Subject: Re: Perception as memory ... From: Diana Deutsch <ddeutsch@xxxxxxxx> Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:16:20 -0700 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>Hi Kevin, I hadn't heard that anecdote about Benjamin Britten beginning to name notes flat - that's very interesting. Many people say that AP'ers begin to make errors in the sharp direction, but that's not been my experience - it seems to me that there's a lot of individual variation here. If by chance you know of a printed source about the Benjamin Britten story, I'd be grateful to hear about it. Cheers, Diana On Aug 24, 2009, at 2:12 PM, Kevin Austin wrote: > Thanks Diana > > I am seldom serious about anything I say; life is too short to be > taken seriously, and too serious to be taken lightly. > > My reference point, as I noted, [ ... My experience with some others > with absolute pitch has been that they don't "hear" chords. One > person told me that she did tonal harmonic analysis not by hearing > the chord and its function, but by hearing the notes and doing a > rapid [reverse engineering] analysis.... ] was four people with whom > I have had this discussion. I did not reference "people with > absolute pitch". > > From the discussions with these four (and a few others), I am > considering that those with absolute pitch occupy a different > perceptual universe than the one I live in. Regrettably, I may have > tried to oversimplify the description. On occasion, special > occasions, I ask the following question: "At the end of the second > movement of the Beethoven Eighth Symphony, do you hear that the > cadence, as a full-close cadence, is successful?" I do not hear it > thus; I hear the Ab which occurs just before the end, even though it > is 'canceled' by a following A, as shifting the tonal center from Bb > to Eb. Over the years, three of my colleagues who have taught music > theory have then told me that they ... actually don't hear tonally. > This is another thread for another list. > > The individual with enough theory and absolute pitch then told me > that s/he 'really couldn't tell' whether the key had changed, but > the score indicates that it hadn't. I don't know what to make of > these anecdotes. > > In one conversation about transposition and absolute pitch, two > pieces of information came out. The famous one about Britten's > 'slipped' pitch, where C major in his later life mapped out as B > major, and the other that compared transposition to being like > reading in different fonts, but this didn't make sense to me so I > have not told anyone about it. > > I am not AP. > > > ?? > > Best > > Kevin > > > > On 2009, Aug 24, at 4:23 PM, Diana Deutsch wrote: > >> >> Dear Kevin, >> >> You can't be serious in saying that people with absolute pitch >> don't 'hear' chords. It's true that we can pick out the names of >> notes within a chord in addition to hearing it, but of course we >> perceive pitch relationships at the same time. >> >> I quote from Arthur Rubenstein's autobiography: 'My young years', >> in which he describes an interview he had with the great Professor >> Joachim when he was about four years old: >> >> 'First he asked me to call out the notes of many tricky chords he >> struck on the piano, and then I had to prove my perfect ear in >> other ways. And finally, I remember, he made me play back the >> beautiful second theme of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony after he >> had hummed it. I had to find the right harmonies, and later >> transpose the tune into another tonality'. >> >> Cheers, >> >> Diana >> >> >> >> Professor Diana Deutsch >> Department of Psychology >> University of California, San Diego >> 9500 Gilman Dr. #0109 >> La Jolla, CA 92093-0109, USA >> >> 858-453-1558 (tel) >> 858-453-4763 (fax) >> >> http://deutsch.ucsd.edu >> http://www.philomel.com >> >> >> On Aug 24, 2009, at 7:05 AM, Kevin Austin wrote: >> >>> Thanks for the reply. >>> >>> My experience is that perception is unique and individual -- >>> statistical in nature. >>> >>> The training example is interesting. What I didn't mention is that >>> in three cases I 'tested', synesthetes, all three with absolute >>> pitch and absolute color, they did not have the sensation of >>> integration of the 10-note chord. They simple named the 10 notes >>> in ascending order on hearing the sound for under a second. My >>> experience with some others with absolute pitch has been that they >>> don't "hear" chords. One person told me that she did tonal >>> harmonic analysis not by hearing the chord and its function, but >>> by hearing the notes and doing a rapid [reverse engineering] >>> analysis. All three chose to be in the visual arts and keep music >>> as a hobby. >>> >>> One of the three prepared a 10 meter-long score of the first >>> movement of the Bartok Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste, >>> in graph form, by ear. Each pitch class was represented by a >>> different color (her color <-> pitch-class mapping). She reported >>> difficulty in only one place, in the lead-up to the central >>> (octave) unison, where certain inner voices appeared in the wrong >>> octave. I think this had to do with the quality of the recording >>> she was working from, and the (low) quality headphones she used. >>> She did this all with relative ease and I realized (again) how >>> dwarfish my own hearing is in such an environment. >>> >>> At some point in this on-going discussion, there may be a topic on >>> continuous and quantized time. Another time maybe. >>> >>> >>> Best >>> >>> Kevin >> >> >> >> >