Re: [ARSCLIST] Haas effect

[George Brock-Nannestad <pattac@xxxxxxxx>]

From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad

(apologies to those who are not interested in the present line of argument)

Don Cox wrote:

> On 23/03/07, George Brock-Nannestad wrote:
> 
> 
> > ----- forward masking would be the modern term, I agree. It refers to
> > the inability to use input that arrives in the window of time
> > following the perception. And that is why I do not think that varying
> > the dynamics of a given tone in a chord has much effect.
> > 
> Which input would the hearer be unable to use? You cannot be suggesting
> that if one note of a chord arrives in advance of the others, they are
> inaudible. That would make nonsense of all counterpoint.

----- all strings have partials (harmonics, i.e. 2x, 3x, 4x, etc), and in a 
chord there are shared partials. The partials in the later struck strings 
that have already been perceived due to the first will not be perceived in 
the window we have been discussing. I'm quite convinced that this is the real 
basis for the counterpoint that we know in classical western art music.

> 
> If four fingers touch the keys at exactly the same time, and one finger
> is moving faster than the others, then that hammer will strike its
> string first. The note will be both earlier and louder.
> 
> To make it louder but not earlier, the pianist would have to delay the
> finger (just raising it a little would do).

> 
> 
> This has implications for the recording of a performance. If timing is
> all that matters within a chord, then a piano roll or MIDI can give an
> adequate recording. If the notes vary in volume and if this matters,
> then a roll cannot record the voicing properly.

----- but that was precisely my point: the piano roll (so-called "artist 
roll", not the cheap note-by-note) gives a surprisingly good illusion, and I 
hypothesize that it could be because timing is the most important.

> 
> The timing of notes in an _orchestral_ chord will vary depending on where
> in the audience you are sitting, because of the speed (or slowness) of
> sound.

----- well, it is a matter of distance to the sources. Benade does discuss 
auditorium acoustics quite a lot.

I believe that most of our musical practice has been developed on the basis 
of what can be heard, not on various systems that are thought out.

The Beament book is published by a relatively small publishing house, but it 
is well worth while getting it. Some features of our hearing are so basic 
that even a dog has them, and they are so well understood now that it has 
become possible to make data reduction and still make intelligible sound 
(speech) out of the merest skeleton of what we know as linear sound. I detest 
the artefacts I perceive. Beament is a hard hitter, just a small quote: (on 
what people think they can hear): "In almost every case the belief is based 
either on something they have been told by someone else who so believes, or 
something they have read and misunderstood. There doesn't seem to be an exact 
parallel in any of our other senses. If people continue to believe that they 
can hear things after one has explained to them why they can't, all one can 
say is so did Joan of Arc, and look what happend to her." (p. 154).

Ah, another long post. But the apology at the beginning should have warned 
people.

Kind regards,


George