I found that after I first started DJing and producing, my hearing and perception improved and I was able to pluck certain sounds out of a track and hear them separately, rather than listening to the song as a whole. I call this "aural focus", much like you can concentrate on reading a book or just looking at the page of text as a whole.
In doing this, I've noticed something funny which usually happens with hi-hats but can also appear with other samples: they begin to seemingly change minutely from time to time, back and forth, even when the sample remains the same throughout the song. It's a very similar sensation to looking at one of these:
Do you see an old hag or a young woman looking away?
For this phenomenon to occur, the sound must be repetitive and played at fairly high speed. This is similar to some optical illusions that occur when repetitive, high-speed motion and focus on an object induce a change in vision. Does anyone know if this is a pre-described thing? What's it called?
So: have you ever experienced this phenomenon yourself? With which sounds does it usually occur? Do you perceive songs as a whole, or do you break them up into their components at times (or perhaps always)?
Further searching reveals that something very similar has been described, whereby a quickly repeated phrase appears to be sung rather than spoken. It's a pretty cool effect. Listen here:
I notice that elements of a track can sound a lot different depending on what other elements are playing at the same time. For example, percussion samples might sound different after a bunch of synths come in. Not necessarily an "illusion," but interesting to hear.
Chimney
Producing also makes one appreciate a track more in the ways of variety, creativity and so on.
nefardec
search for a thread i made called 'perceived complexity and polyrhythm'
Surfmorworkless
This reminds me of a book called Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks.
PETRAN
quote:
Originally posted by nefardec
search for a thread i made called 'perceived complexity and polyrhythm'
Ah yeah i remember this one good. Gone are TAs sophisticated days :(
These visual illusions known as "ambiquous" illusions (because they can be perceived in two different ways) are well researched from perceptual psychologists even from the beginning of the 20th century. According to the "Gestalt" school of psychology, the visual system takes advantage of some specific visual-cues which seem to be hard-wired on the human perceptual system. The role of those hard-wired heuristics/cues is to break-down the complexity of information into meangful forms, in an easier, but unfortunately, not prone-free way (since we are doing with "heuristics here rather than "algorithms"). Pictures such as the "old woman/young woman" ambiquity result from a process in which some specific Gestalt cues/heuristics associated with the recognition of form go wrong, giving the visual system two possible perceptions/interpretations which are switched in accordance to the attentional shift. This is because the Gestalt heuristics that favour the two forms are mostly equal in every respect.
A very interesting auditory illusion which is based on the same "Gestalt" perceptual principles that visual illusions are also based is the "Scale Illusion" (is this the one which is stated by the threadstarter?). In this one, the subject is presented with high or low tones that alterante between the ears in a systematic manner. E.g. The left ear is presented with descending tones and the right with ascending ones, although the presentation alternates between the ears. What the subjects hear are not just an alteration of high or low tones but two different seggregated melodic streams, one that ascends and one that descends. This is because the mind uses the perceptual principles/heuristics of "grouping by Proximity" and "grouping by Similarity" (also common in visual and tactile senses) in which the closer and more similar things/items are, the higher the probability of them getting grouped as a unitary perceptual "Gestalt" (form). As a result, ascending tones are closer and more similar to each other than descending ones and as a result they tend to be grouped as two different melodic lines. That is, the perceptual system uses these strong cues to seggregate the complex and raw (in this case altenrating) information. You can imagine that it is due to such perceptual cues that makes us perceive the bass-line and the high-lead of a track as two seperate lines rather than an alternating chaos of a bass-note and a saw-note.
I understand though what JBJ said about the introduction of a new element and how this can somehow alter the aesthetic result of a previous element which somehow seemed to sound differently before the introduction of that newer element, and it seems to be a very interesting effect as well.
There are even very interesting "cross-modal" illusions as well. "Cross-modal" are the illusions that occur as a result of two or more sources of sensory information e.g. Video accompanied by sound, or even video+sound+touch. An interesting one i remember from my psychology books is the "ventriloquist illusion", in which when visual and auditory information is synchronised, then the perceptual system assumes that the sound is bound to a visual source (although its actual source is different, the association is only apparent, it is illusory that is). Ventriloquists take advantage of that illusionary effect in order to impress their crowds. In a matter of fact, all films are based on that effect, people assume that it is the actors that directly speak, although the sound comes from a different source than that of the scene/monitor. The ventriloquist illusion seems to be avery powerful effect which happens very fast and pre-attentively. This means that attention is not needed for this perceptual association to occur. the ventriloquist effect breaks down when temporal asynchrony is introduced between vision and sound, thus providing conflicting information.
Cross-modal conflicting information can result in newer percepts. In one study, subjects have viewed the monitor of a man articulating the sound "ba" (without hearing this "ba") whilst they received the sound "ga" (from the ear). The final result was the impression of a sound "da". The so-called "McGurk effect" probably has interesting implications in audio-visual interactions and maybe in art. It would be interesting to observe if something similar happens with ambient sounds as well. What will happen if you watch a graphical display of a sea-wave crushing to the shore whilst listening to the noisy sound of the air that is left behind (produced) after a plane takes off. What if you change the frequencies so that they can slightly resemble each other? Are people going to differentiate between the two, are they going to assume that it is the sound of the wave crushing to the shore?Or maybe their final percept is something in between? hmm...i sometimes i get these crazy ideas in TA lol.
Domesticated
PETRAN...interesting post, and I read it all, but I'm sorry, you are now officially the new Spirit5. At least you don't repeat constantly repeat yourself like he did though. :p
quote:
Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
I notice that elements of a track can sound a lot different depending on what other elements are playing at the same time. For example, percussion samples might sound different after a bunch of synths come in. Not necessarily an "illusion," but interesting to hear.
Definitely.
quote:
Originally posted by Chimney
Producing also makes one appreciate a track more in the ways of variety, creativity and so on.
I also agree wholeheartedly with this. It makes you appreciate unique sound so much more, and very well put together sounds like a full electronic orchestra, knowing the effort that was involved in making it.
quote:
Originally posted by nefardec
search for a thread i made called 'perceived complexity and polyrhythm'
I remember that. I just finished reading it then. Interesting.
This statement you made:
quote:
side note - i also find this to be one of the principle goals of 'mixing' as in deejaying: that is, through the mix develop these ephemeral and phenomenal rhythms and melodies by carefully placing the different tracks against one another.
Sits particularly true with me. Nothing better than a well-layered mix which adds extra groove to a bass line.
After reading the polyrhythm thread, this thread is now officially about what I believe they call "continuum" music over at discogs. That is, music which very repetitive and uses long, slow and subtle changes over time to morph itself into something else.
Here's a fantastic example:
Edit: listening to that track made me laugh. Recently, people have been complaining about ketamine making some other people enjoy and produce boring, repetitive music "minimal" techno (not real minimal, anyway) that you can lose yourself in while stoned out of your brains. That youtube clip made me remember just how ridiculously repetitive techno was in the mid '90s and how insane it would drive most people now.
PETRAN
quote:
Originally posted by Domesticated
PETRAN...interesting post, and I read it all, but I'm sorry, you are now officially the new Spirit5. At least you don't repeat constantly repeat yourself like he did though. :p
I would prefer the term:"the new ******** on antipsychotic drugs". ******** is a genius man...
Also, you have to read some of nefardec's "spiritual" posts. Now who is the Spirit5 huh?
MrJiveBoJingles
What about music that is only superficially attractive and exciting? Does that count as an auditory illusion? A lot of today's dance music falls into that category for me...
:o
nefardec
quote:
Originally posted by Domesticated
After reading the polyrhythm thread, this thread is now officially about what I believe they call "continuum" music over at discogs. That is, music which very repetitive and uses long, slow and subtle changes over time to morph itself into something else.
i probably post like a broken record but i have to refer to bc.
Joris Voorn - Many Reasons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohTEcOWPUfs
also check out Shed and G-Man
and interestingly enough I am working on generating unfolding music from code (still in very basic stages at this point) right now i'd hardly call the results musical but they are starting to become interesting. you can check it out here. I started it originally for a class on stochastic math/group theory/computing/music.
I'm going to keep working on this a lot, I think it can be very cool. Eventually I just want to be able to generate these kind of very organic unfolding 'continua' tracks. I'm going to write my own wavetable and fm synths and have the entire tracks generated from a sort of dna code which can be played with parametrically.
The ambient walkman takes sounds from a person's environment and plays them back to the listener, albeit in musical form.
quote:
Originally posted by nefardec
and interestingly enough I am working on generating unfolding music from code (still in very basic stages at this point) right now i'd hardly call the results musical but they are starting to become interesting. you can check it out here. I started it originally for a class on stochastic math/group theory/computing/music.
I'm going to keep working on this a lot, I think it can be very cool. Eventually I just want to be able to generate these kind of very organic unfolding 'continua' tracks. I'm going to write my own wavetable and fm synths and have the entire tracks generated from a sort of dna code which can be played with parametrically.
This just reaffirms what I've been saying for ever; DJs and producers are really just a big pack of geeks in disguise.
I have to admit though, that is pretty cool. Were those note sequences truly generated by algorithm rather than intelligence, because they're more coherent than anything I've done before, har har. I don't think you're far off hitting on something big there. I remember reading in an Isaac Asimov novel that "in the future, all music is written and created by computers". Considering that said book was written circa 1955, one half of his prediction has mostly been correct. Perhaps the second one will too?
By the way, fantastic website. Beautiful design, fast to load and easy to navigate. If you're into web design, look at this:
