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Fwd: [AUDITORY] Pitch learning
I am sorry, but I don't know Ed at Complex Systems.
Would you mind telling us your name?
Sorry, I had been having some computer problems
and set up a temporary account wrong (much better
now, though). It's Edward Large.
In response to some of the postings in the past few days
I'd say that differences in the music of different cultures
are quite significant. However, the musical provincialism of
some past theorists shouldn't shouldn't stop the current
generation from asking what aspects of music may be universal,
informed, one hopes, by a better understanding of the differences.
Consider that the languages of the world are very different,
but that hasn't stopped linguists from seeking a universal
grammar -- a set of basic principles underlying language. (This
is quite different from asserting that all languages are essentially
English -- or some nonsense like that.)
The extreme position might hold that there are no universal musical
principles whatsoever. But I would argue that such a position is
untenable. It would suggest that the music of every culture is
essentially
arbitrary, with no structure whatsoever except that which is learned.
Any successful psychological / neuroscientific approach to music
must provide an account both of the basic principles, which may have
a lot to do with basic neural processes, as well as what is learned.
Ed
On Mar 1, 2007, at 10:21 AM, James D. Miller wrote:
I am sorry, but I don't know Ed at Complex Systems.
Would you mind telling us your name?
Jim Miller
Quoting Complex Systems <large@xxxxxxxxxxx>:
Hi Susan,
Your message leaves the impression that non-Western tuning
systems are unrelated to the Western system and do not
follow small-integer ratio principles. But that's not quite true.
First, our modern Western tuning does not follow Pythagorean
intervals,
either. It uses equal temperament, as I'm sure you know. Second,
the tuning
systems of the rest of the world are related in many ways
to the Western tuning system and tend to use small integer ratios
(with
some exceptions, such as gamelan). From something I'm currently
working on:
The oldest Western theory of musical consonance is due to Pythagoras:
Musical consonance is determined by the ratios of small whole
numbers.
The principle was that intervals of small integer ratios produced
harmonies
that were pleasing and mathematically pure. The Pythagorean tuning
system is the oldest extant Western system devised explicitly
according
to this principle, and is thought to have been devised by Pythagoras
himself.
Interestingly, the available evidence suggests that a scale
similar to this
was already in use in the West before any mathematical principle was
advanced to describe its structure. According to Iambiclus?s Life of
Pythagoras (Guthrie, 1987), Pythagoras did not invent the
Pythagorean scale,
he discovered a principle to explain a scale that was already in use.
A related
tuning system, Just Intonation (JI), originally proposed by Ptolemy
(Hunt, 1992),
derives all interval ratios in relation to one single tonic, and
chooses the smallest
possible integer ratios that divide the octave (approximately)
equally. Just
intonation satisfies the principle of small integer ratios more
nearly than the
Pythagorean, and it is sometimes referred to as the natural scale.
The three largest non-Western tuning systems are Indian, Chinese and
Arab-Persian.
Each of these has inclusive 12-tone scales whose frequency
relationships are
similar to the Western chromatic scales. Two of these systems, the
Indian and the
Arab-Persian, use more than 12 intervals per octave (Burns, 1999).
The musical
systems of India are theoretically based on 22 intervals per octave.
However, the
basic scale consists of 12 tones tuned according to a form of just
intonation.
The remaining 10 tones are slight variations of certain intervals,
the exact frequencies
of which depend upon the individual melodic framework (raga) being
played. The
Arab-Persian system theoretically employs intervals that bisect the
distance between
Western chromatic intervals. However, there is some controversy as to
the exact number
of possible intervals and the actual intervals produced in
performance. Most sources
list the small integer ratio tuning relationships.
Ed
On Feb 28, 2007, at 1:41 AM, Susan Allen wrote:
It is astonishing to me that all of you are talking about western
scales and octaves! This is not the music of the world! This is
colonial music, discovered in the West....
The WORLD of music does not follow Pythagorean intervals! There
are many more notes!
FORGET perfect pitch - it only has to do with relative pitch on the
piano keyboard - within the Western (colonial) paradigm!
Susan Allen PhD
http://music.calarts.edu/~susie
On Feb 27, 2007, at 10:03 PM, Annabel Cohen wrote:
Dear Martin and Stewart and others:
I am willing to concede that sensitivity to overlapping
harmonics may
not be the basis of the musical and octave sensitivity of monkeys;
what remains unclear to me is whether there is an "octave circular
pitch processor" or rather than a "small-integer / periodicity-
sensitive processor".
If there is only an "octave circular pitch processing" to
account for
octave generalization, one would predict performance in monkeys on
transpositions to the perfect fifth (ratio 3/2 = 7 semitones
up) to
be as poor as performance on transposition to the tritone (half
octave = 6 semitones). A study including the perfect fifth
transposition has not been carried out to the best of my knowledge.
If performance were superior for the perfect fifth, the "octave
processor" theory would be incomplete.
How also does one explain the monkey's superior performance on
tonal
as opposed to atonal melodies, when tonal melodies are
characterized
by tones related by small integer ratios (though typically not
octaves) as compared to tone relations in atonal melodies.
Annabel
On 24 Feb 2007 at 0:43, Martin Braun wrote:
Dear Annabel, Stew, and others,
Annabel Cohen wrote:
"The evidence in this paper [
http://web.telia.com/~u57011259/Wright.htm ] for octave
generalization for tonal melodies by rhesus monkeys is impressive,
however, whether this reflects something special about sensitivity
to the octave (chroma) rather than sensitivity to the overtone
series or periodicity is still not clear from this study."
Sorry, it IS clear from this study. The authors reported that
generalization over the distance of two octaves is even stronger
than that over the distance of one octave. This finding definitely
rules out the possibility that the monkeys generalized
according to
similarities in the sound spectrum (harmonics). The only remaining
possibility is that the monkeys, the same as humans, have an
octave
circular pitch processing, which provides the basis for a chroma
percept.
Martin
------------------------------------------------------------------
--
- Martin Braun Neuroscience of Music S-671 95 Klässbol Sweden web
site: http://w1.570.telia.com/~u57011259/index.htm
------- End of forwarded message -------Annabel J. Cohen, Ph. D.
Department of Psychology
University of Prince Edward Island
Charlottetown, P.E.I. C1A 4P3 CANADA
e:mail acohen@xxxxxxx
phone: (902) 628-4325 office; (902) 628-4331 lab
fax: (902) 628-4359
www.upei.ca/~musicog
www.upei.ca/~cmtc
--
James D. Miller, Ph.D.
Principal Scientist
Communication Disorders Technology, Inc.
Indiana University Research Park
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