But more seriously, my point was not a value judgement, and the quote wasn't mine. My view is that perception (and the organization of perception) is uniquely individual. In this way, it may be that I have an experience called "melody" of which someone with AP has no concept of, in the way I perceive it. This appears to me (from experience) to be true of "tonality" -- having met few "tonally hearing people". Many of the theorists and musicians I have discussed this with seem to be "descriptive" about tonality, rather than 'structural'. Maybe this is one of the directions this discussion has been leading for the past 50 years? The question of "object" / "process".
Kevin On 2009, Sep 2, at 10:23 PM, Eliot Handelman wrote:
Kevin Austin wrote:From which one would predict that APers would make especially poor composers, their music lacking the kinds of structures observed in the kind of music that non-APer's appreciate. Obviously this is not true.From Parncutt & Levitin, Absolute Pitch: (abstracted)They, AP possessors, may work out integrated qualities (intervals and chords) by reconstructing them from the notes (note names), rather than perceiving an 'integrated' sonority (Miyazaki, 1992, 1993). There is the proposition that "melody" is not heard, but rather a string of pitches passing by.APers hearing melodies as "a string of pitches" also doesn't account for the fact that many APers do enjoy music.-- eliot