Funny you should mention this. Humans have one aural cortex in each hemisphere of the brain, and each appears to be performing slightly different functions. It can be shown through imaging that while listening to music one of the two structures tends to be dominant and that people fall in either one of two groups (i.e. either preferring the left or the right aural cortex). Consequently, listeners tend to perceive music differently depending on which group they fall in. The right aural cortex is associated with hearing overtones, and processing instrumental timbre and melodies, while the left aural cortex is associated with hearing of the fundamental of a tone, short impulses, rhythm and pace, etc.. some more info, albeit in German: http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/presse/news05/2508waru.html
So by this account there are at least two flavours of “red” when listening to music.
There was an article in the German hifi magazine audio a few years back reporting on this research. They were then performing listening tests with a number of individuals and even tried to associate people’s preferences for individual qualities of music systems, e.g. focussing on rythm or dynamics vs. faithful reproduction of the timbre of instruments, and even their preferences for various equipment manufacturers, though I would say it wasn’t quite conclusive.
courage said:
1.There are 3 main words that describe any perception: "Deletion", Distortion", "Generalization". AFAIR, Alfred Korzhibsky described it back in 1930'th.
2.One more source of information: AFAIR, Harvey Fletcher and W.A. Munson, again in 1930'th experimented and found that an audio perception is not linear.
3. If something is learned well it does not involve conscious attention when perceived. It is called "Subconscious Competence". AFAIR, Korzhibsky as well. That means, if you perceive something you can imagine the whole picture but can't describe in details how did you make it in your mind.
Good luck!
PS: speaking of your question to John, you would refuse to use any transistor amp that has zero feedback. If all errors are brought down by many feedback loops instead of the single one it does not mean that a feedback is not used.
myhrrhleine said:
I've heard that many who have the gift naturally find it a burden. Is it possible there are levels of it? I have read comments that at times they can not stand even slightly off pitch players in an ensemble.
scott wurcer said:
Everything may be a burden.
For example, after I played a role in a drama I could not watch movies for a long time; every time when I saw a bad playing actor in a dialogue I was receiving painful feelings of a good one who could not play properly because of that. It was a torture.
After an internship I did swear I will never buy a tape recorder of that company. Mates who come from different electronics plants were saying exactly the same about different brands of electronics... And so on...
The same about ensembles: slightly off pitch may create a nice unison effect, if it is really slightly, or seconds (one tone or one half tone) are common in jazz. What is the real burden, when you hear imbalance between instruments in levels and soundstage, or multi-environmental reverberation except special effects when it is desired, or boring gate/compressor, or clipping, or crossover distortions, or boomy bass that the mastering engineer did not hear on his Yamaha near field monitors...
There is a Russian saying, "When you knows less you sleep better".
Wavebourn said:
Maybe someday you can explain "Solaris" to me. BTW I really did love the film music you guys were playing pre-BA.
scott wurcer said:
In short, "what seems to be dumb according to our beliefs may be much smarter than we are, we are just too dumb to understand it's wisdom, we yell how smart we are so loudly so don't hear and don't learn".
But I believe Tarkovskiy himself hide in the movie his own thought like, "Our creatures are smarter than we are. You'll find in my movies much more than I included in them." Like, Leonardo's Jaconda's smile: "I am distorted, but for your perception I am beautiful!" 😉
Leonardo carefully studied proportions, he persecuted corpses measuring bones, but in his paintings he used to distort them in order to create desirable imaginations.
The same about Tarkovskiy... His movies look like, "See and think your own thoughts!". They are not peaces of reportage, they are peaces of art.
myhrrhleine said:
No. My SO, who is also a close friend of Jan's and well-read in the area of theories of consciousness.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/member.php?s=&action=getinfo&userid=106140
Wavebourn said:
Very true!!! Have you ever traveled a familiar root in a car ... like going to your job or the store. And when you get there you find you can't remember any of the trip. You probably had your mind on something else and your learned, conditioned reflexes took over. Same for playing a musical instrument - once you've mastered it you no longer think of how to play each note, but just focus on the musical presentation? I don't play an instrument.
Ears work the same way. They focus on sounds of importance and filter our sounds that don't have importance, and this also depends on the conditions you hear it. And we are unable to consciously focus on more than one thing at a time.
Of course, past experience matters, and affects how you respond to sounds in the future. Personally, I think people can do a good job evaluating a component in an extended listening test, with A-B comparisons. Or intrinsic fidelity testing. But, I find I often over look short comings of some equipment just because it doesn't I find the shortcomings offense to me. Then my dad listens to it and tell me how bad it sounds because of this or that. And I often, say, yeah your right it's got some problems. Or I'll tell him he's wrong and needs to get his ears checked! My Dad's my toughest critic. I don't mind.
Even with blind testing your still going to hear things somewhat different that others. Though I think extended blind testing has it's place, to take away personal bias, emotional attachment, beliefs. I think it'd be a great way to learn sounds and maybe your ears would become even that more acute. I mean tests are a part of learning, right?
myhrrhleine said:
me?
Just send me your tel number and address and I'll be over to check it out. 😎
Are you really on Avalon Island?
Jan Didden
MRupp said:
Martin, this makes a lot of sense to me. If I do critical listening I also tend to focus on one or two specific aspects, like on the lf flatness and tightness, or on the rythm 'picture' or something else again. You really may be on to something that explains that we need prolonged exposure and several 'runs' to completely characterize a component by listening.
BTW Indeed you cannot prove that there is no diffference. If only one person in the world would be able to hear a difference, that's enough to disprove that there is none. However, this one person can be hiding on a mountaintop in Nepal; it's just not very practical to run the complete world population through a blind test.
Edit:The statistics people will tell me that with a large enough sample you can get close to 100% confidence that there is no difference. True. The catch is, what is 'close enough'? Even with 99.9999% confidence, there's still the possibility that one day a guy or gal turns up that CAN reliably hear the difference in blind tests.
Jan Didden
MRupp said:
Interesting. If you are interested in this, get Oliver Sacks' latest book "Musicophilia". He has a lot of experience with patients where either one of the brain hemipheres and/or the connection has been damaged in some way, and has explored what that does to their experience and recognition of music. Fascinating to say the least.
Jan Didden
janneman said:
I like really like that book. Sacks is really talented at explaining the brain in an entertaining and easy to understand way. Very interesting experiences people shared in that.
Hmmm... What kind of brain damages causes learning to imagine curves on oscilloscopes when hearing sounds, or to imagine sounds when seeing curves on oscilloscopes?
Wavebourn said:Hmmm... What kind of brain damages causes learning to imagine curves on oscilloscopes when hearing sounds, or to imagine sounds when seeing curves on oscilloscopes?
Simple ... past experience, conditioned reflexes, beliefs all mixed in with a little OCD.
😀
No charge!
Wavebourn said:
Reversible?
I'd think so. But, I not sure what kind treatment that would involve. Probably should try to find someone who treats OCD. In practical medicine most doctors will subscribe drugs, not retraining. I'd stay away from drugs myself because you develop a dependancy and they can have bad side effects. I think the key is increasing the plasticity of the brain, which is done through good thoughts and also WSG ear devices increase the plasticity of the brain. They are used to help with tinnitus and hyperacusis and all sensitivities. Brain plasicity is necessary for any learning to take place and to reverse these reflexes.
If you check out this site (http://www.tinnitus.org) it explains how retraining of tinnitus works, TRT. It could be helpful.
If this is a real problem for you, try to find some type of retraining help for OCD. Just my guessing though ... I'm NOT a doctor, of course. Just suggesting ideas.
janneman said:
Sorry to requote, but we're a page or more down the road already on other posts...
Yeah, ok, not much disagreement here.
As far as the effect on listening tests? Dunno.
Doubtless there is some. The question is it a confounding factor or not? I supposed one way to determine this is to first remove (the control) then add (the real thing - but how to do that) back these other "signals" and see what happens.
But again, no takers on the request for published tests with proper controls? (not aimed at you alone Jan...)
john curl said:
Yeah, I do work for JFETs... and other exotic quantum devices as well... or old fashioned greenbacks... it is a good thing that Curl and I are on opposite coasts of the North American continent, or else I would have slapped him silly already <produces a large fluke and waves it about> ... to which Curl shouts, "HEY that's my GOOD METER!!"... and we would have turned his stellar reputation into some bonafide gold pieces of eight already.
But I digress... (hope you enjoyed silly electronic humor)
_-_-bear
myhrrhleine said:
Not. Not teachable.
Just maybe perhaps, maybe as a very very young child. Maybe.
But probably not.
There are those who are virtually tone deaf. Couldn't hum a tune, tell if a singer was flat or sharp, know what key something was in, etc... Can't teach them.
There are those who make claims about teaching perfect pitch, but they are actually teaching relative pitch at best. Imho.
If you can tell me who or how to learn perfect pitch, I'm game for a try.
My SO, she can tell instantly if a TT is fast or slow. I can't. She didn't have to learn a thing to do that. She has never been wrong so far. <grumble grumble>
Perfect pitch, if you are born with it, is a double edged sword since you will hear things being "off" when others simply do not, and that can make listening to music oft a disturbing experience.
Otoh, I listen to "American Idol" on TV from time to time and they often sound "off" to me... but what do I know?
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