Strange Loops and Circular Tones

2019 ◽  
pp. 61-70
Author(s):  
Diana Deutsch
Keyword(s):  
Computer Music ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Sound Design ◽  
Pitch Height ◽  
Pitch Class ◽  
Musical Compositions ◽  
Strange Loops ◽  
Emotional Effects

Chapter 4 explores a class of musical illusions and paradoxes that involve the circular dimension of pitch. Pitch can be described in terms of two dimensions. The first is called pitch height, which can be experienced by sweeping one’s hand from left to right up a piano keyboard. The second is a circular dimension known as pitch class, which defines the position of a tone within the octave. Circularity effects in music are analogous to many of the visual works of M. C. Escher, and have been employed in music for hundreds of years. However, with the advent of computer music, striking pitch circularities became possible. The circular scales invented by Roger Shepard (based on Shepard tones) and circular glides invented by Jean-Claude Risset are explored. These remarkable illusions of ever-increasing (or ever-decreasing) pitch are presented as sound examples. They have powerful emotional effects, and their influence in musical compositions, such as the soundtracks and sound design of The Dark Knight and Dunkirk, is described. A new way of producing pitch circularity, which was invented by the author, is also discussed. This new algorithm can be used with natural instrument sounds, and so opens the door to new compositional opportunities.

scholarly journals Octave Bias in Pitch Perception: The Influence of Pitch Height on Pitch Class Identification

Perception ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (9) ◽  
pp. 1060-1069
Author(s):  
Valter Prpic ◽  
Mauro Murgia ◽  
Matteo De Tommaso ◽  
Giulia Boschetti ◽  
Alessandra Galmonte ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Pitch Perception ◽  
Pitch Height ◽  
Pitch Class ◽  
Class Identification

scholarly journals An Analysis of “nyx” (2017), a Computer Music Work by Kerry Hagan

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 118-132
Author(s):  
Maxence Larrieu
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Canonical Form ◽  
Chaos Theory ◽  
Computer Music ◽  
Computer Code ◽  
Greek Mythology ◽  
Sound Design ◽  
Pure Data

Abstract Kerry Hagan composed “nyx,” a real-time computer music work, in 2017. The key inspiration of “nyx” is noise, which Hagan achieves through chaos theory. In Greek mythology, Nyx was born from Chaos, and she is the deity of the night. In the same way, two key materials of the work are chaotic synthesis and, at a higher level, the use of several random algorithms. To analyze “nyx,” I apply a specific methodology that considers both the sound and the computer code. In fact, I consider code as a medium through which Hagan has realized her musical ideas, that is to say, seeing code as a support for musical ideas, and not only as a computing object. This article has two main sections: The first describes Hagan's techniques through Pure Data code, and in the second the music is analyzed in its canonical form, describing the structure of the work. Finally, I argue that “nyx” involves many levels of noise, from the sound design, to the use of random algorithms, and lastly to the inspiration from Greek mythology to structure the work.

Into the Labyrinth: The Immersive Soundscapes and Eerie Voices of Cruising

2020 ◽  
pp. 25-34
Author(s):  
Eugenio Ercolani ◽  
Marcus Stiglegger
Keyword(s):  
Punk Rock ◽  
Sound Design ◽  
Musical Compositions ◽  
Effective Use

This chapter analyses the sound design and musical compositions in Cruising. William Friedkin usually relies in his films on very elaborate soundtracks, and in Cruising he makes effective use of location sound, squeaking leather clothing, and pounding punk rock songs.

The Tritone Paradox

2019 ◽  
pp. 71-81
Author(s):  
Diana Deutsch
Keyword(s):  
Native Language ◽  
Geographic Location ◽  
Absolute Pitch ◽  
Pitch Height ◽  
Basic Pattern ◽  
Musical Note ◽  
Pitch Class ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Native English Speaking ◽  
Tritone Paradox

Chapter 5 explores the tritone paradox—a musical illusion that was discovered by the author. Its basic pattern consists of two computer-generated tones that are related by a half-octave (i.e., a tritone). These tones are well defined in pitch class (note name) but ambiguous in pitch height. When one of these tone pairs is played in succession, some people hear an ascending pattern, yet other people hear a descending one. Indeed, a group of people will disagree completely among themselves as to whether such a pair of tones is moving up or down in pitch. Furthermore, any one person hears one of these tone pairs as ascending or descending depending on their note names (such as C–F♯, or G♯–D). How people hear the tritone paradox varies with the geographic location in which they grew up—and so with their native language or dialect. Native English-speaking Californians hear this pattern differently from natives of the south of England. People who are natives of Vietnam hear the pattern quite differently from native English-speaking Californians. The tritone paradox shows, therefore, that the way we perceive music is related to our language, and generally reveals strong effects of our memories and expectations on how we hear music. It also has important implications for absolute pitch (or “perfect pitch”)—the rare ability to name a musical note that is presented in isolation. People make orderly judgments of the tritone paradox, even though they cannot name the notes that they are judging, so they must have an implicit form of absolute pitch.

Effects of Tuning Sharpness on Tone Categorization by Self-Organizing Neural Networks

1998 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-141
Author(s):  
W. Einar Mencl
Keyword(s):  
Network Architecture ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Pitch Height ◽  
Neural Network Architecture ◽  
Pitch Class ◽  
Tuning Curves ◽  
Fundamental Frequencies ◽  
Harmonic Components ◽  
Stimulus Features ◽  
Self Organizing

Because humans can categorize tones either in terms of pitch height or pitch class (chroma), I have explored the potential of simple self-organizing networks to demonstrate these two different capacities, and have uncovered a mechanism which can subserve both. A self-organizing neural network architecture was used; during training, the network learns to represent internally the co-existence of stimulus features (here, harmonic components). Two sets of simulations were completed, identical in all respects except for the tuning sharpness used at the input layer. In the broad tuning condition, the network categorized sounds together exclusively on the basis of their pitch similarity. Here, two tones with nearby fundamental frequencies (FOs) activate many of the same input units, due to the overlap between adjacent tuning curves. Thissimilarity in activation decreases with increasing distance between the FOs. In the narrow tuning condition, a different result was found: many tones were categorized together on the basisof chroma similarity, as opposed to pitch similarity. In this case, two tones with nearby FOs do not activate many of the same input units, since the receptive fields of adjacent units do not overlap as much. However, two tones an octave apart still activate many of the same input units, since half of the upper harmonic components of the lower tone are also present in the upper tone. This results in categorization by chroma.

Correspondence in Perception of the Tritone Paradox and Perfect-Fifth/Perfect-Fourth Intervals

2012 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 391-406
Author(s):  
Frank Ragozzine
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Pitch Height ◽  
Pitch Class ◽  
Complex Tones ◽  
Tritone Paradox ◽  
Related Complex

Shepard (1964) found that the pitch height of a pair of octave-related complex tones is perceived in accordance with the principle of proximity around a pitch class circle. However, when these tones form a tritone interval, proximity cannot be used. In the tritone paradox, Deutsch (1986) found that listeners perceive these tones such that half of the pitch class circle is heard as higher in pitch, and the opposite half as lower, with individual differences in which half is heard as higher. In the present experiments, listeners judged the height of octave-related complexes forming tritones and forming intervals of perfect fifths (P5) and perfect fourths (P4). There was a strong relationship between the pitch classes heard higher in the tritone paradox and those heard higher when presented with P5/P4 intervals. Rather than using proximity to judge pitch height with P5/P4 intervals, listeners instead use the same mechanism involved in perception of the tritone paradox.

scholarly journals Duplicated Subdivisions in Babbitt’sIt Takes Twelve to Tango

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary Bernstein
Keyword(s):  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Pitch Class

It Takes Twelve to Tango(1984) has a subdivision series that unfolds in two dimensions: globally in the first beat of the 2/4 meter, and locally in the second beat. Though the eight subdivision series expressed in the second beat mostly proceed at the rate of one subdivision per measure, occasionally a subdivision will be repeated in two consecutive measures. Attempts to interpret these duplicated subdivisions reveal intersections between the subdivision series and a wide variety of other aspects of the piece, including the pitch-class array, hypermeter, and registral gestures. These non-systematic explanations lead to a meditation on the meaning and power of the systematic aspects of Babbitt’s music.

The Pitch of Speech as a Function of Linguistic Community

1994 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Dolson
Keyword(s):  
Speech Production ◽  
Internal Representation ◽  
Linguistic Community ◽  
Pitch Height ◽  
Pitch Range ◽  
Pitch Class ◽  
Musical Patterns ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Speaking Voice ◽  
Tritone Paradox

A recent series of experiments by Deutsch and co-workers has investigated the perception of musical patterns in which the tones are well defined in terms of pitch class, but poorly defined in terms of pitch height. One of these patterns is known as the "tritone paradox." It has been found that listeners' differing perceptions are significantly correlated both with the linguistic community in which the listener grew up and with the pitch range of the listener's spontaneous speaking voice. To explain these findings, Deutsch has hypothesized that listeners acquire an internal representation of pitch classes based on the prevailing pitch range of speech in their linguistic community and that this representation influences both their perception of the tritone paradox and their speech production. The present paper examines this hypothesis in the light of available data about the pitch of speech as a function of linguistic community. It is concluded that these data are surprisingly consistent with Deutsch's hypothesis.

A comparative evaluation of auditory-visual mappings for sound visualisation

2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
KOSTAS GIANNAKIS
Keyword(s):  
Computer Music ◽  
Computer Applications ◽  
John Cage ◽  
Sound Design ◽  
Karlheinz Stockhausen ◽  
Iannis Xenakis ◽  
Modern Computer ◽  
Graphic Scores ◽  
Music Research

The significant role of visual communication in modern computer applications is indisputable. In the case of music, various attempts have been made from time to time to translate non-visual ideas into visual codes (see Walters 1997 for a collection of graphic scores from the late computer music pioneer Iannis Xenakis, John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and others). In computer music research, most current sound design tools allow the direct manipulation of visual representations of sound such as time-domain and frequency-domain representations, with the most notable examples being the UPIC system (Xenakis 1992), Phonogramme (Lesbros 1996), Lemur (Fitz and Haken 1997), and MetaSynth (Wenger 1998), among others. Associations between auditory and visual dimensions have also been extensively studied in other scientific domains such as visual perception and cognitive psychology, as well as inspired new forms of artistic expression (see, for example, Wells 1980; Goldberg and Schrack 1986; Whitney 1991).

The tangled web of agency

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alain Pe-Curto ◽  
Julien A. Deonna ◽  
David Sander
Keyword(s):  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Bad Company

AbstractWe characterize Doris's anti-reflectivist, collaborativist, valuational theory along two dimensions. The first dimension is socialentanglement, according to which cognition, agency, and selves are socially embedded. The second dimension isdisentanglement, the valuational element of the theory that licenses the anchoring of agency and responsibility in distinct actors. We then present an issue for the account: theproblem of bad company.

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