Re: Pitch learning

[Kevin Austin <kevin.austin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hmmm ...

Once again, there has been a [linguistic] shift from the 'metric' to 
the 'psychometric' domain, the metric domain being about data 
reduction, and then a conclusion drawn from an (to me) unrelated 
concept. It is not only europeans who considered outsiders to be 
'primitive'. Note the translation of "zhong gua" ... and the 
endearing term "da(\) bi(/) zi".

I see in here the proposition that a fundamental of (knowledge) 
acquisition is placing new information in the context of what is 
known, and possibly noting the "deviation" as being dialect or accent.

Cultures whose music relies upon pitch bends, glissandos and 
'variable' intervals may find the fixed pitch concepts of 500 years 
of european civilization "difficult" (or even primitive), but if the 
sounds of these musics are [entirely] melodic in nature, and vocal, 
then possibly the critical elements (given the vocal range of say a 
perfect 12th) of the tuning of the octave may yield to the greater 
effect of tessitura as an element of expression. Or this is how I 
tend to experience it.


Best wishes

Kevin



Date:    Fri, 2 Mar 2007 14:39:37 -0500
From:    Linda Seltzer <lseltzer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Too many ethnomusicologists in the old days reduced non-Western 
melodies to Western scales and even Western notation, and the result 
was that non-Western musics seemed primitive.