Re: Perception as memory ... (David Smith )

Subject: Re: Perception as memory ... From: David Smith <smithd@xxxxxxxx> Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:25:07 -0500 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY> This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --_----------=_1251235507154900 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Well,=A0 AP isn't needed for cognition of tonal centers.=A0 But the "serious music theory" people don't seem to have done much analysis of these things, so that "other thread" probably won't happen any time soon. Tonal mapping is affected by =A0=A0 pitch (low notes have a greater effect) =A0=A0 order (perhaps more so in melodic material) =A0=A0 how often the note is repeated (perhaps more so in polyphonic material) =A0=A0 relation to rhythmic accents (if present) =A0=A0 recent phrase boundaries (if memorable) =A0=A0 rate and pattern of modulation (how and how fast the tonal center changes) =A0=A0 degre to which the instruments are pitched ( a flute is "more pitche= d" than a drum). My experience is that tonal cognitive mapping can be very fast.=A0 Much faster than the changes indicated by "key changes" or even Shenkerian types of analysis which don't include memory length as a significant parameter.=A0=A0 Polyphonic music, for example, sti= ll "makes sense" even if the tonal center change on each beat.=A0=A0 The Beatles, particularly George Harrison, did many simple sounding songs which are propelled by alternate tonal centers on each beat.=A0 I hear multiple concurrent tonal centers in lots of music, particularly jazz. It's difficult to quantify because cognition of tonality and other qualities changes very much from audition to audition depending on the listeners frame of mind. In any case, wouldn't perception use different parts of the anatomy than memory? Hearing loss, for example, can be a lasting effect but I wouldn't call that memory. Dave Smith roughlight.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Diana Deutsch" To: AUDITORY@xxxxxxxx Subject: Re: [AUDITORY] Perception as memory ... Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:52:45 -0700 Hi Leon, Interesting! Jane Gitschier and her group at UCSF did a web study from which they concluded (as did others anecdotally before them) that AP labeling of notes tends to move in the upward direction with age, but in my recollection this claim wasn't accompanied by a test of statistical significance. I found that I was beginning to make semitone errors in either direction, but recently with some practice have been able largely to overcome this. I'm thinking that perhaps the basic alteration is peripheral in origin, but that one can compensate for it by readjusting ones categories centrally. Regards, Diana On Aug 25, 2009, at 12:44 AM, Leon van Noorden wrote: > 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 >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> > > --=20 Be Yourself @xxxxxxxx mail.com! Choose From 200+ Email Addresses Get a Free Account at www.mail.com! --_----------=_1251235507154900 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" <div> Well,  AP isn't needed for cognition of tonal centers.  B= ut the "serious music theory" people don't seem to have done much analy= sis of these things, so that "other thread" probably won't happen any t= ime soon. Tonal mapping is affected by    pitch (low no= tes have a greater effect)    order (perhaps more so in melodi= c material)    how often the note is repeated (perhaps more so= in polyphonic material)    relation to rhythmic accents (if p= resent)    recent phrase boundaries (if memorable)  &= nbsp; rate and pattern of modulation (how and how fast the tonal center cha= nges)    degre to which the instruments are pitched ( a flute = is "more pitched" than a drum). My experience is that tonal cognitiv= e mapping can be very fast.  Much faster than the changes indicated= by "key changes" or even Shenkerian types of analysis which don't include = memory length as a significant parameter.   Polyphonic music,= for example, still "makes sense" even if the tonal center change on ea= ch beat.   The Beatles, particularly George Harrison, did many <b= r>simple sounding songs which are propelled by alternate tonal centers on e= ach beat.  I hear multiple concurrent tonal centers in lots of mus= ic, particularly jazz. It's difficult to quantify because cognition = of tonality and other qualities changes very much from audition to audi= tion depending on the listeners frame of mind. In any case, wouldn't= perception use different parts of the anatomy than memory? Hearing loss= , for example, can be a lasting effect but I wouldn't call that memory. = Dave Smith roughlight.com <blockquote style=3D"border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: = 5px; padding-left: 5px;">----- Original Message ----- From: "Diana Deutsch" <ddeutsch@xxxxxxxx> To: AUDITORY@xxxxxxxx Subject: Re: [AUDITORY] Perception as memory ... Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:52:45 -0700 Hi Leon, Interesting! Jane Gitschier and her group at UCSF did a web study from which they concluded (as did others anecdotally before them) that AP labeling of notes tends to move in the upward direction with age, but in my recollection this claim wasn't accompanied by a test of statistical significance. I found that I was beginning to make semitone errors in either direction, but recently with some practice have been able largely to overcome this. I'm thinking that perhaps the basic alteration is peripheral in origin, but that one can compensate for it by readjusting ones categories centrally. Regards, Diana On Aug 25, 2009, at 12:44 AM, Leon van Noorden wrote: > 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 <= br> >> name notes flat - that's very interesting. Many people say that <= br> >> AP'ers begin to make errors in the sharp direction, but that's <b= r> >> not been my experience - it seems to me that there's a lot of <b= r> >> individual variation here. If by chance you know of a printed <b= r> >> 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 <b= r> >>> 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 <= br> >>> you hear that the cadence, as a full-close cadence, is >>> successful?" I do not hear it thus; I hear the Ab which occur= s >>> 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 theor= y >>> 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, tw= o >>> pieces of information came out. The famous one about Britten'= s >>> 'slipped' pitch, where C major in his later life mapped out a= s >>> B major, and the other that compared transposition to being <= br> >>> like reading in different fonts, but this didn't make sense t= o >>> 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 p= itch >>>> 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 tim= e. >>>> >>>> I quote from Arthur Rubenstein's autobiography: 'My young = >>>> years', in which he describes an interview he had with t= he >>>> great Professor Joachim when he was about four years old:= >>>> >>>> 'First he asked me to call out the notes of many tricky ch= ords >>>> he struck on the piano, and then I had to prove my perfec= t >>>> ear in other ways. And finally, I remember, he made me pl= ay >>>> 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 individ= ual -- >>>>> statistical in nature. >>>>> >>>>> The training example is interesting. What I didn't men= tion is >>>>> that in three cases I 'tested', synesthetes, all thre= e with >>>>> absolute pitch and absolute color, they did not have t= he >>>>> sensation of integration of the 10-note chord. They si= mple >>>>> named the 10 notes in ascending order on hearing the = sound >>>>> for under a second. My experience with some others wi= th >>>>> absolute pitch has been that they don't "hear" chords= . One >>>>> person told me that she did tonal harmonic analysis n= ot by >>>>> hearing the chord and its function, but by hearing th= e notes >>>>> and doing a rapid [reverse engineering] analysis. All= three >>>>> chose to be in the visual arts and keep music as a ho= bby. >>>>> >>>>> One of the three prepared a 10 meter-long score of the= first >>>>> movement of the Bartok Music for Strings, Percussion a= nd >>>>> Celeste, in graph form, by ear. Each pitch class was <= br> >>>>> 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 fro= m, and >>>>> the (low) quality headphones she used. She did this a= ll 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 b= e a >>>>> topic on continuous and quantized time. Another time = maybe. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Best >>>>> >>>>> Kevin >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> > > </ddeutsch@xxxxxxxx></blockquote> </div> --=20 <div>Be Yourself @xxxxxxxx mail.com Choose From 200+ Email Addresses Get a Free Account at <a href=3D"http://www.mail.com" target=3D"_bla= nk">www.mail.com</a>!</div> --_----------=_1251235507154900--

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