Subject: Re: Linearity as pitch perception: was Perception as memory From: Leon van Noorden <leonvannoorden@xxxxxxxx> Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 17:20:33 +0200 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>FYI: I include at the bottom the url to a manuscript, about which I talked a few days ago and that seems to have never been published, but I found it scanned on the web. It may be of interest to some of you. Dear Kevin, my perception is a bit different. Contour is certainly important for me. It has a lot to do with the movement of the music. I do not make confusions between tones a third or a fourth apart, but between tones that have the same vowel in their labels. And only if I put time pressure on my judgements. It never felt that tones a fifth, fourth or third apart are more closely related than their distance in steps on the diatonic scale, which is the case with the octave (where you came home again). I recently heard the same comment of two jazz musicians, that they have only AP for the scales in which they play. It seems that in jazz only a few scales are used. It was true in the time that I had to make music dictations, very long ago, that I had to reconstruct the interval or chord from the notes. It does not mean that you could not say what kind of chord it was from the sound, such a major or minor. here is the url: http://www.eric.ed.gov:80/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/35/95/75.pdf I received it from Saul Sternberg in 1975. I also found the obituary concerning the author: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/Peabody/SMPY/CarrollObit.pdf Leon On 01 Sep 2009, at 16:13, Kevin Austin wrote: > Thank you Leon. This is my third noted instance of the 'non- > linearity' of pitch (perception) among three people possessing AP. > > While I do not wish to speak for Eliot Handelman, a number of years > ago (perhaps 5 or more) in a discussion with him the topic turned to > a series of melodic dictations, sight-singing and theory exercises I > had prepared. He asked me something like "What is this thing with > melodic contour?", and went on to, as I understood it, indicate that > he did not think that 'contour analysis' was necessarily valid. He > will clarify what he said and what he meant. At the time, I thought > he either had very poor hearing (which did not seem to be the case), > or perhaps he had residual elements of AP, perhaps (as I thought) > from taking violin lessons (or piano lessons) at a very young age. > > Just before that, I had had the experience with a number of oriental > students in my classes who exhibited an unusual (to me) form of AP. > They were fine naming notes in the C and G pentatonic scales, and > the intervals associated with them, that is, all intervals except > the semitone and tritone. In these cases, there was confusion in > interval identification between them. To me, one was "close", and > the other "more distant". I pondered. > > When they sang melodies, in general, the pentatonic notes of C and > G, were well-placed and in tune. The other notes, (context > dependent) were placed 'somewhere between' these points of reference > -- they were 'variable' (or lost) pitches. Since then, I have > equated this to having a clear pitch grid for certain notes, and the > others being "somewhere between". > > Leon's email indicates that there is confusion of pitches which are > a third and a fourth apart. My experience in this is that people > with good relative pitch may make (contextual) semitone errors, or > confuse P4 and P5. I had mentioned before the heretical view that AP > individuals do not hear intervals and chords (as integrated) in the > same way that relative pitch individuals do. I'm not sure that we > live in the same perceptual world. > > > Best > > Kevin > > > >> Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 22:07:46 +0200 >> From: Leon van Noorden <leonvannoorden@xxxxxxxx> >> Subject: Re: Perception as memory >> >> ... > >> Long ago I have also performed some reaction time studies on note >> identification. With me as the only subject. >> Under pressure I made quite a lot confusion errors between fa and >> la and between si and mi. >> >> So I think that AP subjects use a connection between the chroma and >> the tone height dimensions of pitch.