Re: place pitch and temporal pitch (Al Bregman )


Subject: Re: place pitch and temporal pitch
From:    Al Bregman  <al.bregman(at)mcgill.ca>
Date:    Tue, 23 Mar 2004 00:36:13 -0500

Dear Martin, Ward, Eli, and List, I think that the question of whether to call the perceived difference between a 4-kHz and an 8-kHz tone "pitch" or "timbre" is a largely verbal argument. It would be more productive to talk in terms of mechanism. For those who make a distinction between "pitch height" and "chroma", pitch height is conceived as the quality that distinguishes a C# from the C# one octave above it, and chroma as what distinguishes a C# from a D in any octave. To restate those ideas, chroma - critical in western music - is thought to derive from the timing mechanism, and pitch height to come from the place mechanism. It is thought that chroma, while it is very precise, poops out above 4-5 kHz, since it is based on neural periodicity, whereas pitch height, based on the place mechanism, is imprecise but continues up to the upper limit of hearing. Whether we want to view the perceptual contribution of the place mechanism as a component of pitch or of timbre is arbitrary. Some noise bands are perceived as higher than others. Do you want to call that difference pitch? You pays your money and you takes your choice. It partly depends on whether or not you want to define pitch as the quality that is capable of forming melodies (as a music theorist might do) or merely as that quality of experience that moves continuously upward -- not necessarily in equally discriminable steps -- with an increase in the frequency of a stimulus (not necessarily a sinusoidal one). Al --------------------------------------------- Albert S. Bregman Emeritus Professor Psychology Dept., McGill University 1205 Docteur Penfield Avenue Montreal, Quebec Canada H3A 1B1 --------------------------------------------- ----- Original Message ----- From: "Martin Braun" <nombraun(at)TELIA.COM> To: <AUDITORY(at)LISTS.MCGILL.CA> Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 10:09 AM Subject: Re: place pitch and temporal pitch > Dear Ward, Eli, and others, > > on Friday, March 19, 2004, Ward R. Drennan wrote: > > > I've heard 4KHz and 8KHz sinusoids and the 8KHz always sounds higher than > > the 4 KHz. It's not timbre--- because it's a different pitch. > > "Highness" is not a sufficient quality for pitch. All sounds have > "highness", but not all sounds have pitch. "Highness" is a sufficient > quality for a timbre component, though. > > We should not be misled by the clean output of our lab machinery. In > electroacoustics, pure tones of 4 and 8 kHz are signals of one type. In > human hearing they are not. > > Above about 4-5 kHz pure tones lose their normal ability to evoke relative > or absolute pitch, and melodies can no longer be heard. For the human > auditory system such signals are reduced to tiny stimuli on the timbre map. > > > On Sunday, March 21, 2004, Israel Nelken wrote: > > > In general, I think one should be careful when invoking natural sounds > > since the auditory system of most mammals is pretty generalized. Cats > > evolved in the desert, but do extremely well in modern cities. > > There are not many pure tones in modern cities, either. At least not any > that the cat couldn't well do without. > > Martin > > -------------------------------- > Martin Braun > Neuroscience of Music > S-671 95 Klässbol > Sweden > web site: http://w1.570.telia.com/~u57011259/index.htm >


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