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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: What is measured and what is heard? posted by Freo-1 on May 12, 2012 at 09:03:32:
Scientific method is based on repeated observation, and observation by more than one observer in more than one setting, just to control bias and situational error. Measurement by instrumentation is only one form of observation, but it becomes the preferred method, because it's quantifiable and more standardized. That makes it more impressive; it doesn't make it "right".
Our "hearing" is really a highly complex combination of body excitation translated by the brain. It's perception, not numerical perfection. Hence, under the best of circumstances each of us "hears" a little differently in exactly the same situation in real life. It turns out that our hearing can distinguish upwards of 10,000 different tones changing in a few femtoseconds - an exquisite combination that exceeds many measuring devices' capacities.
That is our receiving end. That doesn't even begin to deal with the transmitting end of musical communication nor with the intervening acoustical environment, only the former being what is purported to being measured in those graphs and numbers you see published.
All that lined up together defines the individual experience of listening to music, to which you must add the emotional and social context of the individual listener's background expectations.
To put it another way, recently having to learn how to walk again after hip replacement, my physical therapist told me that he could measure the action of individual muscles very accurately, but it didn't measure up to simply watching me walk, which is a highly complex interaction of many muscles all at once.
What is measured in only part of the story, and that's why.
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Follow Ups
- The grand delusion - bartc 06:44:59 05/13/12 (2)
- nice, but I am not sure about femtoseconds - morricab 00:49:11 05/15/12 (1)
- Femtoseconds is what I recall from - bartc 05:48:00 05/15/12 (0)
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