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General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories. |
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General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories. |
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In Reply to: Sorry Timbo. been away and now I cannot find the comment posted by artemus on November 23, 2015 at 17:05:17:
Email me, I allow that.I've been into HIP since the 1960s, and can assure you that 432 didn't dominate in the 17th, 18th or 19th centuries.
So, it's not just 440 vs 432, ~ 412 was very common. Higher than 440 tunings were too. So '432 works best for and was used by Bach' for instance, just isn't true.
And, there's the whole equal-temperament (et) thing vs natural pitch.
Much of the time - et - sounds sort of wrong to me. Especially Grand Pianos as mostly played.
.................
I was an Anglican (Episcopalian) cathedral chorister here in Australian from age 9 (1960) to near 18, under the Royal School of Church Music's auspices - Exams and all
At 11 the choirmaster/organist quite out of the blue at a week-night practice for just the boys made me a Leader, badge and all, and asked me to stay back and he would drive me home.
He told me that he
i) wanted me to make sure the Decani (1st Sopranos) came in on time and in pitch. There were some 14 of us. So I was posted at the other end from the Head Chorister, and
ii) thought I had perfect pitch and then said 'it doesn't make things any easier, does it?' And we both laughed. It makes many things much more difficult and wince making IME&O.
Perfect pitch, if it's genetic, can't be based in equal temperament.
It is IMO quite rare, too.
So, we don't all hear nor are affected by music in the same way. IE to the same degree of acuity, let alone emotion.
Yet, much of what passes for debate about what matters in reproducing recorded music (aka audio) - and in performing music itself - let alone listening - assumes that we can usefully proceed to find out what matters - by assuming that we do all hear/feel music the same way.
While I can see that this assumption and the path it leads down is a useful first approximation, I am not persuaded that it gives us all the truths. And that it can blind us to nuances about how hear and are affected.
Viz. Looking at notes as continuous tones / as averages of different frequencies added together, doesn't tell us much about how we actually hear and are affected by real notes in time. Probably can't either, I am thinking.
Long ago back in the days of mono, good research found something very distinctive about how we listen to and are affected by music.
When we hear an acoustic instrument play a note, to what parts of that whole event in time do we pay the most attention, in identifying what type it is, and expression and pitch?
Hint. All notes have an attack and a decay, some have a continuous bit in between, but many instruments can only do the attack and decay. Yet these
instruments still have expression.
Warmest
Tim Bailey
Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger
Edits: 11/23/15
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Follow Ups
- This is a busy week for me, too. - Timbo in Oz 21:17:21 11/23/15 (0)
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