high third experiment

Paul Erlich wrote:
>
>>> It is a psychoacoustically established fact that adding new tones can alter
>>> the perceived pitch of constant, sustained tones. However, this effect is
>>> normally demonstrated with sine waves, and I doubt it would continue to be
>>> important with normal harmonic timbres. Terhardt, though, believes that our
>>> inner mental template of the harmonic series is considerably "stretched" due
>>> to this phenomenon.

I responded:
>
>>This is extremely interesting, Paul. It seems very possible to me that I
> was
>>experiencing that phenomenon in this case. I'm not sure that it fully
>>explains why the high third appears to "lock," however, particularly since
>>you note that it appears to happen mainly with sine waves. On the other
>>hand, why do you "doubt it would continue to be important with normal
>>harmonic timbres"? Has this effect been studied with "normal" timbres and
>>been shown not to happen?

Paul continued:
>
> The reason I doubt it is because the overtones would normally provide the
> brain with a great deal of information to use in what is known as
> periodicity hearing -- the neural impulses "lock in phase" with the note,
> thereby providing the brain with a very precise reading as to its frequency.
> But the effect might not be eliminated entirely. Here are some papers for
> you to study (perhaps someone near a library who speaks German can summarize
> them for us):
>
> Wallister, K. (1969), "�ber die Abh�ngigkeiten der Tonh�henempfindung von
> Sinust�nen vom Schallpegel, von �berlagertem drosselndem St�rschall und von
> der Darbietungsdauer," Acustica 21, 211-221.
>
> Terhardt, E., and Fastl, H. (1971). "Zum Einfluss von St�rt�nen und
> St�ger�uchen auf die Tonh�he von Sinust�nen," Acustica 25, 53-61.

I'm curious to know what can be learned from these sources. Am I correct
that some of our List members are German? I hesitate to impose, but it would
be very helpful here. My German consists of "Was ist?" and that's about it.

I said:
>
>>In any case, this opens a whole other world of possibilities.

To which Paul said:
>
> Keep your mind open. It seems you've already decided what the "right" answer
> is, and chosen to take a very inconsistent view of the evidence in order to
> support your belief. That's a dangerous kind of thinking, precisely the kind
> I get the impression you've tried to warn us against in your book, and yet
> you're falling into it yourself.

On the contrary, I think my posts in this "batch" give evidence that I have
not closed the "case." All I have said is that the 7:9 solution seems to be
at the top of the list of possible explanations. I realize that you are
admonishing me to reconsider that position--and I am willing to do so
provided sufficient evidence is forthcoming to warrant that caution.
>
> Finally, if you don't believe (a select subset of) Monz's MIDI files, why
> don't you walk over to your M-1 and tune up those chords yourself?

I think I have described the problem in that regard.

Thanks for the German references. I hope someone will be able to pick up on
them. It would seem that all who have been following this thread would be
enriched.

Jerry