How We Hear

[Bill Ballard]

Both David and Andre have described listening to tuning doe a 
specific way, David with respect to the bottom end of the piano and 
Andre, the number of partials audible during a unison tuning. I'd 
like a clarification in each case, to make sure I understand their 
experience (which BTW, I don't doubt for a minute).

At 8:09 AM -0700 10/20/04, David Andersen wrote:
>Fascinating subject. Again, stretching the bass MUSICALLY, until the
>perception of sound drops in your body from the head and neck to the chest
>and stomach,and then, for the last six notes on most pianos, a bit lower---
>So the fourth above is slowly rolling against the note being tuned---will
>usually satisfy most people.

Interesting to have the perception of an octave described in terms 
the location inside the body where its perceived. Yogic. Californian. 
So what is it that's moving that location downwards? The actual note 
of the keyboard as you walk down towards the bottom, or the process 
of stretching it wide from  its single octave note above?

If fundamental (1st partial) frequency as you go down the 100¢ steps, 
has anything to do with it, I can imagine how the perception of A0 
(however stretched) would want to locate itself further down the 
torso. However, if this relocation of the perception occurred as a 
result of the stretching of each of these last six notes, it would 
seem to be caused by much smaller ¢ deviations than the semitone 
steps.

At 11:49 PM +0200 10/18/04, antares wrote:
>Let me then tell you again about that lessons I once had : my 
>Japanese teacher once told me that my tuning that day had come out 
>very nice, but he told me that I used too much force in striking the 
>keys.
>So he ordered me to re-tune one octave by keeping the middle strings 
>intact and re-tune the left and right string of each unison in that 
>octave.
>So I did, and he once more corrected me. saying that I was still 
>banging too hard.
>I then banged a little less, and finished the octave.
>Then he asked me to listen to that very octave and compare it with 
>the neighboring octaves.
>I went out of my mind! that one specific octave was so much more 
>beautiful than the others!

That's the sound of the unisons which was being listened to after 
having been redone quietly, right?

>It has to do with the way we (unconsciously) listen to overtones : 
>you strike hard, you create an abundance of higher partials, you 
>strike less hard, you create a mix of lower partilas and higher 
>partials.

Agreed the mix of lower and higher partials is determined by how hard 
we strike, but on a hard blow, the lower partials are no less obvious 
(and as measured by a sophisticated spectrum analyzer, no smaller in 
comparison to the higher partials) than on a soft blow. What changes 
in the sound from soft blow to hard, is the emergence of the higher 
partials which feed on the extra strength of the blow.

>The result is a coarse and wide sounding tone, very rich in 
>overtones and very long sounding.
>That tone is a complimentary quality an experienced and musical tuner can use.
>If a given tuning is not really perfect (and I am convinced that at 
>least 95% of all tunings in the world are not 100% perfect) than we 
>can make up for the hopefully small errors by at least creating a 
>very rich tone.

This may be true, but, being the aural tuner which I still am after 
all of these years, I'm using the higher partials as a vernier fine 
adjustment on the fundamental during unison tuning. In some PTJ 
article it was mentioned that a "dead unison" is best done by 
zero-beating the highest partial we can hear. If a 7th partial (my 
favorite) beats at 1bps, I know the 1st is on a slow roll one beat 
every 7 seconds. (And the 2d every 3.5 secs, and so on.) If I slow 
the 7th beat rate down to 0.5bps, the period of the 1st partial's 
beat rate would stretch to 14 sec., and the slope of its rise and 
fall would be so mild as to be unusable in zero-beating that 1st 
partial. Much easier to slow the 7th partial beat rate from 1/2 bps 
to zero, rather than the 1st partial from 1/14 bps to zero.

So it's this fine tuning knob that I would have to do without, by 
tuning with a soft blow. Not that I bang my way through a tuning. But 
I would have to be playing very quietly not to hear the 7th partial 
even up into the 5th octave.

So, Andre, a clarification: were the unisons with the softer blow, 
done listening to individual partials although no higher than the 
4th, or were they done on the basis of the "whole sound", ie, the 
wave envelope of the entire sound regardless of what partials may be 
contributing beat rates?

If the latter, then we are back again to the discussion of whether a 
breathless unison is a dead tone. If the former, it's simply a matter 
of whether a breathless unison can be efficiently achieved, listening 
to and working with the 1st 4 partials only.

Thanks for the clarification, guys. I only "partially hear" you.

At 8:09 AM -0700 10/20/04, David Andersen wrote:
>Uhhh....52...weeks?  And 28....crystal cycles of the Blue Vibration?
>Please enlighten us, O wise Jeneetah.

52/28=1.8571428571. (Glad to help you out with the math, anytime. In 
public even. <G>)

>  > So you live out in LA and
>>  *don't* have a power-spirit to channel? <G>
>I DO SO have a power-spirit to channel---but my spirit has Tourette's
>And very, very bad gas.

You and most of the people crowded into NYC's sports bars two nights ago. <G>

>  > Myself as well. Although I came to piano tuning 30+ years ago with a
>>  good working knowledge of harmony and strong relative pitch, and thus
>>  discovered coincidental partials early on.
>I discovered them early on as well, but as an interesting "piece of the
>whole tone" rather than something to focus on.

I've always called that distinction "hearing the forest for the trees".