Re: Pitch learning

[Alfred Cramer <awc04747@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I agree with Ed Large that we should be careful of setting topics off 
limits because of the provincialism of past theorists. But I do observe 
a good deal of provincialism whenever I go to a music perception 
conference (though not so much, actually, in the current discussion of 
pitch learning!). Empirical musicologists could learn a lot from working 
like ethnographers (e.g. field linguists or ethnomusicologists), working 
intensively with individual informants and trying to get a handle on (a) 
precisely what they're doing and (b) what they think they're doing and 
why. Of course there's a fair amount of (a) out there, but as 
empiricists we usually set (b) off limits. That (b) is off limits is 
perhaps the main reason why musicologists and ethnomusicologists tend to 
dismiss empirical musicology -- along with an out-of-date suspicion of 
the notion that there are any perceptual or cognitive universals. That's 
their provincialism. A real meeting of the minds would be a good thing. 
We'd have to learn more, and so would they.

Allowing that generalizations are a good thing, I would argue that the 
common model that Ed reiterated--scales around the world being divided 
into 12, 22, 24 tones, depending on whom you read--isn't the best sort 
of generalization. In most of those musics, practitioners conceptualize 
the scales in terms of 7 or 8 basic pitches, but even those might be 
further reducible if, for example, you get modes (i.e. melodic patterns, 
not scales) that outline an ambitus of a perfect fourth. So--ironically 
in our discussion--we might make a stronger claim for the widespread use 
of harmonic intervals if we paid less attention to scales.

In my own training and experience as a violinist in the Western 
classical tradition, a 12-note pitch universe would be a distortion. For 
example, I was taught that at times I should play degree 7 of the major 
scale quite high ("raise the leading tone") to push toward the tonic. I 
was also taught that at times I should play it low, to harmonize with 
the dominant. And I was taught at times to fit it into a more-or-less 
equal tempered chromatic scale. (Case-by-case decisions among these 
options are made all the time in high-level orchestras and other 
ensembles.)  For historical and artistic reasons related to the 
principles I just stated, I am likely to play G# equal to or above Ab in 
music after 1800, but before 1800 I put G# below Ab. I was also taught 
to find pitches by listening to emergent timbres rather than attending 
to or "matching" pitch. I don't know whether empirical measurements 
would confirm whether I actually do what I think I do. But I do think 
the distinction between "harmonic" intonation and "expressive" 
intonation is not adequate. Different ways of conceptualizing pitches, 
intervals, and scales produce different patterns of intonation. It's 
probably true that they average out to an equal-tempered chromatic 
scale, but there's more to learn than that.

Finally, I think folks like Arnold Schoenberg and Ferrucio Busoni, as 
much as anybody, are responsible for the notion that any interval could 
be harmonically primary. (See James K Wright's recent book _Schoenberg 
and Wittgenstein_.) So it's a Western idea...

Thanks to all who have sustained this discussion.


Alfred Cramer
Assoc. Prof. of Music (Music Theory)
Pomona College




-------------------------------------------------------------
This message has been scanned by Postini anti-virus software.