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#1
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Evelyn Glennie and the nature of hearing
There's an established assumption in audio that we listen only with our
ears, that hearing is uniform experience across and the fundamentals of the physical perception are well understood and documented. Then there is someone like Evelyn Glennie; Virtuoso percussionist Evelyn Glennie recently performed in Vancouver Canada. Glennie is profoundly deaf - though born with normal hearing she became deaf at the age of 12. Glennie had little or no musical training before becoming deaf (unlike other famous deaf musicians like Beethoven or Smetana). Glennie reports being able to sense music (without hearing) through her chest, on her face and through her feet (she performs barefoot). Other than being deaf there is nothing about Glennie to suggest she is atypical in this regard. In an interview with the Vancouver Sun Glennie made an interesting observation on the nature of "hearing vs "listening"" "[She] reads lips flawlessly. Glennie recalls a recital in which she performed with pianist Philip Smith. 'When I play with my pianist, I need to hear the piano - so I wear a certain kind of ear monitor. Afterwards a man came up to me and said "So you are not completely deaf then?' And I said 'no, you'd have to be dead to be completely deaf' 'SO you can hear something?' he said and I said 'yes I can hear'. So we just went round and round like that, it was a difficult conversation. 'As far as she was concerned says Glennie the man was disabled because although he could hear - the man wasn't listening.'" Vancouver Sun May 17, 2005 Do we know all we need to know about how we perceive sound? As I understand the basic model of hearing was constructed using tests where hearing was exclusively through headphones. Is there more to the perception of sound than what our ears tell us? How might this effect our understanding of audio reproduction? |
#2
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"Ralph Heidecke" wrote in message
... There's an established assumption in audio that we listen only with our ears, that hearing is uniform experience across and the fundamentals of the physical perception are well understood and documented. Then there is someone like Evelyn Glennie; Virtuoso percussionist Evelyn Glennie recently performed in Vancouver Canada. Glennie is profoundly deaf - though born with normal hearing she became deaf at the age of 12. Glennie had little or no musical training before becoming deaf (unlike other famous deaf musicians like Beethoven or Smetana). Glennie reports being able to sense music (without hearing) through her chest, on her face and through her feet (she performs barefoot). Other than being deaf there is nothing about Glennie to suggest she is atypical in this regard. In an interview with the Vancouver Sun Glennie made an interesting observation on the nature of "hearing vs "listening"" "[She] reads lips flawlessly. Glennie recalls a recital in which she performed with pianist Philip Smith. 'When I play with my pianist, I need to hear the piano - so I wear a certain kind of ear monitor. Afterwards a man came up to me and said "So you are not completely deaf then?' And I said 'no, you'd have to be dead to be completely deaf' 'SO you can hear something?' he said and I said 'yes I can hear'. So we just went round and round like that, it was a difficult conversation. 'As far as she was concerned says Glennie the man was disabled because although he could hear - the man wasn't listening.'" Vancouver Sun May 17, 2005 Do we know all we need to know about how we perceive sound? As I understand the basic model of hearing was constructed using tests where hearing was exclusively through headphones. Is there more to the perception of sound than what our ears tell us? How might this effect our understanding of audio reproduction? One of the conundrums posed by the Oohashi test of ultrasonic frequencies. Conventional wisdom suggests it can't be "heard", Arny Kruger and many other objectivists insist it must have "folded down" into the top end of the audible frequencies, and Oohashi said he and his band of researchers simply didn't know how it was sensed. The ultrasonic frequencies, when present, resulted in more pleasant musical playback as rated by testees after exposure. But it also created a response from the pleasure center of the brain that ordinary cd type reproduction (or no music at all) did not. Oohashi "wondered" whether or not their could have been direct absorption by the body of those ultrasonic frequencies. My own personal hunch is that it cleaned up the high frequency square wave response and that this was perceived (pleasurably) by the body as "better sounding sound". But what do I know. ;-` |
#3
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"Do we know all we need to know about how we perceive sound? As I
understand the basic model of hearing was constructed using tests where hearing was exclusively through headphones. Is there more to the perception of sound than what our ears tell us? How might this effect our understanding of audio reproduction?" There is more,ex. bone conduction, in the way we percieve sound. The eardrum model was mapped out using headphones for some things and external sound sources for others. For such things as frequencies headphones exclude various confounding factors. For directional cues they can be used but require electronic manipulation of the signal so external sound sources in a controlled context is useful to exclude factors. This question is often posed in the context of trying to understand why claims of hearing various things in audio reproduction contexts fail to be confirmed when tested. A far more fruteful area to answer that question lies in the perception process of the brain once the signal has reached it and how it manipulates the experience to seem to add things not in the content of the signal as it reaches the ear. This latter approach is more consistant with other areas of research about other perception questions. They long ago concluded that the signal can so easily be affected by information held in the brain that testing controls to exclude corrupting results are routinely put in place. Until something not now known about signals can be shown, then the question is probably no there is nothing about hearing at the ear interface but most surely how it affects the perception centers of the brain. |
#4
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"Harry Lavo" wrote in message
... snip My own personal hunch is that it cleaned up the high frequency square wave response and that this was perceived (pleasurably) by the body as "better sounding sound". But what do I know. ;-` I meant to say and should have said "high frequency transient response", not "high frequency square wave". Realized it as soon as I hit the send button. Sorry. |