 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: John Stackpole
Date: 2004-12-29 13:32
What is the smallest difference in pitch that a "normal" person (clarenet players are probably not "normal" but they will have to do) can distinguish?
I don't mean two notes played simultaneoulsy where you can hear (if you are good) beats, like piano tuners do, but one note then the other, in sequence.
And for units, I take it that a "cent" is 100th of a Hz, right? 440 and 441 differ by 100 cents?
JDS
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-12-29 13:38
You CAN hear (or at least I can hear) the difference between one hertz. Just take a tuner (I have a korg tuner) that sounds out an A 440, and adjust it up one. I can tell that the pitch has changed.
US Army Japan Band
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-12-29 13:40
As an addition, I think it also make sa difference as to WHAT hertz it is. Meaning it'd be easier for me to tell that a pitch has changed from A 440 to A 441 than from an A at 55 htz to 56htz (or even less).
US Army Japan Band
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Author: msloss
Date: 2004-12-29 13:48
A "cent" is actually the logarithmic division of a semitone into 100 intervals (1200 cents in an octave). To fix this in your mind, remember that each octave interval is a doubling of the frequency. So the A above a tuning A-440Hz is 880Hz. Next above that is 1760Hz, etc. Note to cut that octave into 1200 parts the Hertz value of a cent gets wider as the pitch rises.
The ear is extraordinarily sensitive to variations in pitch if the brain is attuned to it. Perhaps I should say that the ear has extraordinary physical capacity to sense variation that is not always well developed, since I have encountered all too many players who can't seem to hear a quarter-tone difference when they play.
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2004-12-29 13:51
100 cents is not a division of a Hertz but either the semitone or quarter tone . I'm not certain. It is easy to hear the difference between 440 hz and 441.....so probably most people can distinquish 1/2-1 hertz difference if they concentrate. Since high notes have more hertz....no pun.....I take it that 20 cents sharp on a high note is more hertz difference than a low note that is 20 cents sharp. so maybe it is easier to hear high notes that are sharp than low notes that are sharp. Excuse the broken English and the pseudo-scientific approach.
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: msloss
Date: 2004-12-29 13:57
Exactly the opposite. A 1 Hertz difference on a very low note is much more meaningful pitch-wise than for a high note. In the octave between 20Hz and 40Hz a single cycle/second is not much less than a semitone. Quite audible.
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-12-29 14:15
Mark brings up a very good point. After thinking about it, it should be easier to tell the difference of a hertz in a much lower frequency because one hertz in a low frequency changes the pitch much more than one hertz at a higher frequency.....
Example: 27.5 hertz would be four octaves lower than an A 440. But the octave equivalent of 28.5 would be 456 htz. Much like the difference between an old clarinet labeled HP (high pitch) and LP (low pitch) - which are clearly different as people here routinely advise against buying HP clarinets since they cannot be tuned well enough to play with everyone else.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2004-12-29 15:54
Bass player here (I used to get paid both in performing and in studio work - many years ago) ...
Pitch discrimination at the lower frequencies is poor in most people. I could have my bass guitar substantially out of tune before it became noticable to the band during a performance (not so for studio work!). The audience wouldn't even know. I'd be bending notes to pitch in the middle of a song - rough when you have to bend all of them. I'll bet John Moses has a few war stories of the string players having to coax good sounds out of new strings - in the pit there aren't enough instruments to cover a problem, and in the studio you're literally 100% exposed all the time.
New strings are the bane of every string performer - they sound great and go flat in minutes, even afer all the pre-stretching exercises and voodoo is invoked.
I have a recording of Also Sprach Zarathrusta where you don't notice how flat the low notes of the organ are relative to the orchestra except at the very end where that (32'?) note is all alone ... and flat by some gross amount.
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2004-12-29 21:33
I'm not giving up yet....just from experience...as stated pitch discrimination in lower notes is more difficult....how do you account for this phenomenon if your assertion is correct ie...one hertz out in a low note should be easier to recognize?
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2004-12-29 21:40
Arnoldstang wrote:
> ...one hertz out in a low note should be easier to recognize?
???
I said the opposite.
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2004-12-29 21:47
I was responding to MS Moss....asserting....proportional aspect of 1 hertz....
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2004-12-29 21:50
Arnoldstang wrote:
> I was responding to MS Moss....asserting....proportional aspect
> of 1 hertz....
Make sure you reply in the right chain.
It's intutively obvious. There are only 20 Hz in in 20-40 Hz octave, 440 in a 440-880 octave.
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2004-12-29 22:03
Mark, I will do some experiments with my tuner rather than theorize. Thanks...
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2004-12-29 22:07
Arnoldstang wrote:
> Mark, I will do some experiments with my tuner rather than
> theorize. Thanks...
 - It's ain't theorizing - cents, octaves, and hertz are all definitions, and the relationships are all mathematical.
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2004-12-29 22:12
Mark ......they aren't definitions.....they have definitions....and mathematics is involved.....but we are talking about perception...
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-12-30 01:23
There's got to be a certain "range" of easily recognizable notes. I'm sure that too high, you wouldn't be able to tell between one whiney noise and another. Too low, and any rumble seems the same. I wonder what the most effective range as far as differentiation is. Probably different for every person, but on the average . . .
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2004-12-30 06:39
We had a class about this subject, and out teacher actally had a research about this. I don't remember exactly, but it was something around the 3 cent differenct that is noticable if both notes are played one after the other.
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Author: clarinetist04
Date: 2004-12-30 06:39
Hmmm.... all I can recall is that when I see that I'm 20 cents sharp, I need to pull out, 20 cents flat and the barrel gets pushed back in. :-)
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Author: msloss
Date: 2004-12-30 15:18
Hertz (cycles per second) are a linear measure of period/wavelength and pitch is a logarithmic measure. Yes, the ear has poorer pitch discrimination and localization in the bottom octave, but you will still clearly hear the period doubling between a 32' and 16' stop on the organ even though the linear numeric difference measured in Hertz is rather small.
To clarify the point about difference in Hertz for low vs. high notes, think of a string. If you vibrate the string you get a pitch. If you cut it in half and vibrate it, you get half the wavelength (double the Hertz) and an octave higher pitch. You double a 20 Hertz tone and get an octave higher at 40 (difference of 20Hz). If you raise it another octave by cutting the wavelength in half again, you are now at 80Hz, now a 40Hz step-up and 1/4 of the original wavelength. It takes more cycles per second to jump an octave as you climb the overtone series.
John, your tuner measures logarithmically like you perceive pitch so it won't fully answer your question. Look on the web for a shareware oscilliscope with a tone generator and play with that. That will both sonically and visually explain the phenomenon.
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Author: Burt
Date: 2004-12-30 15:20
As msloss wrote, a cent is a logarithmic division of a semitone, with 100 cents = one semitone.
If you play a 20Hz note (far below a bass clarinet range) and switch to a 21Hz note, you would hear a 1Hz "beat" but the notes would differ by nearly a semitone. For a 440Hz note (clarinet "B"), the 1Hz difference is only about 4 cents, better than I can tune in anything except a perfect environment; in this pitch range, the "beats" technique is very sensitive.
In the clarinet range, I find that I can hear a difference of appx 10 cents between two notes played in succession in an otherwise quiet environment. At the bottom of my singing range, my sensitivity (in cents) is not nearly that good. This agrees with Mark's statement.
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Author: Bennett ★2017
Date: 2004-12-30 17:06
John Backus, The Acoustical Foundations of Music, (New York 1969), page 113 says:
"...the ear is able to hear quite small changes in pitch. At frequencies up to about 1000 cycles per second, the ear can hear changes of about 3 cycles per second. This accounts for the poor pitch discrimination at the low end of the hearing range. At 30 cycles per second, for example, a 3-cycle-per-second change amounts to 10 percent.....about two semitones. At 1000 cycles per second a change of 3 cycles per second is 0.3 percent, which is equivalent to 0.05 semitones. At higher frequencies the pitch discrimination stays constant at about 0.25 percent, or 0.04 semitones."
Arthur Benade, Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics (New York 1976), reminds us that musical instruments are not sine wave generators - thus the frequencies of the harmonics of two fundamentals are more widely spread apart than the fundamentals, e.g., (fundamentals of 20 and 21 Hz, 1 Hz apart have 2nd harmonics that are 2 Hz apart.). The harmonics come into play when determining whether two pitches are the same or different.
Donald Hall, Musical Acoustics, (California 1990), page 402 says:
"How accurately do our ears judge these interval sizes? The categorical perception experiments suggest that with sine waves we may easily tolerate deviations of 50 cents either way from a standard, expecially if we are not consciously trying to detect mistuning. The obviously sour notes in a beginners' band rehearsal may be 30 cents to 50 cents off, but the presence of higher harmonics in these nonsinusoidal waves makes such errors much less tolerable. And measurements in actual performance by professional musicians indicate that deviations of 10 cents to 20 cents are common..."
"[But] ... the ear my be much more discriminating. Let a well-trained musician with a 'good ear' listen deliberately for mistuning, with plenty of time to consider his judgements, and he (or she) may consistently reproduce an interval well within 5 cents ..."
The authors remark, too, that volume level affects sensitivity.
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Author: BobD
Date: 2004-12-30 17:23
Well, John, you did it again! Only trust a tuner....or a tuning fork.
Bob Draznik
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2004-12-30 19:33
Thanks msloss I will check out shareware oscilloscope... Re Bennett.....This all sounds pretty impressive but I take issue with the John Backus quote...p113....ear can hear changes of about 3 cycles up to 1000 cps... ...explain why I can easily discern the difference between an A that sounds at 440 or 441 or 442....In this tessitura it seems possible to discriminate between two notes with a difference of 1 cps? Did I misread this quote? thanks
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: Bennett ★2017
Date: 2004-12-30 21:30
John W
Backus cites as his authority a study in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (III;1932, pp. 275-87) but doesn't specify the test conditions. Perhaps the tests were done with sine waves which are harder to discriminate than musical pitches, perhaps the subjects were non-musicians, perhaps you have an especially good ear, perhaps the time interval between tones was very very short..
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2004-12-31 01:42
Perhaps....can't you distinguish between an A that is 440 and 441? Just turn on a tuner and listen. I think it is pretty clear.
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: Bennett ★2017
Date: 2004-12-31 05:02
I tried listening to piano (not tuner) notes on my inexpensive electronic keyboard. Using its tuning feature (+/- buttons) I found that I had to raise or lower A440 by 5 or 6 cents to barely hear what I thought was a difference. I could not do an instantaneous A/B comparisons since it takes about .5 second to adjust the pitch. I had to alter pitch by ~10 cents to fully convince myself that I could discern a difference.
If I've done the math right, 441 is ~4 cents higher than 440.
All of the above is consonant with what Burt said above, (immediately preceding my first posting.)
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Author: John Stackpole
Date: 2004-12-31 10:36
The human mind is awfully suseptible to suggestion, however - "placebo effect" and all that.
If you "know" there is going to be a pitch difference, perhaps because you are fiddling with a tone generator, you might very well "hear" it, no matter what.
A proper double blind test would settle the question - at least for any one individual.
But I'd bet the ability to hear differences varies in the population; many such d-blind tests would have to be run and combined statistically.
And I'll further bet that they have been - Helmholtz?
JDS
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2004-12-31 11:01
"A proper double blind test would settle the question"
That is exactly what oneof my teachers did. She is a prof. of acoustics and all those stuff and she said a lot of research just like the blind you suggested has been done. If I get the chance I will ask her again.
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2004-12-31 13:05
Bennett....I love your use of the word consonant...very colorful and musical.. Finally the discussion is leaving the realm of objectivity....at least that is what I am perceiving...maybe I am fooling myself about this whole matter....or maybe not... I do think that musicians should be the testers here not the guy/girl off the street. Perhaps the non musician would only begin hearing a difference at 3 cps. Is there anyone else out there who has a tuner......set it at A 440 sound A....then readjust to A441.... let me know....can you hear a difference.(even if you are fooling yourself)
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: bill28099
Date: 2004-12-31 22:43
I think we have missed the point here as the human sensory system is wonderful at detecting differences but not so good at detecting absolutes (perfect pitch). I worked for years with color printers and know that the eye cannot, without reference, detect differences but when those differences are placed side by side it is very evident, i.e., banding. The same thing occurs with sound. Play me 440 and then 441 and my ear can't tell the difference but play me 440 and 441 at the same time and difference are very evident because of the beating.
A great teacher gives you answers to questions
you don't even know you should ask.
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2005-01-01 03:46
Missed the point. My question still stands....use a tuner...have it sound A 440 and then change it to sound A441.....I here a difference ....doesn't any one else in this world?
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: msloss
Date: 2005-01-01 04:25
OK -- yes, I can hear the difference. Now do the same thing 3 octaves higher and lower. You'll get a different result. This is what a piano tuner has to cope with on a grand piano, and the great ones do it by ear (and darned well I might add).
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2005-01-01 12:33
Thanks....my point was in reference to the quote in Bennett's entry...stating people can only discriminate approx 3 cps in the 1000 hertz area. I took issue with the quote.
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2005-01-03 18:37
The organ is always flat in Also Sprach Zarathrusta because the brassholes have gone at least a quarter tone sharp by the time they blast out the preceding chord.
Johnny Reinhard, founder of the Americam Festival of Microtonal Music, http://www.afmm.org/, says he has trained himself to hear differences of 1 cent (1/100 of a semitone), and the organization gives performances where they differentiate among various tuning systems.
I can't find it now, but in a posting (I think on the Klarinet board), a player of Turkish music, which uses several intervals smaller than our half step, says that at a concert, one famous musician walked out in a rage because another famous musician used the wrong microtonal interval.
And, then, tuning often depends on what's happening at the moment, and where the phrase is going. http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2004/11/000305.txt
And things get worse. A piano that's tuned to exact multiples in each octave will sound out of tune. The octaves have to be "stretched" to keep internal resonances from clashing. Dave Renaud, a professional piano tuner, has discussed this several times. See, among others, his postings at:
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=56315&t=56276
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2004/09/000081.txt
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2004/09/000084.txt
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2004/09/000086.txt
Good tuning to all, and a happy new year.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Michael E. Shultz
Date: 2005-01-05 00:32
I used my Peterson 520 strobe tuner, which can both listen to and play pitches. At 440Hz (A3), I can hear the change in pitch when I crank the vernier either up or down by one-hundredth of a semitone. If I turn the volume down when I change pitch, so that I am hearing two distinct pitches instead of a slur, then it takes a change of about 5 hundredths of a semitone before I am sure that I hear a difference.
As a senior in high school, I could hear a 15KHz pitch. However, when I bought a test CD some years ago, I could no longer hear this pitch. With the help of a subwoofer and a lot of volume, I can hear the 20Hz pitch, though. It sounds an octave lower than the 40Hz pitch, so I do not think that I am hearing a higher harmonic instead of the fundamental. At the age of 48, my ears do not ring, but I suspect that it takes more volume for me to hear than it used to, and I have always had some problems in understanding speech when background noise is high. Telephone conversations under less than ideal conditions can be frustrating as a result.
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
Groucho Marx
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