How We Hear

[David Andersen]

Bill Ballard writes:
> Interesting to have the perception of an octave described in terms
> the location inside the body where its perceived. Yogic. Californian.
Another staid New Englander, Jeneetah. <g>
My friend Andre has written more elegantly than I could about using an
expanded body awareness in your craft and your life; I would say that
conscious, present-oriented humans in every culture have experienced
hearing, or seeing, or touching in a way somehow more subtle and
"whole-system" than just the presenting organs of perception. My whole---
schtick? craft? skillset?---is based on heavy, heavy reliance on my body as
a feedback loop, somehow beyond, or as an enhancement to, using just my ears
and eyes and skin on a piano. You can go ahead and call me
"Yogic. Californian."
I admit happily to both descriptions; but don't think for a minute that the
kind of perception I'm talking about is limited to any place or time or
mindset. 
 
> So what is it that's moving that location downwards?

The process of stretching it wide from its single octave note above.
Make the lower note "beatless" or "right" however you get there; then
move the lower tuning pin downward in micro-increments.  Feel, as much as
hear, the octave, in your chest or stomach.  At a a certain point of
stretching the octave, I definitely feel what I have always called a
"pressure drop," a definite downward change in where the note is perceived
in the body. 
When I check that stretch with whatever tests I use---almost always the 4th
and 5th above the low note---it's always very, very, very close to ideal.
My body is my friend. <g>

Best, 
David A.