requiring pitch to perform daily functions

[Axeman]

I can think of no such object for pitch. I'm not aware of any object on the planet that has a universally definitive pitch. Usually, when I can think of an object produces a consistent pitch, that pitch has been arbitrarily selected, or at the very least is unique to a specific action of that single instance of that particular object.

I am going into weird science here. If pitch is the frequency of vibration of things then what if at the very core of things - the atomic level, where there are moving parts and fixed numbers of particles for the various types of atoms and elements, there are fundamental infinitesimal pitch classes. These, if worked out, could be amplified to give, say for example, the pitch of Hydrogen or for a molecule of water. Don't know how this could help.

[lorelei]

You know, that's very interesting, and I hadn't thought of it. Maybe someday it will have a function.
Also, I think that an interesting ear training technique is to listen to the sounds around you and try to identify them. U could check with a tuner or something...

[sam]

Chris,

I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but it would be fairly easy to test these types of ideas using programs that convert incoming audio into midi, and programs that use midi input to control different software functions. Maybe a simple setup with Pure Data (are you familiar with Pure Data) converting incoming audio into midi, and then sending that information to some program like Bome's Midi Translator to control software. What do you think?

[aruffo]

Could be... I hadn't heard of those programs before.!

[Axeman]

I like TS's comments about controlling a robot with sound. But it wouldn't have to be a robot. Games could be played with other musicians where playing certain notes would mean that the other player(s) perform some act...pick up a block, tap your knee, turn a block over or whateevr. more than one note played at a time or in sequence would mean combination moves. The signals could be limited to a number of pitches at first and steadily increased to more pitches and more complicated combinations.

That the fire truck is red is arbitrary it seems to me... people could have decided on blue for firetrucks. Grass is another matter though - occuring naturally and due to chemical makeup. As grass is green is due to its chemical makeup musical/sound objects have their own (pitch) due to things like density, length, hollowness, vibration. As chris mentioned one time the visual objects seem to have continual colour association but I think that is only because light is continually being cast onto and reflecting off them and to our eyes and brains. If they were placed in complete darkness then they would have no colour until activated by the light. Sound objects and their corresponding pitch colours also need to be activated. What I'm trying to get at is that if we associate an action to a pitch it is the same thing as saying a firetruck is red or grass is green. Individual pitch objects are what they are (that bell is F#) but we might learn what they are by arbitrarily associating them to actions or other cues.

[aruffo]

That's an interesting point about fire trucks... I agree with your overall point, to be sure, about the association between color and object. What you've reminded me of is that the use of red for emergency and alert signals isn't arbitrary. There's something about red that the human system responds to more vigorously than other colors.

I really have no idea why... physically, of course, red is the longest wavelength of visible light, but that makes it the least energetic visible wave. Red is alarming, green is relaxing, blue is revolting (scientists did an experiment with trick lighting; when the light changed, and people discovered they were eating blue-colored food, even though it had only been colored with food coloring, they puked). Red... blood? Green... grass? Blue... mold? From an evolutionary context, there would be advantage to reacting in those ways to blood, or leaves, or moldy food.

The problem that sticks, from this perspective, is that the evolutionary development for sound is for changes in sound-- not for static pitches. The evolutionary arguments for relative pitch seem perfectly reasonable; a particular interval of sound tells you that an object (predator or prey) has moved from here to there, and at what speed; hearing a certain dissonance or consonance in a person's speech, relative to their tonic, tells you exactly how they feel... so you know how to respond to them.

Is there an evolutionary reason to draw meaning from pitches? Anything at all? Some animals have evidenced absolute pitch, even now... I haven't read those papers because I never much cared about nonhuman absolute pitch... but what good does it do them to have it? What does it tell them? (Or are the scientists wrongly interpreting animals' behavior as AP listening, even as Jenny Saffran's research makes specious AP claims of babies?)

[bigbadmonster]

I really have no idea why... physically, of course, red is the longest wavelength of visible light, but that makes it the least energetic visible wave. Red is alarming, green is relaxing, blue is revolting (scientists did an experiment with trick lighting; when the light changed, and people discovered they were eating blue-colored food, even though it had only been colored with food coloring, they puked). Red... blood? Green... grass? Blue... mold? From an evolutionary context, there would be advantage to reacting in those ways to blood, or leaves, or moldy food.

Not sure about it being evolutionary . The same thing sometimes happens when you are eating a certain food and find out that it is made from an animal you aren't accustomed to viewing as food.

[Wade]

but it would be fairly easy to test these types of ideas using programs that convert incoming audio into midi

Not if you're hoping to do it with the human voice. Getting a computer to interpret the pitch of a voice the way another person would is supposedly a very difficult problem.

[Axeman]

I wonder if we don't recognise the existence of persistent pitch associations because our lives are too busy and we don't make an effort to listen to the world around us. I wonder if animals notice persistent pitch objects given that they operate on pure instinct and that they have different ranges of frequency perception. what does the world sound like to a dog? are there certain characteristic sounds in a dogs world for some objects.
Back to human perception I wonder if we stopped to listen to the sounds of nature whether we would notice particular effects and pitch associations.

[aruffo]

Absolute pitch has been observed in canines and, of course, in birds-- but there's some argument as to whether that represents a more or less sophisticated perception of sound frequency.

[lorelei]

Absolute pitch has been observed in canines, and, of course, in birds-- but there's some argument as to whether that represents a more or less sophisticated perception of sound frequency.

Last year I did a research project (for school) on birds, and apparently birds do not perceive relative pitch, they only perceive absolute. I'm guessing that the most sophisticated sound perception would involve having both AP and RP- but what animals have both these traits? Well, I guess occasionally humans do- but are there any others?

[pedros]

so, did it have ever made then?

It's quite interesting!