Klarinet Archive - Posting 000463.txt from 2001/02

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausmann1@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: strange intonation in warm up exercise
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 18:48:02 -0500

At 08:55 AM 2/12/2001 -0800, William Wright wrote:
> Our sense of hearing is a physical phenomenon also --- namely,
>vibration of the bones & membranes in our ear, the stretch sensors in
>our ear that translate vibration into electrical discharges in the
>nerves, the processing that happens deeper in our cortex, and so forth.
>Certainly you can measure all of these things, and therefore they exist
>in a physical sense.
>
> But this doesn't affect the point under discussion --- namely, that
>the two materials (wall vs. ear/neural tissue) may respond in different
>ways to the air's vibration.

Different ways? Certainly. But whether measured in meters or feet,
electrons or hair movements, the phenomenon MEASURED is still the same.

> I am _not_ saying that the original acoustic wave lacks the
>information that causes us (and a tuner and the walls) to 'hear'
>difference tones.
> What I _am_ saying --- harking back to the comment that began this
>thread --- is that a tuner probably responds to a different subset of
>the information in an acoustic wave than the human ear does. Also, the
>tuner probably translates whatever part of the wave that it 'pays
>attention to' in a different way than neural tissue does. Therefore
>our perception of a difference tone is completely different from what a
>tuner perceives.
> In the above sense only, a 'difference tone' is manufactured inside
>our nervous system, not outside of it (IMO, of course).

Of course, the tuner (unless possibly a VERY good one, like a Peterson) is
biased to respond to the fundamental frequency and to ignore timbre. Is it
POSSIBLE that the tuner is responding to what it perceives as a new
resultant fundamental? Yes, but not likely, as it will be somewhat weaker
than the generating tones, and may even lie below the tuner's cutoff
frequency. Maybe what is happening with your tuner is that the two players
are unconsciously adjusting tuning to each other with their ears, and the
tuner is merely reflecting the adjustment that one player is making?

Bill Hausmann bhausmann1@-----.com
451 Old Orchard Drive http://homepages.go.com/~zoot14/zoot14.html
Essexville, MI 48732 ICQ UIN 4862265

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is TOO LOUD!

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