Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning More about Auditory Scene Analysis (was: Explaining major 4:5:6 and minor 10:12:15 triads,Re:Beatings vs Intermodulation)

> I'd like to suggest an alternative explanation: The human
> hearing system evolved to do scene analysis on natural sounds,
> and especially to do sophisticated signal processing and
> pattern recognition on human speech sounds. In particular,
> we use changing overtone structure (different resonant filters)
> to communicate vowels. The ability to infer a single source
> with changing qualities (like different vowels) from rapidly-
> changing partial complexes produced in human vocalization is
> paramount to human survival. Therefore it may make sense that
> our hearing apparatus is programmed to dissect partial
> complexes containing *harmonic relationships*, since those are
> found in nature and especially in human speech. Subharmonic
> relationships (like those created in minor or utonal chords),
> on the other hand, are nowhere found in nature.
>
> -Carl

I find this line of thought fascinating. Humans as "hackers" of the
psychoacoustic apparati in the brain. People somehow figured out how
to hijack the entire process of auditory analysis and create emotions
with it. Speech is a form of communication using this mechanism -
perhaps in a thousand years, music will have emerged as an
evolutionary successor to speech! Imagine people communicating
happiness by singing major tetrads and such... And of course the
concept of "God" would be expressed by singing a harmonic scale.

One thing I've been thinking about a lot lately... something that
still needs to be explained for me, and perhaps auditory scene
analysis can account for this somehow: I feel that when we listen to a
chord progression, even of just two chords, something fairly deep is
happening. What is responsible for a V-I progression, for example,
having the particular quality that it does? Why does fifths-based root
movement sound so "colorful", even ignoring cultural and psychological
influences?

For a V-I, the V chord is contained in the overtone series of the I
chord. Does that somehow indirectly lead to the "mood" of that
particular chord progression? A V-I is a very forceful, "forward"
sounding progression. A IV-I, on the other hand, is a more relaxed,
"settling down" sounding progression. Does the fact that the
fundamental of the IV is a subharmonic of the fundamental of the I for
some reason give rise to that characteristic as part of this analysis?

Even more worrying is that the characteristic shown from root movement
by fifths seems a bit arbitrary. Why isn't there some kind of
dominant/subdominant relationship that is demonstrated with root
movement by other intervals, such as a major third? I-IIImaj shows no
characteristic resemblance that I can think of to I-V, and I-bVI shows
no resemblance to I-IV. Continued root movement by fifths or fourths
seems fairly coherent, even as more sharps and flats and such are
added, but movement by major thirds is much, much more "dissonant".
Perhaps there's something special about the way the auditory system
perceives root movement by fifths?

I think the paradigm of music as an emergent property of a more
fundamental psychoacoustic analysis of sound is promising and seems to
click on some deep level. I'd be interested to see what explanations
have been offered for the phenomena of chord progressions somehow
giving rise to the sensations that they do... At least some
fundamental explanation for how the psychoacoustic auditory system
reacts when a set of overtones with one fundamental changes to a
different set of overtones with a different fundamental (i.e. a chord
change). Does it hear it as an "object moving"? Or a shape shift of
some kind?

Maybe an even simpler question is, how does the auditory system react
to a single note changing by a harmonic interval, like a monophonic,
melodic jump by a perfect fifth? That would probably account for a lot
of it.

It is also extremely interesting that different chord progressions can
produce different feelings and sensations and such: I think this might
be directly related to the way that language developed. Diphthongs and
words are sort of like chord progressions. Plus, if you're in the
right state of mind, different phonemes -DO- carry their own subtle
"feelings," just like chords do... Either way, I think there is a
deeper, underlying pattern to a lot of elements of language, in which
these subtle feelings produced by different sounds and words gave
direct rise to the meanings of some of those words (or perhaps in
reverse order). As an adult, I find I've become more numb to some of
these deeper phonetic "colors", but they're still there. Bilingual
friends of mine that have spoken more than one language since young
talk about this all the time - maybe this acquired "numbness" is why
it becomes so difficult to learn a new language as an adult.

Hey, perhaps the original development of language was a lot like
modern musical composition, with a few "hip" people coining words
because they for some reason "felt like" the meaning they were trying
to convey.

-Mike

🔗Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>

One more thing I forgot to mention. This video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22yd2efX9SY&feature=related
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nlwwFZdXck&feature=related

These were originally meant as jokes, but oh how deep the implications
run. A microtonal version would be far more effective, of course.

-Mike

On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 5:00 AM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>> I'd like to suggest an alternative explanation: The human
>> hearing system evolved to do scene analysis on natural sounds,
>> and especially to do sophisticated signal processing and
>> pattern recognition on human speech sounds. In particular,
>> we use changing overtone structure (different resonant filters)
>> to communicate vowels. The ability to infer a single source
>> with changing qualities (like different vowels) from rapidly-
>> changing partial complexes produced in human vocalization is
>> paramount to human survival. Therefore it may make sense that
>> our hearing apparatus is programmed to dissect partial
>> complexes containing *harmonic relationships*, since those are
>> found in nature and especially in human speech. Subharmonic
>> relationships (like those created in minor or utonal chords),
>> on the other hand, are nowhere found in nature.
>>
>> -Carl
>
> I find this line of thought fascinating. Humans as "hackers" of the
> psychoacoustic apparati in the brain. People somehow figured out how
> to hijack the entire process of auditory analysis and create emotions
> with it. Speech is a form of communication using this mechanism -
> perhaps in a thousand years, music will have emerged as an
> evolutionary successor to speech! Imagine people communicating
> happiness by singing major tetrads and such... And of course the
> concept of "God" would be expressed by singing a harmonic scale.
>
> One thing I've been thinking about a lot lately... something that
> still needs to be explained for me, and perhaps auditory scene
> analysis can account for this somehow: I feel that when we listen to a
> chord progression, even of just two chords, something fairly deep is
> happening. What is responsible for a V-I progression, for example,
> having the particular quality that it does? Why does fifths-based root
> movement sound so "colorful", even ignoring cultural and psychological
> influences?
>
> For a V-I, the V chord is contained in the overtone series of the I
> chord. Does that somehow indirectly lead to the "mood" of that
> particular chord progression? A V-I is a very forceful, "forward"
> sounding progression. A IV-I, on the other hand, is a more relaxed,
> "settling down" sounding progression. Does the fact that the
> fundamental of the IV is a subharmonic of the fundamental of the I for
> some reason give rise to that characteristic as part of this analysis?
>
> Even more worrying is that the characteristic shown from root movement
> by fifths seems a bit arbitrary. Why isn't there some kind of
> dominant/subdominant relationship that is demonstrated with root
> movement by other intervals, such as a major third? I-IIImaj shows no
> characteristic resemblance that I can think of to I-V, and I-bVI shows
> no resemblance to I-IV. Continued root movement by fifths or fourths
> seems fairly coherent, even as more sharps and flats and such are
> added, but movement by major thirds is much, much more "dissonant".
> Perhaps there's something special about the way the auditory system
> perceives root movement by fifths?
>
> I think the paradigm of music as an emergent property of a more
> fundamental psychoacoustic analysis of sound is promising and seems to
> click on some deep level. I'd be interested to see what explanations
> have been offered for the phenomena of chord progressions somehow
> giving rise to the sensations that they do... At least some
> fundamental explanation for how the psychoacoustic auditory system
> reacts when a set of overtones with one fundamental changes to a
> different set of overtones with a different fundamental (i.e. a chord
> change). Does it hear it as an "object moving"? Or a shape shift of
> some kind?
>
> Maybe an even simpler question is, how does the auditory system react
> to a single note changing by a harmonic interval, like a monophonic,
> melodic jump by a perfect fifth? That would probably account for a lot
> of it.
>
> It is also extremely interesting that different chord progressions can
> produce different feelings and sensations and such: I think this might
> be directly related to the way that language developed. Diphthongs and
> words are sort of like chord progressions. Plus, if you're in the
> right state of mind, different phonemes -DO- carry their own subtle
> "feelings," just like chords do... Either way, I think there is a
> deeper, underlying pattern to a lot of elements of language, in which
> these subtle feelings produced by different sounds and words gave
> direct rise to the meanings of some of those words (or perhaps in
> reverse order). As an adult, I find I've become more numb to some of
> these deeper phonetic "colors", but they're still there. Bilingual
> friends of mine that have spoken more than one language since young
> talk about this all the time - maybe this acquired "numbness" is why
> it becomes so difficult to learn a new language as an adult.
>
> Hey, perhaps the original development of language was a lot like
> modern musical composition, with a few "hip" people coining words
> because they for some reason "felt like" the meaning they were trying
> to convey.
>
> -Mike
>

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

Mike wrote:

> > I'd like to suggest an alternative explanation: The human
> > hearing system evolved to do scene analysis on natural sounds,
> > and especially to do sophisticated signal processing and
> > pattern recognition on human speech sounds. In particular,
> > we use changing overtone structure (different resonant filters)
> > to communicate vowels. The ability to infer a single source
> > with changing qualities (like different vowels) from rapidly-
> > changing partial complexes produced in human vocalization is
> > paramount to human survival. Therefore it may make sense that
> > our hearing apparatus is programmed to dissect partial
> > complexes containing *harmonic relationships*, since those are
> > found in nature and especially in human speech. Subharmonic
> > relationships (like those created in minor or utonal chords),
> > on the other hand, are nowhere found in nature.
>
> I find this line of thought fascinating. Humans as "hackers" of
> the psychoacoustic apparati in the brain. People somehow figured
> out how to hijack the entire process of auditory analysis and
> create emotions with it.

Indeed.

> Speech is a form of communication using this mechanism -
> perhaps in a thousand years, music will have emerged as an
> evolutionary successor to speech! Imagine people communicating
> happiness by singing major tetrads and such... And of course the
> concept of "God" would be expressed by singing a harmonic scale.

Have you read Dune? They have a narcotic-like music in
that universe.

> Maybe an even simpler question is, how does the auditory system
> react to a single note changing by a harmonic interval, like a
> monophonic, melodic jump by a perfect fifth?

The short answer is, it perceives much less of a change
than if you jump by another interval (except perhaps an
octave... actually beginning ear trainers often get
fifths and octaves confused). We can only speculate as
to the neural origins of this effect, but combination-
sensitive neurons would explain a lot. Neurons that fire
when they hear 400 Hz. OR 600 Hz.

People who are obsessed with spectra (which seems like
everyone on this list these days) may propose that
modulations of a fifth change the least amount of partials
(other than the octave). But if I synthesize a timbre
without odd harmonics, the strength of the 3:2 remains.

> Diphthongs and words are sort of like chord progressions.

Hawaiian is a lot like chord progressions. :)

-Carl

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

🔗Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>

>> Speech is a form of communication using this mechanism -
>> perhaps in a thousand years, music will have emerged as an
>> evolutionary successor to speech! Imagine people communicating
>> happiness by singing major tetrads and such... And of course the
>> concept of "God" would be expressed by singing a harmonic scale.
>
> Have you read Dune? They have a narcotic-like music in
> that universe.

No, but it sounds fascinating.

>> Maybe an even simpler question is, how does the auditory system
>> react to a single note changing by a harmonic interval, like a
>> monophonic, melodic jump by a perfect fifth?
>
> The short answer is, it perceives much less of a change
> than if you jump by another interval (except perhaps an
> octave... actually beginning ear trainers often get
> fifths and octaves confused). We can only speculate as
> to the neural origins of this effect, but combination-
> sensitive neurons would explain a lot. Neurons that fire
> when they hear 400 Hz. OR 600 Hz.

It's interesting that you say that, At the recent ASA conference in
Miami, there were quite a few papers that talked about nonlinearities
in pitch perception and explained them by a model in which brain
contains neural oscillators that mode lock to incoming input. There
are peaks and such at different harmonic intervals, and the graph
produced wasn't too unlike the harmonic entropy curve - that is to
say, it is easier for them to mode lock to oncoming input at
low-integer frequency ratios.

> People who are obsessed with spectra (which seems like
> everyone on this list these days) may propose that
> modulations of a fifth change the least amount of partials
> (other than the octave). But if I synthesize a timbre
> without odd harmonics, the strength of the 3:2 remains.

It's interesting that you say that, because the explanation that I'd
come up with was that movement by a fifth changes quite a few partials
by extremely "attractive" melodic intervals, such as steps and half
steps.

Plus, if you imagine the bass note staying as a C drone, and then on
top of it a melodic voice jumps from C to G, the change in "character"
is fairly subtle vs C to C# or something. On the other hand, the bass
note moving from C to G can have a much more dramatic effect, as can a
C major triad moving to a G major triad. So while the relatively low
harmonic entropy of a 3/2 might account somewhat for ear training
students confusing a perfect fifth for an octave, I doubt even a
beginning ear training student would confuse a C major triad moving to
a G major triad with a C major triad moving up an octave. The thing
that I don't understand is why the V chord "contrasts" so much from
the I chord, or why major third-based root movement is so much
dramatically more dissonant than fifths based root movement.

>> Diphthongs and words are sort of like chord progressions.
>
> Hawaiian is a lot like chord progressions. :)
>
> -Carl