Re: pitch and psychophysics

[John Denker <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>]

At 09:52 AM 1/24/00 -0500, Michael Edmiston wrote:
> in high school, they keep having it drummed into their heads that
> they must not go flat.  Especially the boys are taught to "think high" or we
> also hear "hit it from the top."
>
> It is true (having listened to many high-school choirs) that the men have a
> tendency to go flat and the director has to keep working to get them to
> think higher.  But I have also noticed that college choirs, if anything,
> tend to go sharp.

I think we can agree that none of this makes a compelling case for the
supposed innate preference for stretched octaves.  Having the whole choir
go flat or sharp provides no evidence for stretched octaves.

If these anecdotes mean anything at all, they can equally well (or better)
be used to argue for an innate tendency toward shrunken octaves among naive
singers.  For simplicity, consider an all-male choir.  As a rule, naive
singers tend to come in flat.  The basses have a disincentive for coming in
flat, so they are the first to learn not to do it.  This explains why many
a choir director drums it into the tenor's heads that they must pitch-match
to the basses.  If the tenors persist in coming in flat, the result is
shrunken octaves.

(The effect on naive listeners is another story entirely.)