Subject: Re: On "learned" A/P, lattice / grid From: Leon van Noorden <leonvannoorden@xxxxxxxx> Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 18:22:55 +0200 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>Dear Kevin, I think it is very dangerous to conclude from what a subject can do, what it is he cannot do. Labeling pitches can only be done with the speed of internal speech and this is, as we know from the famous one page publication by Tom Landauer, as fast as really pronounced speech. However in music there are many more voices and often notes that are faster than syllables. All these notes are perceived in a holistic manner, exactly as happens in a non-AP subject. If it AP existed in Brady in a covert way chances are that it existed in you and all other people too. Did you spend a year to find it back? Kind regards, Leon On 02 Sep 2009, at 16:53, Kevin Austin wrote: > Thank you. The article is very interesting and informative. > > http://www.eric.ed.gov:80/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/35/95/75.pdf > > From Parncutt & Levitin, Absolute Pitch: (abstracted) > >>> They, AP possessors, may work out integrated qualities (intervals >>> and chords) by reconstructing them from the notes (note names), >>> rather than perceiving an 'integrated' sonority (Miyazaki, 1992, >>> 1993). There is the proposition that "melody" is not heard, but >>> rather a string of pitches passing by. > > http://books.google.com/books?id=IhFOe_bBb1UC&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&dq=%22I+don't+hear+melodies,+I+hear+pitch+names+passing+by.%22&source=bl&ots=4qII4vElNL&sig=6ZjUS-5KDXtyq_8PzuBX90p5EGQ&hl=en&ei=a36eSp6kLoq7lAe9oNSbDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#v > =onepage&q=%22I%20don't%20hear%20melodies%2C%20I%20hear%20pitch > %20names%20passing%20by.%22&f=false > > An equivalent to this for non-AP people would be to read a chinese > text, with a knowledge of how chinese characters are constructed > (radicals and combinations), but having no sense of what the > characters mean, or how they relate. > > > This seems to correspond to the statement: > >> Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 17:20:33 +0200 >> From: Leon van Noorden <leonvannoorden@xxxxxxxx> >> Subject: Re: Linearity as pitch perception: was Perception as memory >> >> 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. > > > As a non-AP listener, I hear (only) sets of relationships, and I > have developed large numbers of 'musical hierarchies' to categorize > these relationships. My hearing is (more or less) pattern-based, > what I refer to as 'process-oriented listening'. I note repetition, > variation, transformation, lattice / pattern matching etc. > > In the article cited, P T Brady says that he 'taught himself' AP -- > an idea that many have difficulty with. Count me in this group. As > with Eliot Handelman, my alternate interpretation is that the AP > existed, but some aspects of it had been extinguished for some > reason, and he had re-discovered it with a one year re-training. > > The visual model I use for this distinction is that used in certain > kinds of cross-country car racing where the instructions read: > Drive to the second traffic light, turn left > After five stop signs, turn right > One block after the school on your left, turn right > > Rather than: > Drive to Maple St, turn left' > At Walnut Street, turn right > After Oak Street School, turn right on Oak Street > > The first of these (similar to how I hear music), I build a kind of > chain, or lattice. It floats freely (usually about a P4 below the > absolute pitch level). The lattice is hierarchical, and contains > multiple referents. In tonal music, the scale degree ^3 will largely > identify a <t> tonic function, and ^7 will identify a <d> dominant. > ^4 or ^#4 I hear largely as <dp>, dominant preparation. Knowing (or > guessing) the key of the piece, I will visualize a score, and > through reverse-engineering, would write out the pitches I think I > hear. This appears to be the opposite method used by possessors of AP. > > FWIW, my understanding of Chomsky's transformational linguistics is > built upon the idea of relationships and hierarchies; language as a > form of variation and hierarchies. In (many? most?) Indo-european > languages, there are clusters of word types (verbs, gerunds, > adverbs,nouns etc), often based around some kind of root that > undergoes transformations: to think, thinking, thoughtfully, > thought ...), and while the 'absolute' form [well-formed] is learned > (with the exceptions), the mind is able to read that: > Ta-daye eye had gotten inta ma kar n wint duntoun > The translation of this, or machine reading of this, would likely be > more difficult. > > Jazz, if it is to be more than a stream of notes going by, can be > heard as song-form variation, and enjoyed for the inventiveness of > the musician. This may also be the case in other 'language > delimited' improvisations -- I think of north Indian and Persian > particularly, both of which have extensive ancient theories of music. > > Many years ago I worked on creating a database with the analysis of > Bach Chorales, and very quickly understood how Heinrich Schenker > came to his conclusions that western music is about structure, > relationships and hierarchy rather than objects -- relationships in > a lattice (being a spatial relationship), rather a grid (map) upon > which objects are fixed [absolutely]. > > > Best > > Kevin