Re: CBW, phase deafness, etc.

[Alexandra Hettergott <a.hettergott@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Thank you, Peter, for your interesting comments on speech (privately),
the autocorrelation-like qualities of low vs. the modulation-like ones
of high frequency hearing, as well as (internal) representation aspects
involved. Might I be so bold, another time, to making some (integrative)
remarks to either of them ? -- As far as concerns (periodic) vowels vs.
(aperiodic) consonants, the "temporal" aspect in the latter might be
given also by themselves having some time-structuring ("punctuating")
character, i.e., both as alternating with the vowels as well as also
because of their "percussive" nature (i.e., particularly the plosives,
what can also be observed in speech(-related)
compositions/performances). This is, however, an aspect quite familiar
as regards the experience of sound perception in general : while we do
perceive pitch "as-being-derived-from" (frequent) periodicity, with
continually lowering (slowing down) frequency this periodicity is
"imposing" itself, until becoming itself a mere pulse-pattern (what,
btw, can also well been observed in human voice, as, e.g., from a high
tone sung by a soprano to that of a very low bass voice, where the
single glottis pulses can be distinguished), that is, "as if" the
resolution ability of periodicity would change for (yet) another mode in
using a "greater unit" (or grid). It might not be useless to bring in
the musical domain here again, where we are used to speak of "pitch",
e.g., of a "falling" or "descending" pitch, hence a "higher" one
gradually becoming "lower", and do not speak of some perceptual quality
changing from a "fast(er)" (periodicity) slowing down to a "slow(er)"
one in this
respect, but this very perceptual quality of "speed" does refer to yet
another parameter constitutive in (to) music. Well, while this may be
evident regarding our temporal resolution capacities in general, it
might yet sometimes be worthwhile asking for the "why" of some
conventions..., as also being represented by the traditional (Western)
music notation, that pre/describes (potential) sonic events by means of
a couple of signs relationally applied on several straight, parallel,
equidistant lines, a quite "linear" scheme in which high/low pitches are
indicated by means of some corresponding ("high"/"low") visual symbol --
and this is (too) why I do appreciate spectrograms (that too provide the
virtue of combining both the "temporal" and the "frequency domain", in
optionally different resolutions) as a very useful "intuitive" means
(particularly) for displaying musical events or processes, even if they
are of less distinct pitch-like nature. (And as you were speaking of
"worldview" : I do, in fact, imagine the mental "representation" of
music being one of "sonic organization unfolding over time" (or even as
a diagram providing coordinates and vectors...), an "extrapolation"
rather than one of single peaks and spikes caused by triggered air
particles approached by trigonometric functions, though there does
certainly exist a relation between spikes and some "event-like"
character typical to music. It is, btw, also in spectra and spectrograms
where nonlinear distortion phenomena (as e.g., in woodwind instruments,
can well be observed, just as "additional (small) interval peaks".)
-- Finally two other ones of my parentheses : what has been said
reminded me too on the paper by R.F. Voss and J. Clarke (JASA 63(1),
1978: 258-63) about '"1/f noise" in music: Music from 1/f noise'
(considered a good choice for stochastic compositions vs. that generated
by white noise (too random) or 1/f^2 noise (too correlated),
respectively), in which context it seems appropriate to derive white
noise being fatal with respect to both (lack of) coincidences and
refractory times...
The second one concerns the spatial (vision) vs. the temporal (audition)
aspect in formal perception mentioned, in which respect I am finding a
(temporal) organization in, e.g., A-B-A'-B' (that, btw, can also been
depicted by means of a parallelogram, hence vectors by which time is
becoming "spatial") might well (also) be considered as being related to
(the illusion of) perspective in paintings.
(In the hope to having been not too extensive/redundant) sincerely,
Alexandra Hettergott.

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Alexandra Hettergott
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