How do you hear tones?, Find out inside Options

[tgoose]

12/12. Does that come from being a bass player ? On the other hand I much prefer 'cello and bassoon to piano or violin, so I don't think it's too useful a conclusion

[Sordid]

12/12 - damn, I'm a fundamentalist!
But the description given by Jean-Luc

Additionally, fundamental tone hearers are believed to be more sensible towards proper signal phase, impulse precision (transients) and "time-right" playback with low runtime differences.

suits me perfectly!

[krabapple]

I got 11/12 using headphones, though for several of them I could also hear chord tones going in the opposite direction from the 'main' direction. But really, aren't one's age (i.e., high frequency hearing) and the frequency response of the playback setup always going to be factors? If so then it would be wrong to conclude what one 'is', from this test.

This post has been edited by krabapple: Feb 8 2006, 20:27

[lucy]

This study really interested me. I play violin and it's always struck me that while I'm fast at picking up melodies I have no ability to identify chords at all- aural exams were always a disaster and even pitching my voice to sing in a choir is pretty challenging! I got a clear 12/12 on the test which fits pretty well. Sounds like there's something in it....it would be fascinating to know what different composers would have scored on this test...

[hellokeith]

I don't feel qualified to judge my own hearing.

I scored 0/12 based on the table (exact opposite)

Audigy 2 NX, AKG K240 headphones (not that it matters)

I'm with ya. 1/12. All those years I thought I was tone deaf.. nope, I'm over-tone deaf!

[Lyx]

The main flaw in the claim they make, is that they turning "effect" into "cause". Or asume both to be equal. Thats a typical mistake often done by those who apply natural science to psychology.

Essentially, what they get as the "effect" is: people who prefer tone-class A, have higher activity in the left side of the brain. And for those who prefer tone-class B, the opposite is true.

This is a valid statement about the effect they are seeing. They do however then make an invalid conclusion about the "cause". Being natural science chauvinists, they exclude any "mind->body" cause beforehand (because natural science cannot handle that :) and automatically asume a "body->mind" cause. Thus, they asume "people like tone-class A more beCAUSE of their brain-structure dictates them to do so".

Thus, they use a test-method which has well known shortcomings, and then fix those shortcomings by making invalid asumptions about the testobject". Why? Well, because natural science works great in the material domain, but not at all in the mental domain. Thus, they fix it by simply asuming that you have no consciousness. But as every HA.org reader knows by the rule of the holy TOS#8, this is bullshit. Of course, it may be the case that their asumption is correct. But they cannot know beforehand.

- Lyx

This post has been edited by Lyx: Feb 6 2007, 01:49

[Segovia]

Yeah, that's not quite what I meant; sorry for the confusion. I meant that if I listen to, say, two or three voices singing in harmony, I can hear very well the intrinsic harmonic relationships and play them on the piano quite easily, yet I couldn't sing you back any of the parts in isolation (except the melody line) very easily. Oh, and the bass line - that sticks out too.

In other words, you can easily hear that it's a major seventh chord, or a dominant seventh (or whatever the case may be) - but you can only identify the lowest and highest notes of the chords? The exact voicing of the inner voices eludes you?

It's completely normal and typical. Everyone has this problem at first. If you were to take some formal courses in aural theory (ear training) you would find that harmonic dictation usually starts this way - you first learn to transcribe only the bass and soprano and later add the inner voices.

[Kees de Visser]

The main flaw in the claim they make, is that they turning "effect" into "cause". Or asume both to be equal. Thats a typical mistake often done by those who apply natural science to psychology.

Who are "they"? The Austrian research team or the German HiFi journalists ?
This thread is new to me, so I might have missed a few things.
If this test is part of a scientific study, are there any links to the sources available ? Thanks.

Kees de Visser
(FWIW: 12/12, pianist and recording engineer)

[echo]

12/12, so I guess I'm 100% fundamentalist! And it's true that I like piano and flute more than cello and bassoon...

[mugen]

The main flaw in the claim they make, is that they turning "effect" into "cause". Or asume both to be equal. Thats a typical mistake often done by those who apply natural science to psychology.

Essentially, what they get as the "effect" is: people who prefer tone-class A, have higher activity in the left side of the brain. And for those who prefer tone-class B, the opposite is true.

This is a valid statement about the effect they are seeing. They do however then make an invalid conclusion about the "cause". Being natural science chauvinists, they exclude any "mind->body" cause beforehand (because natural science cannot handle that and automatically asume a "body->mind" cause. Thus, they asume "people like tone-class A more beCAUSE of their brain-structure dictates them to do so".

Thus, they use a test-method which has well known shortcomings, and then fix those shortcomings by making invalid asumptions about the testobject". Why? Well, because natural science works great in the material domain, but not at all in the mental domain. Thus, they fix it by simply asuming that you have no consciousness. But as every HA.org reader knows by the rule of the holy TOS#8, this is bullshit. Of course, it may be the case that their asumption is correct. But they cannot know beforehand.

- Lyx

I was shocked, shocked I say, to see that amongst your interests is philosophy.

Anyway, I heard only fundamental tones.

[Lyx]

I was shocked, shocked I say, to see that amongst your interests is philosophy.

Yup, some people are shocked about philosophy :-) And will always be. It sometimes threatens common beliefs.

- Lyx

[jmartis]

maybe a stupid question, do you have to pick the pitch difference in each pair (each pair is played twice, so you always get two same results in a row)? If so, then I got a clear 12/12, and I have hard time understanding someone would get different answer.

[Hancoque]

3/12 is my result.

[sheh]

Same as ref table. Looks like that's what most people hear.

[r0pfer]

Hi all, I joined this forum just to join into this discussion. Great thread.

I was going through the book Auditory Perception by the late F. Alton Everest and in it he has a test for the "case of the missing fundamental" whereby he plays a 400, 600 and 1000 Hz pure tone individually and then combined. The book then states "The [perceived] pitch of the combination is not that of the 400-, the 600-, or even the 1000-Hz tone; neither is it a mixture or average of the three. Rather, what we here is the pitch of a 200-Hz tone!"

Ironically my brain hears the 3 distinct tones and a very very faint 200 Hz--which I only heard when he played the "phantom" 200 Hz test tone afterwards (as a comparison). Therefore I must be an overtone hearer right...?

I got a little concerned since I consider myself to be an audio engineer and accomplished musician. So I ran the test with several other people, and each of their perceived hearing agreed with the book, i.e. they were all fundamental hearers. I'm assuming they would score close to a 12/12 on the matrix presented in this thread.

Now here is what is interesting. I took this test, but in two different ways, since I already knew the *science* behind what the results would determine. Using headphones (to eliminate any phase issues) and without looking at the matrix key, I took the test normally, then I went through it again, and without referring to my first results, I listened to just the overtones [I tried to be completely unbiased and didn't listen for the fundamental, as obviously I realized that I could have just picked the opposite of the direction of the fundamental result]. I could distinctly hear the overtones. I centered my focus on the highest overtone to test if it went up or down. My results of the second test: 0/12. I got 9 results completely opposite and 3 that I had to leave blank as I couldn't hear which direction the overtone was moving.

Conclusion: Well, according to these test tones I clearly default to a fundamental tone hearer, but using the test from Everest's book, I clearly am an overtone hearer. Based also on other people's posts in this thread, I would conclude that depending on the frequency, you may alternate between the two. Or in Vinous' case, once he heard the other it was hard to go back.

If indeed this is somehow tied to your left/right brain, then I make a perfect candidate for being confused. I'm not really ambidextrous per say, I'm actually all over the place. I don't primarily use either side of my brain, so I guess you could say I'm a Jack at both sides of the brain but good at none .

Vinous, thank you for your post. Would you be willing to repost the test tones? I'd love to listen.

Here is an excerpt of Everest's test: CaseOfMissingFundamental

I'd be curious to see how many hear 3 distinct tones and represent the overtone hearer. Do the results from this test agree with the test presented in this thread's test?

[Arnold B. Kruege...]

Here is an excerpt of Everest's test: CaseOfMissingFundamental

I'd be curious to see how many hear 3 distinct tones and represent the overtone hearer. Do the results from this test agree with the test presented in this thread's test?

I hear something like 3 distinct tones in the Everest test. I hear an impure tone to which I cannot really ascribe any similarity to 200 Hz.

In the German Hi Fi magazine test, I came up as being an overtone hearer.

[Rotareneg]

Not hearing the 200 Hz either. I can easily pick out the 1000 and 400 Hz tones. The 600 Hz tone is more difficult to pick out and hold as an individual tone, but it's still there too.

[odyssey]

Very interresting. I just tried the test on my girlfriend which I suspected had a different hearing than mine.

I'm a pure fundamental-hearer and I prefer melodic music. My girlfriend listens to a lot of alternative music, classical and often prefers vocal music - A broad range. The test results are mixed 50/50:

CODE

       incr    decr
1               x (F)
2       x         (O)
3               x (O)
4       x         (F)
5               x (O)
6       x         (F)
7       x         (O)
8               x (F)
9               x (O)
10      undecided
11              x (F)
12      x         (F)

This post has been edited by odyssey: Dec 19 2010, 00:29

[Kees de Visser]

(FWIW: 12/12, pianist and recording engineer)

Out of curiosity I redid the test recently (almost 4 years later) and the result remains exactly the same, 12/12.
I wonder if the researchers came to any conclusions. Has anyone seen publications about the subject ?