Directly experiencing resonance

Is anyone out there experiencing the resonance of low prime ratios via
singing over a drone like a shruti box? My mentor Allaudin Mathieu
has been talking about the experience of moving from one note to
another as a shift from one "state" to another and I finally had this
experience singing a sargam melody. Each tone over time has been
developing into its own resonant quality/color/space. Its pretty
addictive. So wondering along with that of others experience, how do
you all check as to whether you are singing or playing the 10/9 two
fifhs down and one 3rd up vs. the 9/8 (2 fifths ups) for example.
thanks much, Alan Tower

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2008/12/29 Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>:
> I'm not sure what a shruti box is, but I do know what you mean by the
> experience of different prime ratios as different "states" as such. One
> interesting way to get this effect is to get a 5/4 ratio going on a
> synthesizer, and gradually widen it until it gets to 9/7. Doing this by ear
> (i.e. stopping exactly on 9/7) is hard - as you widen 5/4, you start to hear
> some beating, and eventually it quickens until you get to 9/7. At this
> point, if you listen hard enough you suddenly have this perspective shift
> whereby you hear the beating is in some kind of regular pattern, and you
> start to get a sense of the phantom fundamental (which is different than
> that of 5/4 as it isn't an octave equivalent of the lower note), and it's
> like "whoa, so this is 9/7". In my experience, it's just a matter of finding
> the order in that pattern of beating, which when you do, starts to sound
> more like what I think they've been calling "periodicity buzz" around here.

I think you've answered the original question, anyway, which is that
most of us don't worry about what we're singing. We get a computer to
do it for us ;-)

Singing against a drone is worth a try, anyway. I practiced a bit of
it. Even singing a unison can be very difficult. One thing is that I
got locked into intervals a fair distance away (microtonally speaking)
and was quite happy until I meaured the pitch (with a computer again).
Hearing your own voice start to resonate is a lot different to
playing with some knobs and a computer.

A shruti box is, well, a box, that makes a drone. They're used for
Indian music. Instead of somebody sitting at the back to make the
drone they switch a shruti box on. And they're obviously good to
practice with.

Good drones are rich in upper partials. Analog-style filtered
sawtooths work well. And check your spectrum ... I started with a
"reed organ" preset and couldn't find the 5:4 resonance. Then I
checked it and the 5th partial was missing.

Graham

I'm going to emerge from my Fundamentalist closet. Fundamentals are everything, to me.

My ear prefers 5/4 to 9/7, unless the 9/7 is in a high-enough register--which is Base-ically, approximately,

7 times 15 or so, with a fudge factor of, say, 2 (an octave) (15 cps being around the lowest audible fundamental frequency).

so, that puts the lowest available /7's in my world at around 105 cps, or around A2.

A2 would be a mid-register drone, not a Base-ic drone.

/4 's can be even lower than around 4 times 15 cps, somehow, because 4 is not a prime, being 2 times 2...

But, I regard my thinking in this connection as sort of Advanced-Beginner, not Connoisseur Level.

Do others here think register is all-important, and where do you place "low-interval limits", and how do you think of them?

caleb

On Dec 28, 2008, at 9:47 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:

>
> I'm not sure what a shruti box is, but I do know what you mean by > the experience of different prime ratios as different "states" as > such. One interesting way to get this effect is to get a 5/4 ratio > going on a synthesizer, and gradually widen it until it gets to 9/7. > Doing this by ear (i.e. stopping exactly on 9/7) is hard - as you > widen 5/4, you start to hear some beating, and eventually it > quickens until you get to 9/7. At this point, if you listen hard > enough you suddenly have this perspective shift whereby you hear the > beating is in some kind of regular pattern, and you start to get a > sense of the phantom fundamental (which is different than that of > 5/4 as it isn't an octave equivalent of the lower note), and it's > like "whoa, so this is 9/7". In my experience, it's just a matter of > finding the order in that pattern of beating, which when you do, > starts to sound more like what I think they've been calling > "periodicity buzz" around here.
>
> The thing that interests me is, why shouldn't all of the intervals > between 5/4 and 9/7 be "grasped" in the same way, whether they have > a JI interval nearby them or not? Hell, you can pick out a JI > interval within 5 cents of any interval you'd like.
>
> The other thing is that before you get "tuned into" 9/7 as being > stable, or grasping the consonance of it, you might be prone to just > hearing it as a messed up version of 5/4, or as an ambiguous note > between 5/4 and 4/3, etc... I think the brain has the ability to > place more complex intervals like these with repeated training.
>
> On Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 8:04 PM, atower17 <atower17@...> wrote:
> Is anyone out there experiencing the resonance of low prime ratios via
> singing over a drone like a shruti box? My mentor Allaudin Mathieu
> has been talking about the experience of moving from one note to
> another as a shift from one "state" to another and I finally had this
> experience singing a sargam melody. Each tone over time has been
> developing into its own resonant quality/color/space. Its pretty
> addictive. So wondering along with that of others experience, how do
> you all check as to whether you are singing or playing the 10/9 two
> fifhs down and one 3rd up vs. the 9/8 (2 fifths ups) for example.
> thanks much, Alan Tower
>
>
>
>
>

btw, I should qualify what I said.

All ratios, sonorities, chords are potentially useful.

It's just that, in order for something to sound like, for example, 9/7, and not

some kind of wide major third, the /7 has to be in a high-enough register to be heard as such.

So, you can write low clusters, but they will be thick, muddy, and not harmonic resonances.

Fact and value: somewhat separate, somewhat linked

caleb

On Dec 29, 2008, at 6:37 AM, caleb morgan wrote:

>
> I'm going to emerge from my Fundamentalist closet. Fundamentals are > everything, to me.
>
> My ear prefers 5/4 to 9/7, unless the 9/7 is in a high-enough > register--which is Base-ically, approximately,
>
> 7 times 15 or so, with a fudge factor of, say, 2 (an octave) (15 > cps being around the lowest audible fundamental frequency).
>
> so, that puts the lowest available /7's in my world at around 105 > cps, or around A2.
>
> A2 would be a mid-register drone, not a Base-ic drone.
>
> /4 's can be even lower than around 4 times 15 cps, somehow, because > 4 is not a prime, being 2 times 2...
>
>
> But, I regard my thinking in this connection as sort of Advanced-> Beginner, not Connoisseur Level.
>
> Do others here think register is all-important, and where do you > place "low-interval limits", and how do you think of them?
>
> caleb
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Dec 28, 2008, at 9:47 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
>
>>
>> I'm not sure what a shruti box is, but I do know what you mean by >> the experience of different prime ratios as different "states" as >> such. One interesting way to get this effect is to get a 5/4 ratio >> going on a synthesizer, and gradually widen it until it gets to >> 9/7. Doing this by ear (i.e. stopping exactly on 9/7) is hard - as >> you widen 5/4, you start to hear some beating, and eventually it >> quickens until you get to 9/7. At this point, if you listen hard >> enough you suddenly have this perspective shift whereby you hear >> the beating is in some kind of regular pattern, and you start to >> get a sense of the phantom fundamental (which is different than >> that of 5/4 as it isn't an octave equivalent of the lower note), >> and it's like "whoa, so this is 9/7". In my experience, it's just a >> matter of finding the order in that pattern of beating, which when >> you do, starts to sound more like what I think they've been calling >> "periodicity buzz" around here.
>>
>> The thing that interests me is, why shouldn't all of the intervals >> between 5/4 and 9/7 be "grasped" in the same way, whether they have >> a JI interval nearby them or not? Hell, you can pick out a JI >> interval within 5 cents of any interval you'd like.
>>
>> The other thing is that before you get "tuned into" 9/7 as being >> stable, or grasping the consonance of it, you might be prone to >> just hearing it as a messed up version of 5/4, or as an ambiguous >> note between 5/4 and 4/3, etc... I think the brain has the ability >> to place more complex intervals like these with repeated training.
>>
>> On Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 8:04 PM, atower17 <atower17@...> wrote:
>> Is anyone out there experiencing the resonance of low prime ratios >> via
>> singing over a drone like a shruti box? My mentor Allaudin Mathieu
>> has been talking about the experience of moving from one note to
>> another as a shift from one "state" to another and I finally had this
>> experience singing a sargam melody. Each tone over time has been
>> developing into its own resonant quality/color/space. Its pretty
>> addictive. So wondering along with that of others experience, how do
>> you all check as to whether you are singing or playing the 10/9 two
>> fifhs down and one 3rd up vs. the 9/8 (2 fifths ups) for example.
>> thanks much, Alan Tower
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>

Following up on my other two posts, I would answer:

over a low drone, 9/8 sounds dead-on, 10/9 beats or sounds a little flat, because the drone is too low to be a /9 of anything audible.

There is nothing like "octave equivalence" in just-intonation land.

But this is intended to be linked to my other two posts, which were really in the form of a question:

How do the experts here think about low-interval limits?

On Dec 28, 2008, at 8:04 PM, atower17 wrote:

> Is anyone out there experiencing the resonance of low prime ratios via
> singing over a drone like a shruti box? My mentor Allaudin Mathieu
> has been talking about the experience of moving from one note to
> another as a shift from one "state" to another and I finally had this
> experience singing a sargam melody. Each tone over time has been
> developing into its own resonant quality/color/space. Its pretty
> addictive. So wondering along with that of others experience, how do
> you all check as to whether you are singing or playing the 10/9 two
> fifhs down and one 3rd up vs. the 9/8 (2 fifths ups) for example.
> thanks much, Alan Tower
>
>
>

To be more clear I should have said 18/2 ,18/4, or 18/8 and 20/9, 40/9, 80/9.

Having just said there's no octave equivalence, I admit I get careless about expressing precise registral relations with the correct ratios.

9/8, 10/9: a kind of short-hand, perhaps people understand.

caleb

On Dec 29, 2008, at 9:21 AM, caleb morgan wrote:

>
> Following up on my other two posts, I would answer:
>
> over a low drone, 9/8 sounds dead-on, 10/9 beats or sounds a little > flat, because the drone is too low to be a /9 of anything audible.
>
> There is nothing like "octave equivalence" in just-intonation land.
>
> But this is intended to be linked to my other two posts, which were > really in the form of a question:
>
> How do the experts here think about low-interval limits?
>
>
>
>
> On Dec 28, 2008, at 8:04 PM, atower17 wrote:
>
>> Is anyone out there experiencing the resonance of low prime ratios >> via
>> singing over a drone like a shruti box? My mentor Allaudin Mathieu
>> has been talking about the experience of moving from one note to
>> another as a shift from one "state" to another and I finally had this
>> experience singing a sargam melody. Each tone over time has been
>> developing into its own resonant quality/color/space. Its pretty
>> addictive. So wondering along with that of others experience, how do
>> you all check as to whether you are singing or playing the 10/9 two
>> fifhs down and one 3rd up vs. the 9/8 (2 fifths ups) for example.
>> thanks much, Alan Tower
>>
>>
>
>
>

   As a side note...hmm...I am trying to guess how/why this works.

   Does the rate of beating between the shruti box and low frequency ratios happen at an exact multiple of the frequency being played (2-times, 3-times, 4-times...the original ratio), thus resulting in harmonic beating/"distortion"? 
   In that case...you'd think the harmonic series and perhaps using two justly-intonated notes (IE 6-times a note times 1/5 that note)  to get strong enough beating to sense the in-harmony beating.

   In such a case...the more I stick around the more useful potential I see for beats (harmonic beats) to be used to ADD musical expression with little to no effect against consonance, rather than simply be an "enemy of consonance".

-Michael

--- On Sun, 12/28/08, atower17 <atower17@...> wrote:

From: atower17 <atower17@...>
Subject: [tuning] Directly experiencing resonance
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sunday, December 28, 2008, 5:04 PM

Is anyone out there experiencing the resonance of low prime ratios via

singing over a drone like a shruti box? My mentor Allaudin Mathieu

has been talking about the experience of moving from one note to

another as a shift from one "state" to another and I finally had this

experience singing a sargam melody. Each tone over time has been

developing into its own resonant quality/color/ space. Its pretty

addictive. So wondering along with that of others experience, how do

you all check as to whether you are singing or playing the 10/9 two

fifhs down and one 3rd up vs. the 9/8 (2 fifths ups) for example.

thanks much, Alan Tower

On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 10:46 AM, Michael Sheiman
<djtrancendance@...> wrote:
>
> As a side note...hmm...I am trying to guess how/why this works.
>
> Does the rate of beating between the shruti box and low frequency ratios happen at an exact multiple of the frequency being played (2-times, 3-times, 4-times...the original ratio), thus resulting in harmonic beating/"distortion"?
> In that case...you'd think the harmonic series and perhaps using two justly-intonated notes (IE 6-times a note times 1/5 that note) to get strong enough beating to sense the in-harmony beating.
>
> In such a case...the more I stick around the more useful potential I see for beats (harmonic beats) to be used to ADD musical expression with little to no effect against consonance, rather than simply be an "enemy of consonance".
>
> -Michael

Agreed. I brought up this point in a discussion with Carl a few months
ago that never quite ended... The difference from a note to its
"ideal" position in a harmonic series carries information that can
used to aural and artistic effect. I think this is why a lot of people
sometimes prefer the sound of slightly flattened fifths, or why most
12-tet based folks prefer the sound of slightly sharp major thirds
(and prefer 1000 cent minor sevenths to a pure 7/4). When the
information given by that note's difference in the harmonic series is
gone, it sometimes sounds "unsettling" to people not used to it.

You can notice this effect yourself in 12tet by going to a keyboard
and playing some low note and then playing a major third + a few
octaves as soft as you can. You'll hear it start to stick out right
away as being that harmonic interval... Now tune your keyboard to just
and do the same thing. You'll have to play it a lot louder to start to
hear it as breaking away as a harmonic interval rather than a stray
overtone of the fundamental. To be honest, I think that if you didn't
know that you were playing two notes, and you heard someone else do
this experiment, you'd have to play that top note even louder to hear
it as an interval of two notes - you'd probably hear a "timbral
collapse" to a single note instead.

Hi Caleb,

There may very well be something to your idea, that the
virtual fundamental (VF) of a complex should be in the
audible range. Keep in mind though (and I think you mention
this), the VF can always pop up an octave or two without
doing much harm to the 'fit' of the interpretation. For
instance, even though the true VF of 4:5:6 is 1, it's
perfectly possible to hear it as 2 or 4.

Another reason voicing chords too low causes problems is
the critical band -- it gets wider in the lower registers.
Therefore more low-roughness chords are available in
higher registers.

Higher registers are also more permissive with respect
to pitch-mediated components of consonance. There's
evidence that only partials below 4K can participate in
VF formation. This means that for a 5:4 played at
4 = 2000 Hz., it doesn't matter whether we use a normal
timbre or sine tones, as far as VF is concerned.

-Carl

Thank you.

On Dec 29, 2008, at 3:52 PM, Carl Lumma wrote:

> Hi Caleb,
>
> There may very well be something to your idea, that the
> virtual fundamental (VF) of a complex should be in the
> audible range. Keep in mind though (and I think you mention
> this), the VF can always pop up an octave or two without
> doing much harm to the 'fit' of the interpretation. For
> instance, even though the true VF of 4:5:6 is 1, it's
> perfectly possible to hear it as 2 or 4.
>
> Another reason voicing chords too low causes problems is
> the critical band -- it gets wider in the lower registers.
> Therefore more low-roughness chords are available in
> higher registers.
>
> Higher registers are also more permissive with respect
> to pitch-mediated components of consonance. There's
> evidence that only partials below 4K can participate in
> VF formation. This means that for a 5:4 played at
> 4 = 2000 Hz., it doesn't matter whether we use a normal
> timbre or sine tones, as far as VF is concerned.
>
> -Carl
>
>
>

On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 3:52 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
> Hi Caleb,
>
> There may very well be something to your idea, that the
> virtual fundamental (VF) of a complex should be in the
> audible range. Keep in mind though (and I think you mention
> this), the VF can always pop up an octave or two without
> doing much harm to the 'fit' of the interpretation. For
> instance, even though the true VF of 4:5:6 is 1, it's
> perfectly possible to hear it as 2 or 4.
>
> Another reason voicing chords too low causes problems is
> the critical band -- it gets wider in the lower registers.
> Therefore more low-roughness chords are available in
> higher registers.
>
> Higher registers are also more permissive with respect
> to pitch-mediated components of consonance. There's
> evidence that only partials below 4K can participate in
> VF formation. This means that for a 5:4 played at
> 4 = 2000 Hz., it doesn't matter whether we use a normal
> timbre or sine tones, as far as VF is concerned.
>
> -Carl

I remember posing the very same idea to you. Here's what I got:

>> I hypothesize that this has to do with the phantom fundamental
>> of the chord being below the limit of human hearing
> I don't think so. The virtual fundamental will by definition
> always be in the range of hearing since it is something we hear.
(/tuning/topicId_76975.html#77240)

What did you mean by that?

-Mike

Mike wrote:

> I remember posing the very same idea to you. Here's what I got:
>
> >> I hypothesize that this has to do with the phantom fundamental
> >> of the chord being below the limit of human hearing
> >
> > I don't think so. The virtual fundamental will by definition
> > always be in the range of hearing since it is something we hear.
>
> What did you mean by that?

The same thing I meant when I said that the 'VF can always pop
up an octave or two' in the present thread. Chords do not have
a fixed property called "My VF".

In this older thread, you made claims about fields of attraction
changing with register that I didn't fully understand, but
anyway didn't see as necessary to explain the phenomenon I
thought you were describing (that 18:22:27 gets muddy in lower
registers?). But I'd be happy to 'reopen the case' now.

-Carl

For anyone who is interested, and uses Csound (or has it available), I wrote a sruti box app in Csound a while back. It's got an interactive GUI, 1-4 voices, and a choice of waveforms.

http://mysterybear.net/article/8/drone-instrument-sruti-box

Now that I'm getting into SuperCollider, I just might port it over one of these days....

- Dave

Mike Battaglia wrote:
> I'm not sure what a shruti box is, but I do know what you mean by the > experience of different prime ratios as different "states" as such. One > interesting way to get this effect is to get a 5/4 ratio going on a > synthesizer, and gradually widen it until it gets to 9/7. Doing this by > ear (i.e. stopping exactly on 9/7) is hard - as you widen 5/4, you start > to hear some beating, and eventually it quickens until you get to 9/7. > At this point, if you listen hard enough you suddenly have this > perspective shift whereby you hear the beating is in some kind of > regular pattern, and you start to get a sense of the phantom fundamental > (which is different than that of 5/4 as it isn't an octave equivalent of > the lower note), and it's like "whoa, so this is 9/7". In my experience, > it's just a matter of finding the order in that pattern of beating, > which when you do, starts to sound more like what I think they've been > calling "periodicity buzz& quot; around here.
> > The thing that interests me is, why shouldn't all of the intervals > between 5/4 and 9/7 be "grasped" in the same way, whether they have a JI > interval nearby them or not? Hell, you can pick out a JI interval within > 5 cents of any interval you'd like.
> > The other thing is that before you get "tuned into" 9/7 as being stable, > or grasping the consonance of it, you might be prone to just hearing it > as a messed up version of 5/4, or as an ambiguous note between 5/4 and > 4/3, etc... I think the brain has the ability to place more complex > intervals like these with repeated training.
> > On Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 8:04 PM, atower17 <atower17@... > <mailto:atower17@...>> wrote:
> > Is anyone out there experiencing the resonance of low prime ratios via
> singing over a drone like a shruti box? My mentor Allaudin Mathieu
> has been talking about the experience of moving from one note to
> another as a shift from one "state" to another and I finally had this
> experience singing a sargam melody. Each tone over time has been
> developing into its own resonant quality/color/space. Its pretty
> addictive. So wondering along with that of others experience, how do
> you all check as to whether you are singing or playing the 10/9 two
> fifhs down and one 3rd up vs. the 9/8 (2 fifths ups) for example.
> thanks much, Alan Tower
> > > -- ~DaveSeidel = [
http://mysterybear.net,
http://daveseidel.tumblr.com,
http://twitter.com/DaveSeidel
];

Dear Dave,

that is neat, thank you very much.

BTW: there was a typo in the Csound file, in line 70
144..0069,0 should be 144,.0069,0

Also, you may consider changing the default flag now to Csound 5.

Thank you!

Best
Torsten

On Dec 29, 2008, at 10:44 PM, Dave Seidel wrote:

> For anyone who is interested, and uses Csound (or has it available), I
> wrote a sruti box app in Csound a while back. It's got an interactive
> GUI, 1-4 voices, and a choice of waveforms.
>
> http://mysterybear.net/article/8/drone-instrument-sruti-box
>
> Now that I'm getting into SuperCollider, I just might port it over one
> of these days....
>
> - Dave
>
> Mike Battaglia wrote:
> > I'm not sure what a shruti box is, but I do know what you mean by > the
> > experience of different prime ratios as different "states" as > such. One
> > interesting way to get this effect is to get a 5/4 ratio going on a
> > synthesizer, and gradually widen it until it gets to 9/7. Doing > this by
> > ear (i.e. stopping exactly on 9/7) is hard - as you widen 5/4, > you start
> > to hear some beating, and eventually it quickens until you get to > 9/7.
> > At this point, if you listen hard enough you suddenly have this
> > perspective shift whereby you hear the beating is in some kind of
> > regular pattern, and you start to get a sense of the phantom > fundamental
> > (which is different than that of 5/4 as it isn't an octave > equivalent of
> > the lower note), and it's like "whoa, so this is 9/7". In my > experience,
> > it's just a matter of finding the order in that pattern of beating,
> > which when you do, starts to sound more like what I think they've > been
> > calling "periodicity buzz& quot; around here.
> >
> > The thing that interests me is, why shouldn't all of the intervals
> > between 5/4 and 9/7 be "grasped" in the same way, whether they > have a JI
> > interval nearby them or not? Hell, you can pick out a JI interval > within
> > 5 cents of any interval you'd like.
> >
> > The other thing is that before you get "tuned into" 9/7 as being > stable,
> > or grasping the consonance of it, you might be prone to just > hearing it
> > as a messed up version of 5/4, or as an ambiguous note between > 5/4 and
> > 4/3, etc... I think the brain has the ability to place more complex
> > intervals like these with repeated training.
> >
> > On Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 8:04 PM, atower17 <atower17@...
> > <mailto:atower17@...>> wrote:
> >
> > Is anyone out there experiencing the resonance of low prime > ratios via
> > singing over a drone like a shruti box? My mentor Allaudin Mathieu
> > has been talking about the experience of moving from one note to
> > another as a shift from one "state" to another and I finally had > this
> > experience singing a sargam melody. Each tone over time has been
> > developing into its own resonant quality/color/space. Its pretty
> > addictive. So wondering along with that of others experience, how do
> > you all check as to whether you are singing or playing the 10/9 two
> > fifhs down and one 3rd up vs. the 9/8 (2 fifths ups) for example.
> > thanks much, Alan Tower
> >
> >
> >
>
> --> ~DaveSeidel = [
> http://mysterybear.net,
> http://daveseidel.tumblr.com,
> http://twitter.com/DaveSeidel
> ];
>
>
>

There's also a good Sruti box app for the iPhone that
supports JI. -Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Dave Seidel <dave@...> wrote:
>
> For anyone who is interested, and uses Csound (or has it
> available), I wrote a sruti box app in Csound a while back.

On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 5:38 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
> Mike wrote:
>
>> I remember posing the very same idea to you. Here's what I got:
>>
>> >> I hypothesize that this has to do with the phantom fundamental
>> >> of the chord being below the limit of human hearing
>> >
>> > I don't think so. The virtual fundamental will by definition
>> > always be in the range of hearing since it is something we hear.
>>
>> What did you mean by that?
>
> The same thing I meant when I said that the 'VF can always pop
> up an octave or two' in the present thread. Chords do not have
> a fixed property called "My VF".
>
> In this older thread, you made claims about fields of attraction
> changing with register that I didn't fully understand, but
> anyway didn't see as necessary to explain the phenomenon I
> thought you were describing (that 18:22:27 gets muddy in lower
> registers?). But I'd be happy to 'reopen the case' now.
>
> -Carl

I wasn't describing that it gets muddy, but that it's generally
unplaceable in terms of hearing it as the just interval that it
actually is. The idea I was presenting is that a neutral triad is
going to be heard as a major triad or a minor triad when played in
even a mid register because its virtual fundamental is going to be so
low that it will be below the range of human hearing. My idea was that
perhaps the reason a major third gets muddy at low registers is that
its VF drops below the lowest frequency we can hear , although I could
see how critical band roughness would also contribute to the overall
"muddy" sound of it.

If that's true, then the reason that 18:22:27 might just sound like a
flip-floppy major-minor chord, even when played at a mid register, is
that the /27 might be so low that it's inaudible. Playing it higher up
might pop the VF into hearing range, and then the chord might finally
succeed in having its own stable identity, whether or not it's a local
maximum of harmonic entropy or any of that.

The reason I brought this up originally was to demonstrate that
harmonic entropy alone doesn't determine whether or not you'll
actually succeed in placing an interval or a triad; it only gives a
rough measure of how difficult the task is in doing it. This might be
a discussion for another day though.

One question posed by all of this: the 15-20 Hz hearing range cutoff
often cited is generally due to the acoustic response of the ear. How
does all of this apply to the brain, where none of this matters? Is
there even going to be a limit to the lowest frequency we can place?

-Mike

Mike wrote:
> One question posed by all of this: the 15-20 Hz hearing range cutoff
> often cited is generally due to the acoustic response of the ear. How
> does all of this apply to the brain, where none of this matters? Is
> there even going to be a limit to the lowest frequency we can place?

0 Hz! -C.

On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
> Mike wrote:
>> One question posed by all of this: the 15-20 Hz hearing range cutoff
>> often cited is generally due to the acoustic response of the ear. How
>> does all of this apply to the brain, where none of this matters? Is
>> there even going to be a limit to the lowest frequency we can place?
>
> 0 Hz! -C.

Haha, yeah. the ultimate fundamental of infinite justice

I have zero evidence, but I thought 15 hz was neurological, and my reasoning is that it's
in the same general range as flicker fusion, which is visual, and there are also
according to Crick and others, synchronized brain firing to be observed in conscious brains at around 40 hz.

So, is it ear, or is it brain?

Someone with some psychoacoustical chops, weigh in.

I know nothing, I just confabulate, speculate.

caleb

On Dec 29, 2008, at 6:33 PM, Carl Lumma wrote:

> Mike wrote:
> > One question posed by all of this: the 15-20 Hz hearing range cutoff
> > often cited is generally due to the acoustic response of the ear. > How
> > does all of this apply to the brain, where none of this matters? Is
> > there even going to be a limit to the lowest frequency we can place?
>
> 0 Hz! -C.
>
>
>

Thanks, Torsten! I have made both changes and re-uploaded the file.

- Dave

Torsten Anders wrote:
> Dear Dave,
> > that is neat, thank you very much.
> > BTW: there was a typo in the Csound file, in line 70
> 144..0069,0 should be 144,.0069,0
> > Also, you may consider changing the default flag now to Csound 5.
> > Thank you!
> > Best
> Torsten
> > On Dec 29, 2008, at 10:44 PM, Dave Seidel wrote:
> >> For anyone who is interested, and uses Csound (or has it available), I
>> wrote a sruti box app in Csound a while back. It's got an interactive
>> GUI, 1-4 voices, and a choice of waveforms.
>>
>> http://mysterybear.net/article/8/drone-instrument-sruti-box
>>
>> Now that I'm getting into SuperCollider, I just might port it over one
>> of these days....
>>
>> - Dave

--
~DaveSeidel = [
http://mysterybear.net,
http://daveseidel.tumblr.com,
http://twitter.com/DaveSeidel
];

2008/12/29 caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...>:
>
> I'm going to emerge from my Fundamentalist closet. Fundamentals are
> everything, to me.
> My ear prefers 5/4 to 9/7, unless the 9/7 is in a high-enough
> register--which is Base-ically, approximately,

Now here's a funny thing. I tried this on my keyboard, and I counted
the steps wrongly. So when I thought I was hearing a 5/4 it was
really a 9/7. And it did sound better in the high register! So, yes,
to my surprise I agree with you completely.

However, the best triad is still the 4:5:6.

Caveats apply -- I'm tuned to magic temperament, not JI. I use a
physical model of a clarinet that happens to be the best instrument I
have in Csound. I don't think it's such a good model that it
suppresses the even partials, but it's still only one timbre. And it
breaks down at high pitches.

> But, I regard my thinking in this connection as sort of Advanced-Beginner,
> not Connoisseur Level.
> Do others here think register is all-important, and where do you place
> "low-interval limits", and how do you think of them?
> caleb

Register is important. Small intervals in low registers get muddy.
But there's also less distinction between good and bad intervals in
the bass. To get theoretically pure chords to sound pure they should
be in the treble. Widely spread bass notes can reinforce a treble
chord. Timbre and context are also very important.

Odd limits are certainly useful. 5-limit chords sound good especially
with a little mistuning. They're also very tolerant of bad
inversions. An inversion of a 5-limit triad that implies complex
ratios is still better than a higher-limit chord implying simpler
ratios. The higher the limit gets the more important it is to choose
otonalities (simple subsets of the harmonic series) and to get the
inversions right. As with everything your ears should be the final
arbiter.

Graham

Dear Graham,

On Dec 30, 2008, at 2:49 AM, Graham Breed wrote:
> I use a physical model of a clarinet that happens to be the best > instrument I
> have in Csound. I don't think it's such a good model that it
> suppresses the even partials, but it's still only one timbre. And it
> breaks down at high pitches.

I was never pleased with the physical models available in Csound, perhaps you got further in that area. Anyway, I therefore first turned to options like Modalys and Tao. Presently, I am quite happy with my microtonal versions of the Harm Visser instruments (http://www.hvsynthdesign.com/tassman.php) implemented in Tassman (http://www.applied-acoustics.com/tassman.htm).

Best
Torsten

2008/12/30 Torsten Anders <torsten.anders@...>:

> On Dec 30, 2008, at 2:49 AM, Graham Breed wrote:
>> I use a physical model of a clarinet that happens to be the best
>> instrument I
>> have in Csound. I don't think it's such a good model that it
>> suppresses the even partials, but it's still only one timbre. And it
>> breaks down at high pitches.
>
> I was never pleased with the physical models available in Csound,
> perhaps you got further in that area. Anyway, I therefore first
> turned to options like Modalys and Tao. Presently, I am quite happy
> with my microtonal versions of the Harm Visser instruments (http://
> www.hvsynthdesign.com/tassman.php) implemented in Tassman (http://
> www.applied-acoustics.com/tassman.htm).

I stick with Csound so that I can hack it to may satisfaction. Except
I don't very often so I only have this one instrument that's any good.
It's based on the example from the Csound book. I think those are
better than the built-ins, at least going by the examples in the
documentation (maybe it's the same code underneath). This one sounds
a bit like a bawu which it turns out is a kind of clarinet. I altered
it to be more efficient (setting a local control rate that's no faster
than it needs to be), work with MIDI, and be better tuned. Maybe I
did get further than you in this respect.

The problem with high notes is to do with control rates and feedback.
I could fix it by sacrificing efficiency. But I don't do that because
I'm always expecting to work on some other instruments instead.

The other examples from the book are good as well -- and simple, which
I like. But I haven't adapted them for MIDI yet.

Graham

I tried this with my korg ms 2000 and did not get the result described. That was disappointing because I though this experiment put some teeth into Carl's posit of harmony being meta-timbre. Any thoughts on this? As far as I can tell the intervals (5, maj 3) were pure w/o beating. I used a saw wave as the timbre. Chris.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

-----Original Message-----
From: "Mike Battaglia" <battaglia01@gmail.com>

Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 13:34:52
To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: [tuning] Directly experiencing resonance

On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 10:46 AM, Michael Sheiman
<djtrancendance@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> As a side note...hmm...I am trying to guess how/why this works.
>
> Does the rate of beating between the shruti box and low frequency ratios happen at an exact multiple of the frequency being played (2-times, 3-times, 4-times...the original ratio), thus resulting in harmonic beating/"distortion"?
> In that case...you'd think the harmonic series and perhaps using two justly-intonated notes (IE 6-times a note times 1/5 that note) to get strong enough beating to sense the in-harmony beating.
>
> In such a case...the more I stick around the more useful potential I see for beats (harmonic beats) to be used to ADD musical expression with little to no effect against consonance, rather than simply be an "enemy of consonance".
>
> -Michael

Agreed. I brought up this point in a discussion with Carl a few months
ago that never quite ended... The difference from a note to its
"ideal" position in a harmonic series carries information that can
used to aural and artistic effect. I think this is why a lot of people
sometimes prefer the sound of slightly flattened fifths, or why most
12-tet based folks prefer the sound of slightly sharp major thirds
(and prefer 1000 cent minor sevenths to a pure 7/4). When the
information given by that note's difference in the harmonic series is
gone, it sometimes sounds "unsettling" to people not used to it.

You can notice this effect yourself in 12tet by going to a keyboard
and playing some low note and then playing a major third + a few
octaves as soft as you can. You'll hear it start to stick out right
away as being that harmonic interval... Now tune your keyboard to just
and do the same thing. You'll have to play it a lot louder to start to
hear it as breaking away as a harmonic interval rather than a stray
overtone of the fundamental. To be honest, I think that if you didn't
know that you were playing two notes, and you heard someone else do
this experiment, you'd have to play that top note even louder to hear
it as an interval of two notes - you'd probably hear a "timbral
collapse" to a single note instead.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, chrisvaisvil@... wrote:
>
> I tried this with my korg ms 2000 and did not get the result
> described.

What exactly is the result described? I still haven't seen
anybody post a procedure that can be followed or a result
that could be reproduced. Graham, Caleb, anyone help me out
here?

-Carl

The instructions for the experiment were attached to my email. In essence a just 3rd plus 2 octaves is supposed to get lost in the harmonics of the fundamental and will not in 12 et.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

-----Original Message-----
From: "Carl Lumma" <carl@...>

Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:29:44
To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [tuning] Re: Directly experiencing resonance

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, chrisvaisvil@... wrote:
>
> I tried this with my korg ms 2000 and did not get the result
> described.

What exactly is the result described? I still haven't seen
anybody post a procedure that can be followed or a result
that could be reproduced. Graham, Caleb, anyone help me out
here?

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, chrisvaisvil@... wrote:
>
> The instructions for the experiment were attached to my email.
> In essence a just 3rd plus 2 octaves is supposed to get lost in
> the harmonics of the fundamental and will not in 12 et.

Huh???

-Carl

[ Attachment content not displayed ]

> > > The instructions for the experiment were attached to my email.
> > > In essence a just 3rd plus 2 octaves is supposed to get lost in
> > > the harmonics of the fundamental and will not in 12 et.
> >
> > Huh???
>
> here are the instructions, 2nd paragraph

Thanks Chris, got it now. I thought this was about the 9/7
thing. -Carl

As far afield as this thread has wandered, nobody has seen fit to
correct the basic premise:

This is not about "resonance", it is "consonance", which literally
means "sounding together" (people have generally forgotten its
original meaning because of compositional claptrap). Resonance must
involve a system which is passively resonating (i.e. re-sounding) due
to energy received from another active system at one of its natural
frequencies of vibration. What is being discussed here is the
interaction between two active sounding systems, the shruti box (like
a tanpura synthesizer) and the singer.

In any case, I certainly know this feeling. I regularly sing
harmonically-related intervals (including lower octaves of same)
against the drone of my thickness planer while working in my shop. The
sound is so loud (yes, I wear ear protection) that singing any pure
interval can be felt as a physical sensation. I have also done the
same with a tanpura simulator, and while the effect is much less
compelling, being aware of the sensual aspect of purity, even of the
more distant consonances (not using the word in a traditional sense),
can be learned.

Acoustically what is happening is the singer is seeking out the points
of minimal impedance in the ambient atmosphere, or "mode locking" with
the drone. It is similar to how organ pipes which independently sound
the frequencies of a slightly impure interval can "draw" or pull
together to sound the pure interval when sounding together - IF they
are close enough together. This happens because of the impedance peaks
and valleys in the air, both inside the windchest and within the organ
case.

Ciao,

P

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "atower17" <atower17@...> wrote:
>
> Is anyone out there experiencing the resonance of low prime ratios via
> singing over a drone like a shruti box? My mentor Allaudin Mathieu
> has been talking about the experience of moving from one note to
> another as a shift from one "state" to another and I finally had this
> experience singing a sargam melody. Each tone over time has been
> developing into its own resonant quality/color/space. Its pretty
> addictive. So wondering along with that of others experience, how do
> you all check as to whether you are singing or playing the 10/9 two
> fifhs down and one 3rd up vs. the 9/8 (2 fifths ups) for example.
> thanks much, Alan Tower
>

A just 3rd plus 2 octaves will stick out if it is loud enough. As the
volume diminishes, it starts to blend in with the timbre more and
more. A 12-tet 3rd + 2 octaves doesn't seem to blend as well for me. I
tried this experiment with a fender rhodes patch on my motif 6 - if
you're doing it with a piano, maybe the inharmonicity of the timbre is
screwing it up for you.

One thing to note here is that hearing two notes as a "timbre" rather
than two notes is largely a matter of perspective, in my opinion. If
you don't play those two notes exactly simultaneously, it's a lot
harder for the timbres to fuse than the other way around. So try this:
Get your rhodes patch on, leave it set to 12-tet. Layer on top of it
another rhodes patch pitch-shifted up by 2 octaves + 386 cents, and
make this patch a little bit softer than the last one. Play one note,
thus playing both patches simultaneously. You still will probably
still hear it as two different notes. Now just start playing the piano
normally. Play chords and such. In my experience, doing this is the
magic key that shifts my perception to start hearing it as a different
timbre.

On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 6:46 PM, <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:+
> The instructions for the experiment were attached to my email. In essence a
> just 3rd plus 2 octaves is supposed to get lost in the harmonics of the
> fundamental and will not in 12 et.
>
> Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
>
> ________________________________
> From: "Carl Lumma"
> Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:29:44 -0000
> To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: [tuning] Re: Directly experiencing resonance
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, chrisvaisvil@... wrote:
>>
>> I tried this with my korg ms 2000 and did not get the result
>> described.
>
> What exactly is the result described? I still haven't seen
> anybody post a procedure that can be followed or a result
> that could be reproduced. Graham, Caleb, anyone help me out
> here?
>
> -Carl
>
>

Another note is that you might still find that the 12-tet third is
close enough to 386 cents to still blend fairly well. The effect is
crystal clear with 7/1 (or even 7/2). Set your patch to 2 or 3 octaves
minus 33 cents or so and watch how well a minor seventh blends into a
different timbre. Then setting it instead to 2 or 3 octaves with no
cent alterations and playing a minor seventh, it sticks out like a
sore thumb.

The quieter the high note, the more this effect will predominate. And
keep both layered patches to 12-tet internally to themselves.

If you guys still can't get this to work I'll try to post some
listening examples later on. I'm not at school though, so I don't have
a huge array of keyboards to work with.

-Mike

On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 12:44 PM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
> A just 3rd plus 2 octaves will stick out if it is loud enough. As the
> volume diminishes, it starts to blend in with the timbre more and
> more. A 12-tet 3rd + 2 octaves doesn't seem to blend as well for me. I
> tried this experiment with a fender rhodes patch on my motif 6 - if
> you're doing it with a piano, maybe the inharmonicity of the timbre is
> screwing it up for you.
>
> One thing to note here is that hearing two notes as a "timbre" rather
> than two notes is largely a matter of perspective, in my opinion. If
> you don't play those two notes exactly simultaneously, it's a lot
> harder for the timbres to fuse than the other way around. So try this:
> Get your rhodes patch on, leave it set to 12-tet. Layer on top of it
> another rhodes patch pitch-shifted up by 2 octaves + 386 cents, and
> make this patch a little bit softer than the last one. Play one note,
> thus playing both patches simultaneously. You still will probably
> still hear it as two different notes. Now just start playing the piano
> normally. Play chords and such. In my experience, doing this is the
> magic key that shifts my perception to start hearing it as a different
> timbre.
>
> On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 6:46 PM, <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:+
>> The instructions for the experiment were attached to my email. In essence a
>> just 3rd plus 2 octaves is supposed to get lost in the harmonics of the
>> fundamental and will not in 12 et.
>>
>> Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: "Carl Lumma"
>> Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:29:44 -0000
>> To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
>> Subject: [tuning] Re: Directly experiencing resonance
>>
>> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, chrisvaisvil@... wrote:
>>>
>>> I tried this with my korg ms 2000 and did not get the result
>>> described.
>>
>> What exactly is the result described? I still haven't seen
>> anybody post a procedure that can be followed or a result
>> that could be reproduced. Graham, Caleb, anyone help me out
>> here?
>>
>> -Carl
>>
>>
>

[ Attachment content not displayed ]

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Mike Battaglia" <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> A just 3rd plus 2 octaves will stick out if it is loud enough.
> As the volume diminishes, it starts to blend in with the timbre
> more and more. A 12-tet 3rd + 2 octaves doesn't seem to blend
> as well for me. I tried this experiment with a fender rhodes
> patch on my motif 6 - if you're doing it with a piano, maybe
> the inharmonicity of the timbre is screwing it up for you.

No, I just had no idea what Chris was talking about. :)
Of course JI fuses better -- what hypothesis were you testing?

> One thing to note here is that hearing two notes as a "timbre"
> rather than two notes is largely a matter of perspective, in my
> opinion.

It's a matter of what is called "auditory scene analysis",
certainly.

> Play one note,
> thus playing both patches simultaneously. You still will probably
> still hear it as two different notes. Now just start playing the
> piano normally. Play chords and such. In my experience, doing this
> is the magic key that shifts my perception to start hearing it as
> a different timbre.

You bet.

-Carl

Well it didn't work for me. But ill give it another go as described.

--

No, I just had no idea what Chris was talking about. :)Of course JI fuses better -- what hypothesis were you testing?
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

If you really want to hear the timbral blending in an obvious way,
play it so the bottom note is in the bass register and a note 2
octaves and a minor seventh - 32 cents is played above it, which
should be in the mid register somewhere. Start with the top note soft
at first, and then make it as loud as you can while still hearing it
as an overtone of the bottom note. Then take the -32 cent adjustment
off of the top one - should stick out like a sore thumb. Not to say
that it sounds bad, really - it's musical purpose might just not be to
blend in as 7/4. :P

Hey, do we use smilies on this list? I mean, I know this place is
supposed to be for intelligent, mature adults and all that, but I like
them anyway.

-Mike

On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 3:17 PM, <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
> Well it didn't work for me. But ill give it another go as described.
>
> --
>
> No, I just had no idea what Chris was talking about. :)Of course JI fuses
> better -- what hypothesis were you testing?
> Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
>

>> One thing to note here is that hearing two notes as a "timbre"
>> rather than two notes is largely a matter of perspective, in my
>> opinion.
>
> It's a matter of what is called "auditory scene analysis",
> certainly.

Can you refer me to some literature on this? I'm interested in seeing
more of how music emerges from general sound-processing abilities we
have. This sounds like it's on that track.

Thanks,
Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Mike Battaglia" <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> >> One thing to note here is that hearing two notes as a "timbre"
> >> rather than two notes is largely a matter of perspective, in my
> >> opinion.
> >
> > It's a matter of what is called "auditory scene analysis",
> > certainly.
>
> Can you refer me to some literature on this? I'm interested in
> seeing more of how music emerges from general sound-processing
> abilities we have. This sounds like it's on that track.
>
> Thanks,
> Mike

It's a whole field of study -- just google it. There's a famous
book that sort-of launched the field, called, I believe,
Auditory Scene Analysis. Yep:

http://www.amazon.com/Auditory-Scene-Analysis-Perceptual-Organization/dp/0262521954/

But I would probably just peruse Google scholar and authors'
websites.

Happy New Year!

-Carl

An interesting thing to think about - we keep talking about having 9/7
be in such a range that its VF is audible. How about normal major
triads in first inversion? The VF there would be equal to frequency of
the bottom note being divided by 5. Is such a triad still placeable?

-Mike

On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 9:34 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Mike Battaglia" <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>>
>> >> One thing to note here is that hearing two notes as a "timbre"
>> >> rather than two notes is largely a matter of perspective, in my
>> >> opinion.
>> >
>> > It's a matter of what is called "auditory scene analysis",
>> > certainly.
>>
>> Can you refer me to some literature on this? I'm interested in
>> seeing more of how music emerges from general sound-processing
>> abilities we have. This sounds like it's on that track.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Mike
>
> It's a whole field of study -- just google it. There's a famous
> book that sort-of launched the field, called, I believe,
> Auditory Scene Analysis. Yep:
>
> http://www.amazon.com/Auditory-Scene-Analysis-Perceptual-Organization/dp/0262521954/
>
> But I would probably just peruse Google scholar and authors'
> websites.
>
> Happy New Year!
>
> -Carl
>
>

Mike wrote:

> How about normal major
> triads in first inversion? The VF there would be equal to frequency of
> the bottom note being divided by 5. Is such a triad still placeable?

Personally, I find such chords perfectly convincing with common fundamentals up to (or actually "down to") about 16Hz. If you use 5-limit JI and you have A4 as 440Hz, then playing A2-C3-F3 results in a common fundamental of 22Hz, which sounds nicely "synchronous" and consonant to me.

Petr

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Mike Battaglia" <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> An interesting thing to think about - we keep talking about
> having 9/7 be in such a range that its VF is audible.

We keep talking about it, and it's interesting, but it's
not yet clear if it's significant.

> How about normal major triads in first inversion? The VF there
> would be equal to frequency of the bottom note being divided
> by 5. Is such a triad still placeable?

How are you calculating the VF?

-Carl