KARL JASPERS FORUM
TA
81-82 (De & Pal)
Commentary
45
AUDITORY
INFORMATION PROCESSING
by
Adhanom Andemicael
26
April 2007, posted 28 April 2007
[Charles
T. Tart]
<1>
Observations
on the Perpetual Music Track
Charles
T. Tart
Volume
13, Number 6 (2006) of the Journal of Consciousness Studies arrived in the mail
a while ago, and, after a quick glance at the table of contents, I put it aside
until I had time for serious reading. I thought I would probably be interested
in Steven Brown's article on "The Perpetual Music Track: The Phenomenon of
Constant Musical Imagery."
<2>
As
I started dinner last night I decided I had time for some serious reading. As I reached for the Journal, my personal
Perpetual Music Track (PMT) instantly switched from whatever tune it had been
playing to looping the first line of the theme from Disney's Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs:
Oh
Ho Hi He, Hi Ho, It's Off To Work We Go...
[Adhanom Andemicael]
<3>
I'm
glad that articles such as Brown's are being written. The insights in such articles will lead
us to a better understanding of the way the brain represents and stores auditory
information.(1)
***
<4>
I
often listen to recordings of music. When I "playback" these recordings
mentally, the mental playback sounds exactly like the physical recording. Tempo, rhythm, dynamics, harmony,
orchestration, etc. sound exactly as they do on the physical disc (i.e., the
compact disc).
<5>
I
do not always "hear" the playback in the original key, however. I often "hear" the playback in a
transposed -- i.e., a different -- key. (The brain seems to be flexible in the
way that it represents and stores pitch and key.)(2)
<6>
When
I "listen" mentally to a transposed playback, it sounds identical to an untransposed playback. (The only difference that I hear
between the two "performances" is the difference in
pitch.)
***
<7>
Musical
instruments sound different in their different "registers" (i.e., in their
different "pitch-areas").
<8>
Let
us consider the flute, for example.(3) As all flute
players know, the low notes on the flute sound very different from the high
notes on that instrument. For this
reason, a transposed performance of a flute composition sounds different from an
untransposed performance.
<9>
However,
I find that if I mentally playback a flute composition that I've heard, the
transposed version sounds the same as the untransposed
version!
<10>
I
believe that when the brain mentally transposes a piece of music, it tries to
preserve the timbre of the original, untransposed
version. The brain preserves the
original timbre by "creating" and "hearing" tones that are never produced in the
outside world.(4)
----------------------------------------------------
NOTES
1.
List-members interested in the subject of auditory information processing may
wish to read C. Tart's article on PMT:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/jcs-online/message/4411 (jcs-online,
msg# 4411, http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/jcs-online/)
2.
The brain does not generate the mind. However, as we know, brain and mental
events are correlated.
3.
The middle-pitched notes on the flute do not sound as "rich" as the low-pitched
notes.
4.
The brain can "create" and "hear" middle-pitched flute notes that sound as
"rich" as the low-pitched notes.
----------------------------------------------------
Target
Article 61
http://www.kjf.ca/61-TAAND.htm
----------------------------------------------------
Adhanom
Andemicael
e-mail <Andemicael@worldnet.att.net>