phase differences

I clarified a previous post?

>>Phase differences. Thanks for the appropriate terminology, Paul.

And Paul Erlich offered:
>
> Jerry, I suspect you're operating under a serious misconception here. Our
> ears and brains are remarkably oblivious to phase, and the kind of "lining
> up" you're talking about, even if you could come up with a mathematical
> definition of such a thing (there's a challenge), would have virtually no
> effect on any audible characteristics of the sound. So I believe it's
> meaningless to say that the ear does anything like what you describe above.
> I'm not sure of the source of your misconception, but it reminds me of
> Robert Asmussen's web page:
> http://www.leeds.ac.uk/music/Studio/rproj_swss/tuning/tuning.htm. Here he
> makes the error of picturing all tones as sine waves (a very unmusical
> timbre); that makes "lining up" easy to define, but leads to the false
> conclusion that the consonance of simple ratios is somehow enhanced when
> this lining up is done correctly. Though framed as a computer music project,
> Asmussen probably never carried out a comparison with different phases; if
> he did, he surely would have heard no differences.
>
> It may sound like I'm actually supporting your point, Jerry, because if you
> don't hear a difference, it would seem that the ear must be "lining things
> up" so that no difference arises. But it is simpler, and more in keeping
> with how we understand hearing, to assume that there is no difference
> because we are essentially picking up only the frequencies, and not the
> relative phases of the different frequencies, in the sounds we hear.

Huh? Are we talking about the same thing? "Hear a difference" of what? I'm
talking about the simple act of hearing an interval--in which the likelihood
of the simultenaity of phase--ebb and flow of compacting and (whatever the
opposite of compacting is)--is extremely small; nevertheless, the ear seems
readily capable of perceiving the "mathematical" ratios. That's it!

That our brains are "oblivious of lining up," is exactly what I'm talking
about. The source of my "misconception" is original with me. (I try not to
store bits of "wisdom" that do not make sense to me.) You _are_ supporting
my point when you say that "we are essentially picking up only the
frequencies." The interesting(???) point that I was attempting to make is
that we are able to perceive frequencies and compare them to other
frequencies EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE NOT LIKELY TO "LINE UP." However you would
like to rephrase my point is certainly agreeable to me. And whether you
support it is not material to my meaning. I simply am in awe of nature in
this regard.

Jerry

P.S.: This is not the first time I have been described as "operating under a
serious misconception." However, over the years I've learned not to
particularly worry about it.

Jerry wrote,

>The interesting(???) point that I was attempting to make is
that we are able to perceive frequencies and compare
>them to other
frequencies EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE NOT LIKELY TO "LINE
>UP." However you would
like to rephrase my point is certainly agreeable to
me. >And whether you
support it is not material to my meaning. I simply am
>in awe of nature in
this regard.

Then you'd be interested in learning how the cochlea works, since
that's the organ which separates the sound we hear into its component
frequencies. An excellent place to start is Juan Roederer's _Physics
and Psychophysics of Music_.

Sorry I misunderstood you -- I guess I'm used to thinking of waves in
terms of constituent frequencies due to my training in quantum
mechanics and such. Though from a physical standpoint, the component
frequencies are generally the most relevant feature of a wave, I
should remember that this is less than obvious intuitively, as
evidenced by the fact that civilization had to wait for Fourier to
discover the concept of analyzing a function into component
frequencies.