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I was skeptical of his prior dissonance study. I feel there is a bit of accommodation by the participants to maximize the surprise of the researcher. Getting go

I was skeptical of his prior dissonance study. I feel there is a bit of accommodation by the participants to maximize the surprise of the researcher. Getting goods for singing funny. The paradigm I would have liked to see is where two tones are held constant and the participant moves a third tone to the location that sounds the best or the worst. It is remarkable work. But I don't believe it. Octaves are just too basic a phenomena to be viewed as a cultural invention.

andi999 6y ago
Also if the result would have been:Tsimane can hear octaves as everybody else, then there would be no publication. So there are rewards not to question ones own study too carefully.
bambax 6y ago
So many things we consider part of our inner core are learned. This result doesn't seem that surprising, although it does call for further study. The fact that those people don't rate consonant chords as more pleasant than dissonant ones is also interesting.
jmiskovic 6y ago
Octave harmony in instruments and singing are established physical phenomenon. Higher harmonics of two voices line up and resulting frequency spectrum is more clustered and concentrated. I think the study disproves that all brains consider this to be preferable, and instead ascribes it to cultural/learned phenomenon. I agree it's not compelling theory, but hard to argue against if they can get more proof.
enriquto 6y ago
> Octaves are just too basic a phenomena to be viewed as a cultural invention. Octaves are consonant or dissonant depending on the timbre of the sound. For sounds produced by harmonic instruments, like a vibrating string or air vibrating inside a long tube, the sound is a superposition of waves whose frequencies are integer multiples of a fundamental frequency. Then, playing two sounds an octave apart will match exactly all these frequencies and it will sound nice. But there are other instruments (not privileged in the western music tradition) whose timbre is not composed of integer multiples of a fundamental frequency; and in these instruments octaves sound very dissonant. You can argue that the octave is a "basic phenomenon" inasmuch a vibrating string is basic. Yet, from the point of view of a person who uses a synthesizer, the octave has nothing special with respect to other intervals.
- frodetb 6y ago
  A drum is a good example, though we don't often think of it as a melodic instrument. The resonant modes of a drum don't look anything like someting as nice as those of strings, with their integer multiple frequencies. Makes you wonder, what music might have been like if our ear was more "drum-based" than "string-based" (however that might work).
  - enriquto 6y ago
    Music already "is" something different! not all music is western. One of the most strikingly different kinds of music (besides synthesized stuff) is gamelan music, which is performed on a set of non-harmonic bells, which sound consonantly at non-integer intervals.
    - frodetb 6y ago
      Thanks! I've been listening to gamelan music for the past couple of hours now, and have thoroughly enjoyed the experience. From my limited exposure, I get the impression that the music leans on repetition of sound patterns to give the listener something to hold onto musically, creating more of an atmosphere of sound than a melody you might hum along to. Is that fair to say? Perhaps I just need more exposure before things "click". I might compare this non-harmonic genre with the artist Sevish, whose work I've enjoyed a great deal. He too tries to step out of the realm of 12-tone equal temperament. Some of his work is quite reminiscent in structure to this gamelan music (e.g. Desert Island Rain). However, he also manages to build melodies and something you could probably call chord progressions (though I wouldn't know), in a new and very foreign musical world (his entire album Harmony Hacker is amazing). Besides the music being amazing, getting used to this new landscape is enjoyable in and of itself. My point about the drums, though, was more aimed at what scales, chord progressions and melodies might be developed by a species who had as harmonic basis the drum's spectrum of resonant frequencies. We, by comparison, have the integer multiple of some base frequency, the canonical "harmonic sequence", whereas for them it would be quite different: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibrations_of_a_circular_membrane#Animations_of_several_vibration_modes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibrations_of_a_circular_membr...
isolli 6y ago
I agree with most skeptical commenters. I once read about a study of singing in traditional cultures. Men and women would sing the same melody, except one octave apart due to differences in physiology. Reportedly, they did not perceive their singing to be separated by any interval; they perceived that they were singing in unison.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
  ... a result that almost reinforces the findings in the paper reported in the article: octave (equivalence) perception is learned/culturally influenced rather than being hard-wired.
  - isolli 6y ago
    I don't disagree, but rather it looks like their hypothesis is difficult to falsify.
throwaway4666 6y ago
You'd be surprised at the number of "basic phenomena" that turned out to have cultural origins. Look up the language of the Piraha people, who famously does not contain any concept related to numbers or counting (because they have no use for it and introducing it would disrupt the trades they have), among many other things. Also, cursorily reading a study that contradicts one's preconceptions and going like "nah, my gut feeling doesn't agree with it" is so quintessentially Hacker News ;-)
- twirlock 6y ago
  Similarly to the existence of waves and simple ratios, actually no, numbers do not have cultural origins.
  - throwaway4666 6y ago
    Funny how you seem unable to conceive of a people that doesn't have a concept of numbers ;-)
    - twirlock 6y ago
      I can conceive perfectly well "of a people" who don't have a concept of all kinds of things. It doesn't mean those things don't exist. Winkyface.

andi999 6y ago

Also if the result would have been:Tsimane can hear octaves as everybody else, then there would be no publication. So there are rewards not to question ones own study too carefully.

bambax 6y ago

So many things we consider part of our inner core are learned. This result doesn't seem that surprising, although it does call for further study. The fact that those people don't rate consonant chords as more pleasant than dissonant ones is also interesting.

jmiskovic 6y ago

Octave harmony in instruments and singing are established physical phenomenon. Higher harmonics of two voices line up and resulting frequency spectrum is more clustered and concentrated. I think the study disproves that all brains consider this to be preferable, and instead ascribes it to cultural/learned phenomenon. I agree it's not compelling theory, but hard to argue against if they can get more proof.

enriquto 6y ago

> Octaves are just too basic a phenomena to be viewed as a cultural invention. Octaves are consonant or dissonant depending on the timbre of the sound. For sounds produced by harmonic instruments, like a vibrating string or air vibrating inside a long tube, the sound is a superposition of waves whose frequencies are integer multiples of a fundamental frequency. Then, playing two sounds an octave apart will match exactly all these frequencies and it will sound nice. But there are other instruments (not privileged in the western music tradition) whose timbre is not composed of integer multiples of a fundamental frequency; and in these instruments octaves sound very dissonant. You can argue that the octave is a "basic phenomenon" inasmuch a vibrating string is basic. Yet, from the point of view of a person who uses a synthesizer, the octave has nothing special with respect to other intervals.

frodetb 6y ago
A drum is a good example, though we don't often think of it as a melodic instrument. The resonant modes of a drum don't look anything like someting as nice as those of strings, with their integer multiple frequencies. Makes you wonder, what music might have been like if our ear was more "drum-based" than "string-based" (however that might work).
- enriquto 6y ago
  Music already "is" something different! not all music is western. One of the most strikingly different kinds of music (besides synthesized stuff) is gamelan music, which is performed on a set of non-harmonic bells, which sound consonantly at non-integer intervals.
  - frodetb 6y ago
    Thanks! I've been listening to gamelan music for the past couple of hours now, and have thoroughly enjoyed the experience. From my limited exposure, I get the impression that the music leans on repetition of sound patterns to give the listener something to hold onto musically, creating more of an atmosphere of sound than a melody you might hum along to. Is that fair to say? Perhaps I just need more exposure before things "click". I might compare this non-harmonic genre with the artist Sevish, whose work I've enjoyed a great deal. He too tries to step out of the realm of 12-tone equal temperament. Some of his work is quite reminiscent in structure to this gamelan music (e.g. Desert Island Rain). However, he also manages to build melodies and something you could probably call chord progressions (though I wouldn't know), in a new and very foreign musical world (his entire album Harmony Hacker is amazing). Besides the music being amazing, getting used to this new landscape is enjoyable in and of itself. My point about the drums, though, was more aimed at what scales, chord progressions and melodies might be developed by a species who had as harmonic basis the drum's spectrum of resonant frequencies. We, by comparison, have the integer multiple of some base frequency, the canonical "harmonic sequence", whereas for them it would be quite different: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibrations_of_a_circular_membrane#Animations_of_several_vibration_modes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibrations_of_a_circular_membr...

isolli 6y ago

I agree with most skeptical commenters. I once read about a study of singing in traditional cultures. Men and women would sing the same melody, except one octave apart due to differences in physiology. Reportedly, they did not perceive their singing to be separated by any interval; they perceived that they were singing in unison.

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
... a result that almost reinforces the findings in the paper reported in the article: octave (equivalence) perception is learned/culturally influenced rather than being hard-wired.
- isolli 6y ago
  I don't disagree, but rather it looks like their hypothesis is difficult to falsify.

throwaway4666 6y ago

You'd be surprised at the number of "basic phenomena" that turned out to have cultural origins. Look up the language of the Piraha people, who famously does not contain any concept related to numbers or counting (because they have no use for it and introducing it would disrupt the trades they have), among many other things. Also, cursorily reading a study that contradicts one's preconceptions and going like "nah, my gut feeling doesn't agree with it" is so quintessentially Hacker News ;-)

twirlock 6y ago
Similarly to the existence of waves and simple ratios, actually no, numbers do not have cultural origins.
- throwaway4666 6y ago
  Funny how you seem unable to conceive of a people that doesn't have a concept of numbers ;-)
  - twirlock 6y ago
    I can conceive perfectly well "of a people" who don't have a concept of all kinds of things. It doesn't mean those things don't exist. Winkyface.