Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!randvax!edhall
From: edhall@rand.org (Ed Hall)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Perfect Pitch and Hertz
Message-ID: <1991Mar21.012146.11834@rand.org>
Date: 21 Mar 91 01:21:46 GMT
References: <1991Mar18.195507.25639@odin.corp.sgi.com> <1991Mar19.195901.6769@odin.corp.sgi.com> <3728@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP>
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In article <3728@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP> carroll@ssc-vax.UUCP (Jeff Carroll) writes:
>In article <1991Mar19.195901.6769@odin.corp.sgi.com> gints@prophet.sgi.com (Gints Klimanis) writes:
>>If you can perceive 5 Hz discrepencies at pitches near 10 kHz, you
>>should be able to perceive discrepencies near 100 Hz with a sensitivity
>>that is two orders of magnitude greater.  
>
>	Good point. My problem is that I've been an engineer for too long, and
>have gotten used to thinking in Hz.
>
>	My gut feeling, though, is that it's not that simple; that is, that
>I don't perceive pitch as a simple log-frequency scale.

No, it isn't.  The human ear seems to be most sensitive to pitch
changes (where "pitch" is a log scale) in the midrange of, say,
200-4000Hz.  It is also most sensitive to absolute volume and to
volume variations in this range.  Probably not coincidentally, this is
also the range necessary for the intelligibility of speech.

There are several books on the subject of acoustics and music that
go into this sort of thing in depth (although a few mysteries still
remain).  I'd post a reference, but all my books are sealed in boxes
ready to move to my new home...

		-Ed Hall
		edhall@rand.org