Audio foo/woo thread

[ID.]

One of the things that bothers me is that there can be a double standard. One is allowed to give a subjective opinion about differences heard but skeptics cannot give their opinion about differences not heard, or differences heard in a sighted test but that disappear in an unsighted one.

My own personal experience involves hearing differences, but then not hearing any difference when I switched various cables (power, speaker) back a little later. These days in my sighted cable swappings I heard a very slight difference at best. I can't be bothered doing double blind testing, but I suspect these slight differences would also pretty much disappear and I would not be able to pick which cable was which or which I preferred on a consistent basis.

Fair enough that people proposing cables ask that people be allowed to try it out for themselves and see whether there is a worthwhile difference, but it is also important to know that there are various factors other than the quality of the cable that will influence perceptions, etc. and if they trial something having read a review about it being bright, spacious, warm, having a darker background, or whatever, they will then be listening for these effects and be more likely to perceive them, even if they are not there. As mentioned above, price and other factors will (subconsciously) affect how we perceive the sound, irrespective of whether or not there is a difference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schooner_(glass)[/url]

*drinks*

 

[Gazzip]

But its relative. - If it wasn't, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a cheap transistor radio and a Valve Amp, because within that 4 seconds you'd have forgotten what the transistor radio sounds like.

Surely?

You will forget how that cheap transistor radio exactly sounded like after 4 seconds. What you do remember after few seconds are the crude impressions that your mind formed from the listening experience: gritty, noisy, screetchy, lean sound. Since the transistor radio generated different impressions than the valve amp (smooth, clean, warm, bassy), you will be able to compare them as different.

You said cheap transistor radio vs valve amp. What if there were two transistor radios of similar cheap build quality? You would struggle to differentiate those if played one after the other with wider gap than 20 sec. This is because your mind created the same lasting impressions derived from the similar by nature experience: gritty, noisy, screetchy, lean sound. For an accurate comparison you really need to switch between two very similar sounds within 4 seconds or less to appreciate the details and reliably tell the difference.

In a DBT you will not be able to tell the difference, but in a sighted test you will think you heard a difference, simply because you formed impressions not just from listening, but by watching the aesthetics, preknowledge on the brand and price bias/expectations. Your mind will strugle to not give a 1500GBP cable an audible advantage over a 5GBP cable in a sighted test. Everything it has learned in life screams at that moment that a higher price product is superior, especially with a x300 price margin.

That's what happens with silver cables. Because they are silver and said they will sound brighter and more detailed, in a sighted test you begin comparing copper to silver cables and the silver ones indeed sounded 'silvery.' Actually they don't, they sound the same as the copper ones but your mind added impressions from bias and expectation.

We describe sound with hot, cold, warm, fast, slow, high, low because our ears are very very crude at detecting frequency and terribly unlinear. Do you know/remember how 638Hz sounds like? You don't. Like I mentioned before, our hearing is very sensitive only to loudness. This is evolutionary derived. Those that weren't sensitive enough to hear gentle paws walking across the savannah grass, they became kitty lunch and didn't get to reproduce. This is why amplifier manufacturers manipulate the input sensitivity and volume knob position.

So the long term sound memory is referential and not actual? Would it not follow therefore that somebody with a very large audio "vocabulary" (one that goes incrementally way beyond simply warm or cold, enabling a much more finely tuned "description" of the sound) could referentially "remember" more subtle audio differences between products? Ergo it would be scientifically possible to accurately recall, all be it by other neurological means, a sound based upon the brains audio description/interpretation of that sound. Not an actual memory, but a very good description of the original.

 

[Frank Harvey]

It's a sail boat.

ha ha, you dumb #*#*#*#*#* its not a sail boat its a schooner

I didn't think anyone would get that...

 

[carter]

One of the things that bothers me is that there can be a double standard. One is allowed to give a subjective opinion about differences heard but skeptics cannot give their opinion about differences not heard, or differences heard in a sighted test but that disappear in an unsighted one.

My own personal experience involves hearing differences, but then not hearing any difference when I switched various cables (power, speaker) back a little later. These days in my sighted cable swappings I heard a very slight difference at best. I can't be bothered doing double blind testing, but I suspect these slight differences would also pretty much disappear and I would not be able to pick which cable was which or which I preferred on a consistent basis.

Fair enough that people proposing cables ask that people be allowed to try it out for themselves and see whether there is a worthwhile difference, but it is also important to know that there are various factors other than the quality of the cable that will influence perceptions, etc. and if they trial something having read a review about it being bright, spacious, warm, having a darker background, or whatever, they will then be listening for these effects and be more likely to perceive them, even if they are not there. As mentioned above, price and other factors will (subconsciously) affect how we perceive the sound, irrespective of whether or not there is a difference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schooner_(glass)[/url]

*drinks*

stupid head

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► 0:36► 0:36www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8xU67EjsZ4Scene from the movie MallRats

 

[carter]

It's a sail boat.

ha ha, you dumb #*#*#*#*#* its not a sail boat its a schooner

I didn't think anyone would get that...

ive seen a lot of movies ;-) ...especially around that time as I was at college and didn't need much of a excuse not to study

 

[SteveR750]

It's really very simple...don't believe what you are hearing, but believe what someone else tells you you're hearing.

I'm seing the Sun revolves arround the Earth and the Earth looks flat, yet science tells me it's vice versa. Who do I trust? My senses or science?

This is about Hearing....please try to keep up!

Your auditory memory is approx. 4 seconds long like with any human. Your subjective impressions from your own auditioning of gear is of no informative value to anyone. Why do you insist on telling people to ignore scientific facts and listen to you? PP said he is a hi-fi authority because he owned many amps. What's your story?

So what about the plethora of musicians who have pitch perfect hearing? It's not as if they are a freakish rarity either, a significant numer of people can reproduce a middle C without any reference other than memory.

 

[Frank Harvey]

You will forget how that cheap transistor radio exactly sounded like after 4 seconds. What you do remember after few seconds are the crude impressions that your mind formed from the listening experience: gritty, noisy, screetchy, lean sound. Since the transistor radio generated different impressions than the valve amp (smooth, clean, warm, bassy), you will be able to compare them as different.

Even if that first statement was true, the impressions you form is enough to tell you which is better.

For an accurate comparison you really need to switch between two very similar sounds within 4 seconds or less to appreciate the details and reliably tell the difference.

I'd like to see that comparison with the intro to Dire Straits' Telegraph Road.

Your mind will strugle to not give a 1500GBP cable an audible advantage over a 5GBP cable in a sighted test. Everything it has learned in life screams at that moment that a higher price product is superior, especially with a x300 price margin.

I refer back to a coparison I made between my then existing cable (some QED 4x4) and some Townshend Isolda frozen doo dah stuff. I really wanted to like the Townshend as I was able to pick it up pretty cheap, and surely it would sound better than the QED? Going by the placebo effect, I'd have liked that cable and heard a difference. I didn't, so I didn't buy it. I also tried a £120 mains cable from Rick when he was at Superfi against my standard supplied mains cable. Didn't really know what to expect as I didn't expect the sort of difference that interconnects and speakers cables can make. It certainly made a difference when I plugged it into the Tag AV32r I had at the time, but I didn't like that difference, so I didn't buy it. I must be immune from this placebo thing.

That's what happens with silver cables. Because they are silver and said they will sound brighter and more detailed, in a sighted test you begin comparing copper to silver cables and the silver ones indeed sounded 'silvery.'

I've never heard anyone describe silver coated cables as "silvery".

We describe sound with hot, cold, warm, fast, slow, high, low because our ears are very very crude at detecting frequency and terribly unlinear. Do you know/remember how 638Hz sounds like? You don't.

Only because we have never been conditioned to know what that frequency sounds like. If you were able to listen to different frequencies for a long enough period of time, with some contraption that tells you what that frequency is, you'd be a whole lot better at guesstimating what sort of frequency you were listening to if you were blindfolded. If you heard 638Hz often enough, you'd know roughly what it sounded like, and probably detect it here and there in the natural world around you. Because our hearing is generally 20Hz-20kHz, many people think that the clearly audible higher frequencies of cymbals etc are in the region of 15-20kHz. This is only because many people are never shown what frequencies they're listening to.

 

[Anderson]

It's really very simple...don't believe what you are hearing, but believe what someone else tells you you're hearing.

I'm seing the Sun revolves arround the Earth and the Earth looks flat, yet science tells me it's vice versa. Who do I trust? My senses or science?

This is about Hearing....please try to keep up!

Your auditory memory is approx. 4 seconds long like with any human. Your subjective impressions from your own auditioning of gear is of no informative value to anyone. Why do you insist on telling people to ignore scientific facts and listen to you? PP said he is a hi-fi authority because he owned many amps. What's your story??

?

So what about the plethora of musicians who have pitch perfect hearing? It's not as if they are a freakish rarity either, a significant numer of people can reproduce a middle C without any reference other than memory.

Pitch perfect is rare, remember its for specific tones, not music.

 

[ID.]

One of the things that bothers me is that there can be a double standard. One is allowed to give a subjective opinion about differences heard but skeptics cannot give their opinion about differences not heard, or differences heard in a sighted test but that disappear in an unsighted one.

My own personal experience involves hearing differences, but then not hearing any difference when I switched various cables (power, speaker) back a little later. These days in my sighted cable swappings I heard a very slight difference at best. I can't be bothered doing double blind testing, but I suspect these slight differences would also pretty much disappear and I would not be able to pick which cable was which or which I preferred on a consistent basis.

Fair enough that people proposing cables ask that people be allowed to try it out for themselves and see whether there is a worthwhile difference, but it is also important to know that there are various factors other than the quality of the cable that will influence perceptions, etc. and if they trial something having read a review about it being bright, spacious, warm, having a darker background, or whatever, they will then be listening for these effects and be more likely to perceive them, even if they are not there. As mentioned above, price and other factors will (subconsciously) affect how we perceive the sound, irrespective of whether or not there is a difference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schooner_(glass)[/url]

*drinks*

stupid head

► 0:36► 0:36 www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8xU67EjsZ4

Scene from the movie MallRats

Ah, cheers! *drinks*

Seen the movie years ago, but didn't even remember that scene

 

[Native_bon]

But its relative. - If it wasn't, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a cheap transistor radio and a Valve Amp, because within that 4 seconds you'd have forgotten what the transistor radio sounds like.

Surely?

You will forget how that cheap transistor radio exactly sounded like after 4 seconds. What you do remember after few seconds are the crude impressions that your mind formed from the listening experience: gritty, noisy, screetchy, lean sound. Since the transistor radio generated different impressions than the valve amp (smooth, clean, warm, bassy), you will be able to compare them as different.

You said cheap transistor radio vs valve amp. What if there were two transistor radios of similar cheap build quality? You would struggle to differentiate those if played one after the other with wider gap than 20 sec. This is because your mind created the same lasting impressions derived from the similar by nature experience: gritty, noisy, screetchy, lean sound. For an accurate comparison you really need to switch between two very similar sounds within 4 seconds or less to appreciate the details and reliably tell the difference.

In a DBT you will not be able to tell the difference, but in a sighted test you will think you heard a difference, simply because you formed impressions not just from listening, but by watching the aesthetics, preknowledge on the brand and price bias/expectations. Your mind will strugle to not give a 1500GBP cable an audible advantage over a 5GBP cable in a sighted test. Everything it has learned in life screams at that moment that a higher price product is superior, especially with a x300 price margin.

That's what happens with silver cables. Because they are silver and said they will sound brighter and more detailed, in a sighted test you begin comparing copper to silver cables and the silver ones indeed sounded 'silvery.' Actually they don't, they sound the same as the copper ones but your mind added impressions from bias and expectation.

We describe sound with hot, cold, warm, fast, slow, high, low because our ears are very very crude at detecting frequency and terribly unlinear. Do you know/remember how 638Hz sounds like? You don't. Like I mentioned before, our hearing is very sensitive only to loudness. This is evolutionary derived. Those that weren't sensitive enough to hear gentle paws walking across the savannah grass, they became kitty lunch and didn't get to reproduce. This is why amplifier manufacturers manipulate the input sensitivity and volume knob position.

well, that should really say it all. But no... life will be too easy then.

 

[Broner]

What's your story?

Once upon a time, long ago, somewhere in the mists of time, there used to be an interesting, well moderated forum. It was populated by a people that had altruistic intentions and an interest in discussing hifi in a very temporate climate. The Sun always shone and the villagers were happy. Anyone that broke the rules were expelled from the land.

Then slowly, little by little, anarchy was given free reign and anyone with an interesting history, or a gentler, more moderate outlook, were driven from this land by the new ruling class. These new usurpers were educated but arrogant and intolarant, and had little appitite for those of a different persuasion.

It was just a matter of time; the sky clowded over and the Sun seldom managed to break through, as the new ruling class had achieved their coup.

This once joyous land now became a souless shadow of its former self.....but it was all for the best, as its very foundation was built on aspiration and subjective opinion, which hadn't been double blind tested, or subjected to proper scientific protocols; so finally, like many great civilations before it, crumbled into dust.

And all the remaining inhabitants lived happily ever after, though they missed their main sport of foo-busting, as this was now a distant memory.

 

[steve_1979]

So the long term sound memory is referential and not actual?

No. Short-term auditory memory is under 4 seconds long and actual. Long-term auditory memory is 10-20 seconds long and actual. After that its just memory and it is referential, like you said.

Of course the length of actual auditory memory varies from person to person but not by much.

Would it not follow therefore that somebody with a very large audio "vocabulary" (one that goes incrementally way beyond simply warm or cold, enabling a much more finely tuned "description" of the sound) could referentially "remember" more subtle audio differences between products? Ergo it would be scientifically possible to accurately recall, all be it by other neurological means, a sound based upon the brains audio description/interpretation of that sound. Not an actual memory, but a very good description of the original.

What you are describing is an experienced listener or attentive listener or what Harman Labs calls it a trained listener. But still the gap between remembering an audio clip and holding post-it notes (as many as you want) is of "low sampling rate", you would agree.

For speech this sampling we do by making impressions is quite sufficient for our evolutionary stage. We can talk, imitate sounds, hum melody, remember melodies. Those that can hear a sound clip and repeat it exactly after an hour or several days they are savants and exceptions, just like people with photographic memory or an extreme case like Stephen Wiltshire. But 99.99999% of us have to learn notes. Musicians learn music with math because it is easier but some do it simply by attentive listening. You need to hear a song multiple times to get the melody going in your head. This is why pop music is sonic fast food, a catchy melody = summer hit.

No one is claiming the human auditory memory is useless, even though short. You can differentiate two loudspeakers in an audition accurately by using a switch or somewhat accurately using impressions. Problem begins when you start differentiating things that are not really different, like amps, digital audio and cables. The key phrase is measurable but not audible differences. Because you expect there should be differences, your mind considers there are based on expectation bias. And voila, you think you heard them (notice term used in past tense).

When comparing speakers I use my Westone UM3x earphones. They act as a constant unchanging benchmark that can be taken everywhere.

This way, even when comparing speakers several months apart I can still remember which ones have more/less clarity, more/less bass and more/less treble ect.

 

[Vladimir]

So the long term sound memory is referential and not actual?

No. Short-term auditory memory is under 4 seconds long and actual. Long-term auditory memory is 10-20 seconds long and actual. After that its just memory and it is referential, like you said.

Of course the length of actual auditory memory varies from person to person but not by much.

Would it not follow therefore that somebody with a very large audio "vocabulary" (one that goes incrementally way beyond simply warm or cold, enabling a much more finely tuned "description" of the sound) could referentially "remember" more subtle audio differences between products? Ergo it would be scientifically possible to accurately recall, all be it by other neurological means, a sound based upon the brains audio description/interpretation of that sound. Not an actual memory, but a very good description of the original.

What you are describing is an experienced listener or attentive listener or what Harman Labs calls it a trained listener. But still the gap between remembering an audio clip and holding post-it notes (as many as you want) is of "low sampling rate", you would agree.

For speech this sampling we do by making impressions is quite sufficient for our evolutionary stage. We can talk, imitate sounds, hum melody, remember melodies. Those that can hear a sound clip and repeat it exactly after an hour or several days they are savants and exceptions, just like people with photographic memory or an extreme case like Stephen Wiltshire. But 99.99999% of us have to learn notes. Musicians learn music with math because it is easier but some do it simply by attentive listening. You need to hear a song multiple times to get the melody going in your head. This is why pop music is sonic fast food, a catchy melody = summer hit.

No one is claiming the human auditory memory is useless, even though short. You can differentiate two loudspeakers in an audition accurately by using a switch or somewhat accurately using impressions. Problem begins when you start differentiating things that are not really different, like amps, digital audio and cables. The key phrase is measurable but not audible differences. Because you expect there should be differences, your mind considers there are based on expectation bias. And voila, you think you heard them (notice term used in past tense).

 

[Vladimir]

We describe sound with hot, cold, warm, fast, slow, high, low because our ears are very very crude at detecting frequency and terribly unlinear. Do you know/remember how 638Hz sounds like? You don't.

Only because we have never been conditioned to know what that frequency sounds like. If you were able to listen to different frequencies for a long enough period of time, with some contraption that tells you what that frequency is, you'd be a whole lot better at guesstimating what sort of frequency you were listening to if you were blindfolded. If you heard 638Hz often enough, you'd know roughly what it sounded like, and probably detect it here and there in the natural world around you.

You can familiarize yourself with 638Hz and 637Hz frequency at the same or different amplitudes all you want. Have an ipod play them for you on repeat 24/7 for the next 5 years. When you go ahead and perform an ABX test (level matched to 0.1dB) to differentiate which one played is X, you will fail to pass the chances of 50% guess. But if I make the 638Hz +1dB louder, you will be able to tell the difference from the 637Hz with 100% accuracy.

I hope this helps understanding what I wrote in my previous posts. I strugle with English, considering it's not my native language.

 

[Frank Harvey]

You can familiarize yourself with 638Hz and 637Hz frequency at the same or different amplitudes all you want.

I didn't say we would be able to distinguish between two neighouring frequencies. I said that given a bit of "training", most people would be able to detect roughly where in the frequency range certain sounds are.

 

[Vladimir]

Click the image to zoom in.

 

[Frank Harvey]

That doesn't really illustrate the point I was making.

 

[Vladimir]

It illustrates mine.

 

[Vladimir]

So what about the plethora of musicians who have pitch perfect hearing? It's not as if they are a freakish rarity either, a significant numer of people can reproduce a middle C without any reference other than memory.

Sorry for skipping your question Steve. I didn't see it.

Pitch may be quantified as a frequency, but pitch is not a purely objective physical property; it is a subjective psychoacoustical attribute of sound.

Pitch is an auditory sensation in which a listener assigns musical tones to relative positions on a musical scale based primarily on the frequency of vibration. Pitch is closely related to frequency, but the two are not equivalent. Frequency is an objective, scientific concept, whereas pitch is subjective. Sound waves themselves do not have pitch, and their oscillations can be measured to obtain a frequency. It takes a human mind to map the internal quality of pitch. Pitches are usually quantified as frequencies in cycles per second, or hertz, by comparing sounds with pure tones, which have periodic, sinusoidal waveforms. Complex and aperiodic sound waves can often be assigned a pitch by this method.

The pitch of complex tones can be ambiguous, meaning that two or more different pitches can be perceived, depending upon the observer. When the actual fundamental frequency can be precisely determined through physical measurement, it may differ from the perceived pitch because of overtones, also known as upper partials, harmonic or otherwise. A complex tone composed of two sine waves of 1000 and 1200 Hz may sometimes be heard as up to three pitches: two spectral pitches at 1000 and 1200 Hz, derived from the physical frequencies of the pure tones, and the combination tone at 200 Hz, corresponding to the repetition rate of the waveform. In a situation like this, the percept at 200 Hz is commonly referred to as the missing fundamental, which is often the greatest common divisor of the frequencies present.

Source: Pitch - Wiki

Does that seem accurate remembering of frequency from memory to you Steve?

 

[Gazzip]

I strugle with English, considering it's not my native language.

Trust me you are doing way better than most of the native born Brits who frequent this forum.....

 

[SteveR750]

So what about the plethora of musicians who have pitch perfect hearing? It's not as if they are a freakish rarity either, a significant numer of people can reproduce a middle C without any reference other than memory.

Sorry for skipping your question Steve. I didn't see it.

Pitch may be quantified as a frequency, but pitch is not a purely objective physical property; it is a subjective psychoacoustical attribute of sound.

Pitch is an auditory sensation in which a listener assigns musical tones to relative positions on a musical scale based primarily on the frequency of vibration. Pitch is closely related to frequency, but the two are not equivalent. Frequency is an objective, scientific concept, whereas pitch is subjective. Sound waves themselves do not have pitch, and their oscillations can be measured to obtain a frequency. It takes a human mind to map the internal quality of pitch. Pitches are usually quantified as frequencies in cycles per second, or hertz, by comparing sounds with pure tones, which have periodic, sinusoidal waveforms. Complex and aperiodic sound waves can often be assigned a pitch by this method.

The pitch of complex tones can be ambiguous, meaning that two or more different pitches can be perceived, depending upon the observer. When the actual fundamental frequency can be precisely determined through physical measurement, it may differ from the perceived pitch because of overtones, also known as upper partials, harmonic or otherwise. A complex tone composed of two sine waves of 1000 and 1200 Hz may sometimes be heard as up to three pitches: two spectral pitches at 1000 and 1200 Hz, derived from the physical frequencies of the pure tones, and the combination tone at 200 Hz, corresponding to the repetition rate of the waveform. In a situation like this, the percept at 200 Hz is commonly referred to as the missing fundamental, which is often the greatest common divisor of the frequencies present.

Source: Pitch - Wiki

Does that seem accurate remembering of frequency from memory to you Steve?

Partly. It might explain why a large number of professional musicians have the ability to pull a middle C either vocally ir by tunuing a guitar. I reckon I could tune a guitar to within 10% of concert pitch starting blind.

What it does not answer then is the ability to improvise, to improvise a melody. Few rock musicians can read music, let alone the maths behind it. There is probably something more fundamental about the human interaction with harmony and rhythm that we really don't understand, but I don't want to get into a debate about quantum physics and wjhat is reality etc, the point being that the best players can improvise in new harmonic areas, so its not just a question of learning a bunch of licks and stringing them together. Even if it were, it relies on a memory of harmony that is longer than 4s, though I can see that this is not necessarily the same process as using memory to conduct an A-B test for example. Where is the basis of the 4s rule anyway? Is this validated scientific data?

 

[Anderson]

So what about the plethora of musicians who have pitch perfect hearing? It's not as if they are a freakish rarity either, a significant numer of people can reproduce a middle C without any reference other than memory.

Sorry for skipping your question Steve. I didn't see it.

Pitch may be quantified as a frequency, but pitch is not a purely objective physical property; it is a subjective psychoacoustical attribute of sound.?

Pitch is an auditory sensation in which a listener assigns musical tones to relative positions on a musical scale based primarily on the frequency of vibration. Pitch is closely related to frequency, but the two are not equivalent. Frequency is an objective, scientific concept, whereas pitch is subjective. Sound waves themselves do not have pitch, and their oscillations can be measured to obtain a frequency. It takes a human mind to map the internal quality of pitch. Pitches are usually quantified as frequencies in cycles per second, or hertz, by comparing sounds with pure tones, which have periodic, sinusoidal waveforms. Complex and aperiodic sound waves can often be assigned a pitch by this method.

The pitch of complex tones can be ambiguous, meaning that two or more different pitches can be perceived, depending upon the observer. When the actual fundamental frequency can be precisely determined through physical measurement, it may differ from the perceived pitch because of overtones, also known as upper partials, harmonic or otherwise. A complex tone composed of two sine waves of 1000 and 1200 Hz may sometimes be heard as up to three pitches: two spectral pitches at 1000 and 1200 Hz, derived from the physical frequencies of the pure tones, and the combination tone at 200 Hz, corresponding to the repetition rate of the waveform. In a situation like this, the percept at 200 Hz is commonly referred to as the missing fundamental, which is often the greatest common divisor of the frequencies present.

Source: Pitch - Wiki

Does that seem accurate remembering of frequency from memory to you Steve?

Partly. It might explain why a large number of professional musicians have the ability to pull a middle C either vocally ir by tunuing a guitar. I reckon I could tune a guitar to within 10% of concert pitch starting blind.

What it does not answer then is the ability to improvise, to improvise a melody. Few rock musicians can read music, let alone the maths behind it. There is probably something more fundamental about the human interaction with harmony and rhythm that we really don't understand, but I don't want to get into a debate about quantum physics and wjhat is reality etc, the point being that the best players can improvise in new harmonic areas, so its not just a question of learning a bunch of licks and stringing them together. Even if it were, it relies on a memory of harmony that is longer than 4s, though I can see that this is not necessarily the same process as using memory to conduct an A-B test for example. Where is the basis of the 4s rule anyway? Is this validated scientific data?

In probably bring thick, but I don't see the relevance to musicians creating tunes and golden ears?

 

[Anderson]

PS Vlad I always had it in my head you were American. Kudos on your English! X

 

[Vladimir]

Partly. It might explain why a large number of professional musicians have the ability to pull a middle C either vocally ir by tunuing a guitar. I reckon I could tune a guitar to within 10% of concert pitch starting blind.

What it does not answer then is the ability to improvise, to improvise a melody. Few rock musicians can read music, let alone the maths behind it. There is probably something more fundamental about the human interaction with harmony and rhythm that we really don't understand, but I don't want to get into a debate about quantum physics and wjhat is reality etc, the point being that the best players can improvise in new harmonic areas, so its not just a question of learning a bunch of licks and stringing them together. Even if it were, it relies on a memory of harmony that is longer than 4s, though I can see that this is not necessarily the same process as using memory to conduct an A-B test for example. Where is the basis of the 4s rule anyway? Is this validated scientific data?

It is why instruments have keys, musicians need them and need mathematical systems to recreate music, because they cannot rely on auditory memory. You grab sheet music and you play immediatly following learned rules. To play a tune without sheet music you need to listen to it many times and create certain impressions of it and use those to play the tune. Even then you wont play it exactly the same, it will deviate from the original. Artists themselves cannot repeat a performance twice between studio plays, let alone events. That is simply because auditory memory lasts no longer than 10-20 seconds (long-term) and the musicians hands are not hard wired to it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echoic_memory

Echoic memory[/b] is one of the sensory memory registers; a component of sensory memory (SM) that is specific to retaining auditory information. The sensory memory for sounds that people have just perceived is the form of echoic memory. Unlike visual memory, in which our eyes can scan the stimuli over and over, the auditory stimuli cannot be scanned over and over. Overall, echoic memories are stored for slightly longer periods of time than iconic memories (visual memories). Auditory stimuli are received by the ear one at a time before they can be processed and understood. For instance, hearing the radio is very different from reading a magazine. A person can only hear the radio once at a given time, while the magazine can be read over and over again. It can be said that the echoic memory is like a "holding tank" concept, because a sound is unprocessed (or held back) until the following sound is heard, and only then can it be made meaningful. This particular sensory store is capable of storing large amounts of auditory information that is only retained for a short period of time (3–4 seconds). This echoic sound resonates in the mind and is replayed for this brief amount of time shortly after the presentation of auditory stimuli. Echoic memory encrypts only moderately primitive aspects of the stimuli, for example pitch, which specifies localization to the non-association brain regions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baddeley%27s_model_of_working_memory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music-related_memory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_neuroscience_of_music

You seem to glorify musicians for some super skills. It's all just bloody hard work Steve. Not everyone gets born a musical prodigy like Keith Jarrett.

 

[Vladimir]

PS Vlad I always had it in my head you were American. Kudos on your English! X

I was taught British English in school but due to global cultural hegemony, the American English prevailed. *blush*