Sheila Chandra's ear

I just finished a session with my musicianship class in which we played and
analyzed the Chandra song from which I extracted the excerpt that I posted
on my site. The track opens "a cappella" (before the double drone enters)
with F-E-C-Bb. After the class had identified the pitches, I asked them what
key they heard this excerpt in, rather expecting them to say F major. While
some did, a few said they heard the tonic as C but really didn't know why.

A little later, as we were listening to the section I excerpted for you, my
golden-eared cellist noted that Ms. Chandra's Fs were not tuned 2:3 to C,
but were significantly and consistently lower than that. This, of course,
explained why the pitch sensitive few rejected F as tonic and opted for C.
They had resisted (or outgrown, in this case) the perceptual principle Paul
Erlich had mentioned in which we tend to generalize details to fit a
currently held concept. I was impressed.

What is also interesting is that my cello player described the F as "more of
an appoggiatura to E" (than a tonic to C) and upon review I agreed with her.
This, of course, would further show the F to be only _melodically related to
the E and, since _no kind of F appears among the partials of C, would have
no particular relationship to anything else (as far as tuning is concerned).
What is also somewhat remarkable is the smallness of the melodic interval
between this "low" F and the "high" E to which it resolves.

This reminds me of our recent discussion of "raised" and "lowered"
chromatics in which some writers preferred to consider F# to be lower than
Gb. In the case above, there certainly wouldn't be much room for an E#
between this "low" F and "high" E. (Please don't suggest that the note in
question here is E# in this context. I wouldn't be able to sleep for a
week.)

Jerry

Jerry wrote,

>I just finished a session with my musicianship class in which we played and
>analyzed the Chandra song from which I extracted the excerpt that I posted
>on my site. The track opens "a cappella" (before the double drone enters)
>with F-E-C-Bb. After the class had identified the pitches, I asked them
what
>key they heard this excerpt in, rather expecting them to say F major. While
>some did, a few said they heard the tonic as C but really didn't know why.

>A little later, as we were listening to the section I excerpted for you, my
>golden-eared cellist noted that Ms. Chandra's Fs were not tuned 2:3 to C,
>but were significantly and consistently lower than that. This, of course,
>explained why the pitch sensitive few rejected F as tonic and opted for C.
>They had resisted (or outgrown, in this case) the perceptual principle Paul
>Erlich had mentioned in which we tend to generalize details to fit a
>currently held concept. I was impressed.

Nonsense. 8-7-5-4 in major would be a very unusual melodic outline, while a
Mixolydian 4-3-1-7 is extremely familiar (listen to the Beatles' "Within You
Without You" for example). The difference has to do with the tritone's
unstable function of the in the former and its stable function in the
latter.

>This, of course, would further show the F to be only _melodically related
to
>the E and, since _no kind of F appears among the partials of C, would have
>no particular relationship to anything else (as far as tuning is
concerned).

Nice rationalization, but if it's all about the partials of the tonic, how
do you explain tonic minor chords? Using the 19th partial? Time for another
MIDI listening experiment? And how about fourths, sixths, and sevenths of
keys?

>This reminds me of our recent discussion of "raised" and "lowered"
>chromatics in which some writers preferred to consider F# to be lower than
>Gb. In the case above, there certainly wouldn't be much room for an E#
>between this "low" F and "high" E. (Please don't suggest that the note in
>question here is E# in this context. I wouldn't be able to sleep for a
>week.)

I won't, but interestingly, Herman Miller recently posted a piece of his in
which (given a tonic of C) he found that the "F" could profitably be lowered
to a sort of meantone "E#" due to the harmonic relations in which this note
participated in the piece (it didn't sound together with C at any point).

I had posted:
>
>>I just finished a session with my musicianship class in which we played and
>>analyzed the Chandra song from which I extracted the excerpt that I posted
>>on my site. The track opens "a cappella" (before the double drone enters)
>>with F-E-C-Bb. After the class had identified the pitches, I asked them what
>>key they heard this excerpt in, rather expecting them to say F major. While
>>some did, a few said they heard the tonic as C but really didn't know why.
>
>>A little later, as we were listening to the section I excerpted for you, my
>>golden-eared cellist noted that Ms. Chandra's Fs were not tuned 2:3 to C,
>>but were significantly and consistently lower than that. This, of course,
>>explained why the pitch sensitive few rejected F as tonic and opted for C.
>>They had resisted (or outgrown, in this case) the perceptual principle Paul
>>Erlich had mentioned in which we tend to generalize details to fit a
>>currently held concept. I was impressed.

To which Paul pontificated:
>
> Nonsense.

Isn't it remarkable how Paul presents his opinions in a diplomatic and
modest manner. I wish I could do that.

> 8-7-5-4 in major would be a very unusual melodic outline, while a
> Mixolydian 4-3-1-7 is extremely familiar (listen to the Beatles' "Within You
> Without You" for example). The difference has to do with the tritone's
> unstable function of the in the former and its stable function in the
> latter.

Paul, the expectation was that my students might identify the key as F as an
_intellectual conclusion, having already identified the pitches. In any
case, I think you are shortsighted in judging this pitch pattern to be
"unusual." It makes perfect sense to me in the key of F major.

BTW, one of the students had this Beatles' CD in the car and we played it
for comparison. The class was intrigued by the differences in tuning.
>
>>This, of course, would further show the F to be only _melodically related to
>>the E and, since _no kind of F appears among the partials of C, would have
>>no particular relationship to anything else (as far as tuning is concerned).
>
> Nice rationalization, but if it's all about the partials of the tonic,

It's not _all about partials of the tonic. Why read more into my points than
I obviously intended? Is it your intention to seek out arguments or to
understand what I am saying.

> how
> do you explain tonic minor chords?

I'm very satisfied with the description that it consists of the same
intervals as the major triad, but in a different configuration.

> Using the 19th partial? Time for another
> MIDI listening experiment? And how about fourths, sixths, and sevenths of
> keys?

What do these have to do with anything? For a bright guy, you seem to have a
hard time extracting the essence of a simple description. You take an
unimportant phrase and make an enormous deal of it. The point was simply
that even if the F were 3:4 to C it would not be a member of the C's
overtone series--a rather indisputable fact. Why argue with it?
>
>>This reminds me of our recent discussion of "raised" and "lowered"
>>chromatics in which some writers preferred to consider F# to be lower than
>>Gb. In the case above, there certainly wouldn't be much room for an E#
>>between this "low" F and "high" E. (Please don't suggest that the note in
>>question here is E# in this context. I wouldn't be able to sleep for a
>>week.)
>
> I won't, but interestingly, Herman Miller recently posted a piece of his in
> which (given a tonic of C) he found that the "F" could profitably be lowered
> to a sort of meantone "E#" due to the harmonic relations in which this note
> participated in the piece (it didn't sound together with C at any point).

Okay. So?

After dealing with all that marginally relative discourse, let me ask
whether you understand the main points of my post?--that if the key had been
F, the F would likely have been tuned in a 3:4 relationship to the C, and
more importantly, that the "kids" could hear (or sense) that it did not.

Jerry