From: mclaren
--
Boomsliter and Creel are well known for their provocative
papers "The Long Pattern Hypothesis in Harmony and Hearing"
and "Extended Reference."
However B&C wrote three other readily available papers
and "Extended Reference."
"Hearing With Ears Instead of Instruments" dates from 1970
and was published in the Journal of the Audio Engineering
Society in August 1970, Vol. 18, No. 4, pps. 407-412.
This articles offers little new information, but it does
give important background on B&C's ideas and motivations
behind their "extended reference" work. Of particular
import: B&C's emphasis on the ear as a non-linear
receiver. "The Seashore team [8] at Iowa found that
intonation is not a simple matter. Singers and violinists
who are free to choose their tuning do not use any one
scale. They make systematic departures in tuning,
and these vary from melody to melody." [pg. 408]
In any case this article will doubtless prove of interest
to those fascinated by the thought processes that
gave rise to Boomsliter & Creel's "extended reference"
hypothesis.
gave rise to Boomsliter & Creel's "extended reference"
hypothesis.
"Time Requirements For the Tonal Function" is a letter
to the Journal of the Acoustic Society of America which
emphasizes the experimental data in favor of the
periodicity hypothesis of hearing.
This article is of slightly less interest. We now know
that no one model of human hearing is supported by
all the evidence, and some evidence contradicts all
3 major competing hypotheses about human hearing.
The third and last article, "Research Potentials In
Auditory Characteristics of Violin Tone," by
Paul C. Boomsliter & Warren Creel, was published
in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,
Vol. 51, 1969, Number 6 (part 2), 1972, pp. 1984-
1993.
B&C point out that violin intonation is not easy
to quanitfy since "the doctrine that frequency
governs pitch, virtually alone, and that partial-tone
to quanitfy since "the doctrine that frequency
governs pitch, virtually alone, and that partial-tone
structure governs quality, virtually alone, does apply
to notes studied in solation, but in melody every note
of the melody participates..." [pg. 1992]
B&C cite experimental data from the brains of
anaesthetized cats (!) showing that "an incoming
signal evokes generation of temporally patterned
recurrences (..) The normal human nervous system,
with many neurons responding only to a change, is not
a steady-state apparatus, yet it uses temporal
recurrence with an appetite for regularity. Human
preference for regularity and change can be observed
when a master plays a violin which is thus
physiologically controlled." [pg. 1984]
This view of memory is likely over-influenced
by the view of the brain as an electrical circuit
(popular during hte 60s and 70s), whereas it is
now known that many different varieties of
neuotransmitter molecules also play a role in
the operation of the brain, and that some
neurotransmitters act to prevent other
neurotransmitters from having an effect at
receptor sites in the brain.
Regardless, the article may prove of interest
as a discussion of the potential real-world
applications of B&C's "extended reference"
hypothesis (viz., performance of a solo
melody on a violin).
--mclaren
