Subject: Re: Perception as memory ... From: Leon van Noorden <leonvannoorden@xxxxxxxx> Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:44:38 +0200 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>Hi Diana, my absolute labeling of notes has definitely gone up one step (a "do" sounds rather more like a "re"). I am 64 now. I have noticed this already quite some years now. 10 or 20 years. But I can shift my grid now quite easily. Something I could absolutely not do at younger age, say the first 20 years of my life. In the kind of experimental music I have been doing all my life and still do, in a small music group, I had to get rid of any standard tonal reference system. Only the sound counts. Regards, Leon On 25 Aug 2009, at 02:16, Diana Deutsch wrote: > Hi Kevin, > > I hadn't heard that anecdote about Benjamin Britten beginning to > name notes flat - that's very interesting. Many people say that > AP'ers begin to make errors in the sharp direction, but that's not > been my experience - it seems to me that there's a lot of individual > variation here. If by chance you know of a printed source about the > Benjamin Britten story, I'd be grateful to hear about it. > > Cheers, > > Diana > > > > On Aug 24, 2009, at 2:12 PM, Kevin Austin wrote: > >> Thanks Diana >> >> I am seldom serious about anything I say; life is too short to be >> taken seriously, and too serious to be taken lightly. >> >> My reference point, as I noted, [ ... My experience with some >> others with absolute pitch has been that they don't "hear" chords. >> One person told me that she did tonal harmonic analysis not by >> hearing the chord and its function, but by hearing the notes and >> doing a rapid [reverse engineering] analysis.... ] was four people >> with whom I have had this discussion. I did not reference "people >> with absolute pitch". >> >> From the discussions with these four (and a few others), I am >> considering that those with absolute pitch occupy a different >> perceptual universe than the one I live in. Regrettably, I may have >> tried to oversimplify the description. On occasion, special >> occasions, I ask the following question: "At the end of the second >> movement of the Beethoven Eighth Symphony, do you hear that the >> cadence, as a full-close cadence, is successful?" I do not hear it >> thus; I hear the Ab which occurs just before the end, even though >> it is 'canceled' by a following A, as shifting the tonal center >> from Bb to Eb. Over the years, three of my colleagues who have >> taught music theory have then told me that they ... actually don't >> hear tonally. This is another thread for another list. >> >> The individual with enough theory and absolute pitch then told me >> that s/he 'really couldn't tell' whether the key had changed, but >> the score indicates that it hadn't. I don't know what to make of >> these anecdotes. >> >> In one conversation about transposition and absolute pitch, two >> pieces of information came out. The famous one about Britten's >> 'slipped' pitch, where C major in his later life mapped out as B >> major, and the other that compared transposition to being like >> reading in different fonts, but this didn't make sense to me so I >> have not told anyone about it. >> >> I am not AP. >> >> >> ?? >> >> Best >> >> Kevin >> >> >> >> On 2009, Aug 24, at 4:23 PM, Diana Deutsch wrote: >> >>> >>> Dear Kevin, >>> >>> You can't be serious in saying that people with absolute pitch >>> don't 'hear' chords. It's true that we can pick out the names of >>> notes within a chord in addition to hearing it, but of course we >>> perceive pitch relationships at the same time. >>> >>> I quote from Arthur Rubenstein's autobiography: 'My young years', >>> in which he describes an interview he had with the great >>> Professor Joachim when he was about four years old: >>> >>> 'First he asked me to call out the notes of many tricky chords he >>> struck on the piano, and then I had to prove my perfect ear in >>> other ways. And finally, I remember, he made me play back the >>> beautiful second theme of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony after he >>> had hummed it. I had to find the right harmonies, and later >>> transpose the tune into another tonality'. >>> >>> Cheers, >>> >>> Diana >>> >>> >>> >>> Professor Diana Deutsch >>> Department of Psychology >>> University of California, San Diego >>> 9500 Gilman Dr. #0109 >>> La Jolla, CA 92093-0109, USA >>> >>> 858-453-1558 (tel) >>> 858-453-4763 (fax) >>> >>> http://deutsch.ucsd.edu >>> http://www.philomel.com >>> >>> >>> On Aug 24, 2009, at 7:05 AM, Kevin Austin wrote: >>> >>>> Thanks for the reply. >>>> >>>> My experience is that perception is unique and individual -- >>>> statistical in nature. >>>> >>>> The training example is interesting. What I didn't mention is >>>> that in three cases I 'tested', synesthetes, all three with >>>> absolute pitch and absolute color, they did not have the >>>> sensation of integration of the 10-note chord. They simple named >>>> the 10 notes in ascending order on hearing the sound for under a >>>> second. My experience with some others with absolute pitch has >>>> been that they don't "hear" chords. One person told me that she >>>> did tonal harmonic analysis not by hearing the chord and its >>>> function, but by hearing the notes and doing a rapid [reverse >>>> engineering] analysis. All three chose to be in the visual arts >>>> and keep music as a hobby. >>>> >>>> One of the three prepared a 10 meter-long score of the first >>>> movement of the Bartok Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste, >>>> in graph form, by ear. Each pitch class was represented by a >>>> different color (her color <-> pitch-class mapping). She reported >>>> difficulty in only one place, in the lead-up to the central >>>> (octave) unison, where certain inner voices appeared in the wrong >>>> octave. I think this had to do with the quality of the recording >>>> she was working from, and the (low) quality headphones she used. >>>> She did this all with relative ease and I realized (again) how >>>> dwarfish my own hearing is in such an environment. >>>> >>>> At some point in this on-going discussion, there may be a topic >>>> on continuous and quantized time. Another time maybe. >>>> >>>> >>>> Best >>>> >>>> Kevin >>> >>> >>> >>> >>