source file: mills2.txt Date: Sun, 8 Oct 1995 13:54:33 -0700 Subject: Re: Brian's posts From: Bill Alves As Gary pointed out, Brian's posts sometimes present explosively amusing moments, none for me better than this epistomological conumdrum: > FACT: Because of the phenomenon of > categorical perception, none of us know > we actually hear--as opposed to what > our ear/brain system brainwashes us > into *believing* we hear. The only way to > actually *determine* what you're > hearing (rather than what you *think* > you're hearing) is to use double-blind > psychoacoustic tests. Well, none of the music that I'm familiar with is listened to with double-blind tests. We all hear just what we believe we hear. (How is hearing otherwise possible?) I agree that culture, learning, and a whole range of acoustical factors determine how we hear intervals (or virtually anything!), and, whether we as composers choose to embrace those factors or work against them, they are the foundation for musical listening. To say that listeners "prefer" a certain interval or that they find it more "consonant" in a psychoacoustical test is useless without a musical context. Brian in an earlier post seemed to support a subjective definition of consonance and dissonance, but this seems to be contradicted by the many sources he quotes to try to disprove the theory that consonance is determined by the relative smallness of numbers in a ratio. Don't get me wrong, though. I think that psychoacoustical research is very valuable for composers. The impressionist painters were able to exploit discoveries in the science of vision to invent new and artistically effective techniques. But does their use of science make the art better? Can we say that science therefore "supports" the impressionist techniques over those of, say, the cubists? Of course not. It is meaningless to say that discoveries in science "support" any aesthetic position, and the choice of a tuning system is an artistic one, just as is the rhythm, the melody, the harmony (if, indeed, such elements exist at all). When I write a piece, I don't see any choice but to write it the way I want to hear it. Maybe my ears are "fooling" me, but I would rather trust them than numbers in a prestigious scientific journal. My ultimate aim is for listeners to share enough of my cultural background, learning, and physiology for my composition to effectively communicate a rewarding musical experience. Bill Alves alves@hmc.edu http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/ Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Mon, 9 Oct 1995 16:53 +0100 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id HAA08810; Mon, 9 Oct 1995 07:52:48 -0700 Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 07:52:48 -0700 Message-Id: <9510090747.aa29053@cyber.cyber.net> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu