there's something
impure going on in there...but not nearly to the unsubtle extent of
your second sample.

I do agree with your point about hearing a language and dropouts in a
noisy situation such as a crowded restaurant, but (through experience)
being able to fill in most of the gaps and get through a task. Last
night when I was tuning for the gig, by ear of course, the organizers
of the concert were making a ridiculous racket for 20 minutes sliding
150 wooden chairs across a wooden floor while I tried to tune. I
stopped and waited a number of times, but time was so short that I had
to proceed anyway. As you surely know, wooden chairs and banging
doors are even worse than people talking near a harpsichord during a
tuning effort, as they eat up all the beats with their own pitched
racket.

It worked out well last night anyway, but the tuning took me about 25
instead of the 12 I was expecting to do. It's 12 minutes if there's
sufficient silence! But that's what experience is valuable for:
getting through on closest guess anyway, when circumstances aren't
ideal. When things quieted down and we did some sound checks for the
live recording, all my 5ths and octaves were where they belonged. 1/6
comma F-C-G-D-A-E, beatless E-B-F#-C#, 1/12 comma C#-G#-D#-A#; and all
the treble octaves and unisons double-checked by testing all the 5ths
and 4ths within them for appropriate quality and balance. My usual.
The violinist matched his G-D-A-E to the tempered 5ths of the hpsi, as
he usually does, and he played beautifully and well in tune. He hears
very well, having apprenticed for a while as an organ voicer.

I believe we know what we're doing, despite assertions by people who
haven't met us that we can't hear properly. (I believe that you also
know what you're doing, and that you as an instrument builder and
engineer hear differently.) Is there only one correct way to hear?
The way that non-human devices can measure into numbers and graphs?
Devices that don't understand even one iota of Baroque music or its
melodic or harmonic characteristics, or the way it moves?

Cheerio,
Brad Lehman

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Poletti" <paul@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Poletti" <paul@> wrote:
> >
> So much for Paul's typing, vaunted or not...
>
> This link:
> >
> > www.polettipiano.com/faith_based_tuning/indoctrination_tempered.mp3
>
> should have read:
>
> www.polettipiano.com/faith_based_acoustics/indoctrination_tempered.mp3
>
> Keep in mind that while Brad thought he was hearing the above, what he
> actually heard was this:
>
> www.polettipiano.com/faith_based_acoustics/indoctrinate_me.mp3
>
> As I said:
>
> > Quite the difference, eh?
>
> Ciao,
>
> P
>

🔗Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@ozanyarman.com>

Isn't the whole argument based on what is a "pure" interval and what is not?
The definition should surely be acoustical (that is to say, objective), and
not subjective.

Suppose we want the 45/32 augmented fourth to produce a simple-integer
amount of beats per second, say 8 cps in reference to the 7th and 5th
partials respectively, all we need is to take C to be 256 hz and F# to be
360 hz. Of course, that means that the A in 1/6 comma meantone temperament
is taken as 429.3251 hz. I do not know if this has a significance in Baroque
tuning. Maybe Brad hears a whole number of beat per second in this fashion
and attributes the effect to "purity" of the interval.

Oz.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brad Lehman" <bpl@umich.edu>
To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: 18 ï¿½ubat 2008 Pazartesi 23:01
Subject: [tuning] Re: Oops! (so much for Brad's vaunted hearing...)

> Paul, what's causing those vigorous beats in your "indoctrinate_me"
> file when you bring the Ds in? Must be the decidedly
> non-harpsichordistic timbre, then. I turn my computer speakers all
> the way up in your supposedly pure sample, and I hear beats. (So much
> for trusting electronic samples, eh? I don't trust speakers.) I
> tested again on my harpsichord that was already set in 1/6 from
> yesterday's practice session. I even moved the 1/6 comma tempered D
> up (just now) to where it's really at 16:9 below the C and 5:2 below
> the F#. No noticeable beats, playing all three notes together; only a
> dead-on starkly resonant chord D-C-F#. It's the same chord I hear,
> only with no fundamental played, if I merely play the C and F#
> together. The C and F# have that same ringing purity together whether
> the D is played or not below them, or a D between them either.
>
> Look, Paul, I think your assertions here are overboard. One of your
> messages this morning crowed, and I quote:
> > "Nor can Brad's phantom tones be measured, and since nobody else
> > hear can hear them, the most likely explanation is indeed that of
> > subjective expectation influencing perception. The same might be
> > said for Brad's application of the word "pure" to an interval which
> > is obviously impure in any normal sense of the word."
>
> Aren't you trying to prove, or at least assert, a negative there?
> NOBODY ELSE can hear them (according to you), nor do any handy devices
> known to you register the phenomenon in a measurable way, and
> therefore the phenomenon of these "phantom" tones could not possibly
> exist for anyone else but you? You somehow have complete and
> omniscient knowledge of everybody else's perception, while you
> discount mine as the only one that's invalid? You're also arrogating
> to yourself the only sense of the word pure/purity that makes sense TO
> YOU, which apparently is the coincidence of upper partials. Is it
> absolutely impossible that other people, including me, may hear
> somewhat differently from you, or describe a "pure" effect in a way
> that you happen not to hear? And is it possible that any 18th century
> people in THEIR assertions of pure/rein ever meant things other than
> the coincidence of upper partials?
>
> Your assertion "while Brad thought he was hearing the above, what he
> actually heard was this" is also pretty presumptuous...and incorrect.
> How do you presume to know what "Brad thought"? Brad heard beats in
> your recording. Brad still hears beats in your recording, on the
> computer speakers here. Brad therefore thinks there's something
> impure going on in there...but not nearly to the unsubtle extent of
> your second sample.
>
> I do agree with your point about hearing a language and dropouts in a
> noisy situation such as a crowded restaurant, but (through experience)
> being able to fill in most of the gaps and get through a task. Last
> night when I was tuning for the gig, by ear of course, the organizers
> of the concert were making a ridiculous racket for 20 minutes sliding
> 150 wooden chairs across a wooden floor while I tried to tune. I
> stopped and waited a number of times, but time was so short that I had
> to proceed anyway. As you surely know, wooden chairs and banging
> doors are even worse than people talking near a harpsichord during a
> tuning effort, as they eat up all the beats with their own pitched
> racket.
>
> It worked out well last night anyway, but the tuning took me about 25
> instead of the 12 I was expecting to do. It's 12 minutes if there's
> sufficient silence! But that's what experience is valuable for:
> getting through on closest guess anyway, when circumstances aren't
> ideal. When things quieted down and we did some sound checks for the
> live recording, all my 5ths and octaves were where they belonged. 1/6
> comma F-C-G-D-A-E, beatless E-B-F#-C#, 1/12 comma C#-G#-D#-A#; and all
> the treble octaves and unisons double-checked by testing all the 5ths
> and 4ths within them for appropriate quality and balance. My usual.
> The violinist matched his G-D-A-E to the tempered 5ths of the hpsi, as
> he usually does, and he played beautifully and well in tune. He hears
> very well, having apprenticed for a while as an organ voicer.
>
> I believe we know what we're doing, despite assertions by people who
> haven't met us that we can't hear properly. (I believe that you also
> know what you're doing, and that you as an instrument builder and
> engineer hear differently.) Is there only one correct way to hear?
> The way that non-human devices can measure into numbers and graphs?
> Devices that don't understand even one iota of Baroque music or its
> melodic or harmonic characteristics, or the way it moves?
>
> Cheerio,
> Brad Lehman
>
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Poletti" <paul@...> wrote:
> >
> > --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Poletti" <paul@> wrote:
> > >
> > So much for Paul's typing, vaunted or not...
> >
> > This link:
> > >
> > > www.polettipiano.com/faith_based_tuning/indoctrination_tempered.mp3
> >
> > should have read:
> >
> > www.polettipiano.com/faith_based_acoustics/indoctrination_tempered.mp3
> >
> > Keep in mind that while Brad thought he was hearing the above, what he
> > actually heard was this:
> >
> > www.polettipiano.com/faith_based_acoustics/indoctrinate_me.mp3
> >
> > As I said:
> >
> > > Quite the difference, eh?
> >
> > Ciao,
> >
> > P
> >
>

🔗Paul Poletti <paul@polettipiano.com>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Brad Lehman" <bpl@...> wrote:
>
> Paul, what's causing those vigorous beats in your "indoctrinate_me"
> file when you bring the Ds in?

Don't know, don't hear any myself. But here's the list of frequencies,
figure it out for yourself:
d 147,164383 Hz
c 261,625580
d' 294,328766
f#' 367,910157

> Must be the decidedly
> non-harpsichordistic timbre, then.

Actually, the timbre is quite similar to a lot of harpsichords I've
examined: 2nd partial slightly stronger than the fundamental, and then
a slight roll-off, but as per your instructions, nothing at all above
the 6th partial. It's not exactly like any given instrument, but to
say that it is "decidedly non-harpsichordistic" is simply not true.
But then, I have my doubts as to whether you've ever actually examined
the spectra of harpsichords with anything but your ears. Having done
both ears AND technology for a number of years, I know how easily the
ears can be mislead.

< I turn my computer speakers all
> the way up in your supposedly pure sample, and I hear beats.

Computer speakers are infamous for being about that worst form of
audio reproduction equipment in the universe, ESPECIALLY if you turn
them all the way up. You may well be getting harmonic distortion
caused by clipping. The only thing worse is an AM transistor radio
from 1969, or a boom box at a Mexican picnic (and coming from central
California, I KNOW what that sounds like!). Try some GOOD headphones,
I suspect your beating will disappear.

> (So much
> for trusting electronic samples, eh? I don't trust speakers.)

Not trusting speakers is wise, but throwing out the baby of anything
electronic with the bath water of speakers is just plain dumb.

>
> Aren't you trying to prove, or at least assert, a negative there?
> NOBODY ELSE can hear them (according to you), nor do any handy devices
> known to you register the phenomenon in a measurable way, and
> therefore the phenomenon of these "phantom" tones could not possibly
> exist for anyone else but you? You somehow have complete and
> omniscient knowledge of everybody else's perception, while you
> discount mine as the only one that's invalid?

You can get lost in existential labyrinths about what is provable and
what is not if you want, Brad. It's always the last refuge of someone
who can't come up with any compelling defense of their position, like
the Creationists. I was merely saying that nobody on this list, who
are certainly people who are used to hearing strange sounds and
seeking out that which the great unwashed has trouble hearing, and yet
NOBODY has chimed in and said, "I hear exactly what Brad hears! Wow! I
wonder what it is??" Nobody. Zilch.
> And is it possible that any 18th century
> people in THEIR assertions of pure/rein ever meant things other than
> the coincidence of upper partials?

Might be possible, but you ain't one of them. And Praetorius and
Werckmeister were two of 'em, and pretty damn important ones at that,
and they certainly didn't mean anything else. Have you got any proof
that maybe there were? If not, it's just empty speculation on your part.

>
> Your assertion "while Brad thought he was hearing the above, what he
> actually heard was this" is also pretty presumptuous...and incorrect.
> How do you presume to know what "Brad thought"?

I see neither the presumption nor the error in merely stating the
facts as they are. Brad said, he heard a tempered version, when in
fact Brad was listening to a pure version. It's a construction in
English, which is used to indicate that a person is incorrect, and
that what they stated was the case was in fact NOT the case; it
doesn't mean I'm crawling inside Brad's head and interpreting his
thoughts. Come on, Brad! I don't have to tell you stuff like this.
It's a waste of our time for you to pretend to be offended because I
simply phrased what you yourself said in another way. You were just
wrong, admit it and be done with it.

> Brad heard beats in
> your recording. Brad still hears beats in your recording, on the
> computer speakers here. Brad therefore thinks there's something
> impure going on in there.

Brad's either got a hearing problem (water on the ear) or bad audio
equipment. I do hear the extremely rapid beats caused by all the
frequencies adding up, but they are so fast that I would say they are
well into the zone of what Helmholtz called "roughness" than the sort
of undulations which are usually called beats. Of course what Brad
might mean by "beats" could be anything, since he doesn't seem to want
to adhere to normal meanings of any words.

> Last
> night when I was tuning for the gig, by ear of course, the organizers
> of the concert [snip]
> It worked out well last night anyway, but the tuning took me about 25
> [snip snip snip] My usual.
> The violinist matched his G-D-A-E to the tempered 5ths of the hpsi, as
> he usually does, and he played beautifully and well in tune. He hears
> very well, having apprenticed for a while as an organ voicer.

Interesting how whenever Brad gets into boggy ground, he always trots
out yet another story about some event where Brad's amazing tuning
ability saved the day and the musical performance was wonderful and
everybody played like never before. Ho-hum. Doesn't prove anything.
>
> Is there only one correct way to hear?

I wouldn't know what the concept "correct way to hear" might be.
Acoustically, there are things which are there to be heard, there are
things which are there which can't be heard, and there are things
which simply don't exist. It's that simple. Now there are those who
can't hear things which are there to be heard, through a lack of
training, experience, or ability. There are also those who hear things
which are not actually there, just as there are those who see things
which are not actually there.

> The way that non-human devices can measure into numbers and graphs?
> Devices that don't understand even one iota of Baroque music or its
> melodic or harmonic characteristics, or the way it moves?

If and when you can posit any sort of explanation for this mysterious
acoustic phenomenon, I will gladly consider it. However, you have
consistently and repeatedly failed to so, except falling back on the
empty assertion that if we only understood Baroque music as it was
understood in the 18th century, we would certainly hear it, too.

Frankly, I think you're leading us all down the rosy path, and the
rose garden has just been given a fresh treatment of the finest manure.

Happy Trails,