Subject: Training / talent / AP and vowels From: Kevin Austin <kevin.austin(at)VIDEOTRON.CA> Date: Sun, 2 May 2004 04:56:48 -0400>From: Toth Laszlo <tothl(at)INF.U-SZEGED.HU> >Subject: Re: Computational ASA -- how many sources can humans perceive? > >Exactly my question. How much does this ability depend on training >and/or talent? Is anyone able to learn it? Are there any data on >this? and >Well, I mean "statistical" evidence, probably from those who teach >music. How this ability is distributed accross the population, is it >dependent on age or gender, are there "hopeless" students who are >simply not able to learn etc. I have only anecdotal data (35 years of teaching music), plus my own experience. My current view is that people come with their own 'natural' limits and training / education allows them to reach these limits. When this 'limit' is reached a 'learning plateau' is reached before much more 'learning' can take place. In my own case these plateaus can last from around 5 - 10 to 30 or more years. I feel it is less that I "learn", than I 'open' myself. (I sometimes equate it to plant growth.) Also in my experience, older people 'open' more slowly, but exhibit aspects of their capacity very easily. I have done 'quick ear-training tests' (in the form of 5 minute placement tests) for something over 2,000 people, and ear-training classes with over 2,000. For some reason, I have developed the knack of being able to 'feel' the perceptual limits of many of them simply (?!) by engaging in conversation for half-a-minute or so. Having spent much time paying very close attention to intonation curves and speech rhythms as 'personality markers' (for examples, listen to Mozart operas), for native english speakers (my mother tongue), I very often "get" a sense of these limits in that 30 seconds -- the 'testing' (intervals, rhythms (by ear), and melodies) strongly tends to confirm my first rough assessment. In my experience, the perceptual (and performance limits) are not gender dependent, but in my sample group, more singers are female and more guitarists are male. Are there 'hopeless' students? I have found this to be highly contextual. I have met fine instrumentalists who have very poor (or almost non-existent) pitch reproduction capacity. Learning is often measured in a one-dimensional mode, characterized by being able to label the event, and in this case AP people not only discriminate, but label. I have met "hopeless" people who can 'discriminate' but not label. ("They are different, but I can't tell you how.) Most people I have met have different levels of discrimination and labeling. The example I give is to ask the class to find 10 different "greens" in the classroom, and then to give them each a name. >From: Susan Hall <susanhal(at)DAL.CA> >Subject: Re: AW: absolute pitch & animals > > >When I played in a band at school, a bunch of us had fun for a while >trying to see who could sing, hum or whistle the tuning note most >closely each morning before the band director played it. We all got >very good at it (none of us were APers). In discussing how we did it, >one possible cue we considered was motor rather than perceptual - for >that one note, we learned the vocal tract conformation (for singing), or the lip tension (for whistling). For 10 years or so I started all ear-training classes with having everyone sing "D", for anywhere from 2 minutes to 10 (or more) minutes. I encouraged 'visualization' of the environment telling them to 'see' coming into the room and standing in a large circle and then to sing the "D". It my have been conditioned reflex development rather than ear (AP), but many people reported being able to 'sing' the D at will. Few reported being able to identify it without singing (or subvocalization). >Date: Sat, 1 May 2004 23:57:48 -0400 >From: chen-gia tsai <tsai.cc(at)LYCOS.COM> >Subject: Re: absolute pitch & formant frequency wrote in part .. >perception of vowels requires an absolute frequency scale, so >everyone should have some type of AP. Or perhaps they are processes which we label as some kind of AP but may be something else. I think here of the problems related to understanding accent and dialect. A vowel is identified "in context". I speak a strange hybrid of RP and 'kind of Canadian', where these three words have the _same_ vowel: shore, sure, Shaw, although in my mind's ear, I hear three different vowels. In saying the phrase: "I am sure that Shaw stood on the shore." most speakers I deal with (Canadian students, both native anglophone and francophone) have more than one vowel (diphthong value) for these, yet when I use the same value for all three, the difference is recognized as one of 'accent', not incorrect usage of a word. (I belive it is not heard as "I am sure that sure stood on the sure.") I refer to this as being the size of the 'window of acceptability' for the vowel, which is (I believe) contextual (learned).