[Dixielandjazz] Pitch perception

[Mike Durham]

Bill: as you know, Baby Dodds used to tune his drums. Maybe you COULD tune 
your washboard - got a hammer? (unless it's one of those glass ones......)

On a more serious note, washboardists might be interested to know that in 
sunny southern Portugal houses are still being built with integral 
washboards - yes, really -  affixed to the outside of the house, next to a 
water tap. A lot cheaper than a washing machine, and very 
environmentally-friendly! As they are made of concrete, I have never tried 
playing one, so cannot comment on their pitch.

Mike (an occasional fellow-scrubber, currently using a Maid-Rite, purchased 
in Chicago, key of F-sharp)





>From: "Bill Gunter" <jazzboard at hotmail.com>
>To: stridepiano at tesco.net, dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
>Subject: RE: [Dixielandjazz] Pitch perception
>Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 04:31:27 +0000
>
>Hi All,
>
>John Farrell writes:
>
>>"The discussion of  "diplacusis" reminded me of an
>>experience recounted by my brother-in-law, who regularly played in a
>>jazz band back in the '70s.  At the time, he played keyboard "by ear",
>>having had no formal training.  One week he had a rather serious ear
>>infection, and the doctor packed his ear with gauze, etc.  The aural
>>result was that one ear perceived the pitch a full semitone higher
>>than the other!  Wow, that must have been quite a weekend for both
>>the band and the audience!
>
>Also, I would suspect, it would be quite a weekend for your brother-in-law. 
>  Seems to me that if I hear Eb in my right ear and E in my left ear then 
>somewhere in between I ought to detect a "beat frequency" of a dozen or so 
>cycles per second (or whatever the difference between the two pitches are 
>in cycles per second).
>
>But, on top of that, I can't possibly imagine what sort of physiology is 
>taking place to produce such a phenomenon as you describe.  Weird . . . .  
>"doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo" (these are "Twilight Zone" notations I'm 
>writing here).
>
>John also says:
>
>>I've often wondered how uniformly we perceive pitch, anyway.
>
>Must be pretty uniform otherwise symphony orchestras would never be able to 
>tune up. If the oboe player cranked out an A and half the orchestra heard 
>something else that would be really ugly!
>
>Respectfully submitted,
>
>Bill "None of the above applies to washboard players" Gunter
>jazzboard at hotmail.com
>
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