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<DIV>Brad – I was about to post about nearly the same experience I had back when
I was 13 or 14... I knew I had AP but hadn’t really learned the ins and out of
A=440 vs A=415. I too swam every day one summer for the neighborhood swim team,
and noticed that every time I was coming home from practice in the car, that
everything on the radio was a half step lower – Beethoven’s 5th was in B
minor... Mozart’s Figaro Prelude was in D-flat major (I had nightmares of
playing that bassoon lick in Db.... yikes), and U2’s “With or without you” was
also in D-flat major. </DIV>
<DIV>Now I realize a) how and why water in the ears causes this pitch sliding
and b) that I was hearing Mozart, Beethoven, and U2 at Baroque pitch. Wow!</DIV>
<DIV>Anyway, thank you for posting this Brad, and know that I had the same
experience! And clearly it wasn’t related to aging.</DIV>
<DIV>Graham</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Graham Hunt</DIV>
<DIV>Associate Professor, Musicology/Music Theory</DIV>
<DIV>University of Texas at Arlington</DIV>
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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=brad06@u.washington.edu
href="mailto:brad06@u.washington.edu">Brad Osborn webpine</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Friday, February 10, 2012 12:22 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=smt-talk@societymusictheory.org
href="mailto:smt-talk@societymusictheory.org">smt-talk@societymusictheory.org</A>
</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Smt-talk] Perfect pitch and aging (not so much aging
as water)</DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV>
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<DIV>Dear colleagues,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>First off, a disclaimer: while my post concerns distortion of AP, it
differs from the previous posts in that: it has nothing to do with aging, and I
would not consider myself to have anywhere near the degree of absolute pitch
others posting in this thread have reported. Furthermore, I fully appreciate the
sensitivity involved in comparing the following situation to people who cannot
simply reverse the effects of AP drift by avoiding getting water in their ears.
I am posing this question because I wonder, given the physical explanations
people have been providing, if there could be a connection. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I swim laps most days, and about seven years ago I had a bizarre experience
of getting out of the pool, getting directly into my car, and putting on a song
I know extremely well. It was immediately apparent to me that the song was
approximately a half-step "flat" to my ears. It was cold that day, and so I
thought it might be due to some sort of slowing effect on my stereo, and thought
nothing of it. But, the next day I got out of the pool and went directly home
and picked up a dial-tone phone to make a call, and experienced approximately
the same amount of downward drift in pitch. I then began noticing it
everywhere.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>As my sense of pitch got better over the years, I noticed this effect
nearly every time I got out of the pool and heard a sound with which I was even
vaguely familiar. It was not a major concern, since it wore off as soon as I
flushed the water out of my ears, or after I merely let it run its course for a
couple hours. However, since I started graduate school—and thus had to begin
teaching ear training—I started wearing earplugs when I swam and this correction
has stopped the drift completely. I now wear them every time I swim laps and
have never noticed the drift, but in random summertime dips in the lake or ocean
or such, when I do not have my earplugs, I notice it consistently, so I am quite
sure of the correlation. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Has anyone else experienced this, or know how it might be related to the
physiological effects of aging?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>best,</DIV>
<DIV>Brad </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>Brad Osborn, Ph.D.<BR>Visiting Assistant Professor, Music
Theory<BR>Rhodes College<BR><A href="mailto:BradThomasOsborn@gmail.com"
target=_blank>BradThomasOsborn@gmail.com</A><BR><BR><BR>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 11:31 AM, <A
href="mailto:reinifrosch@bluewin.ch">reinifrosch@bluewin.ch</A> <SPAN
dir=ltr><<A
href="mailto:reinifrosch@bluewin.ch">reinifrosch@bluewin.ch</A>></SPAN>
wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex"
class=gmail_quote>
<DIV>
<DIV>
<P>Dear colleagues,</P>
<P>In the paper "Dichotomy and perceptual distortions in absolute pitch
ability", by E. Alexandra Athos et al., PNAS 104 (2007) 14795-14800, the
authors have written: "[...] Indeed, we reason that an increase (not a
decrease, as suggested by Vernon) in the elasticity [i.e., in the compliance]
of the basilar membrane [BM] would be predicted to cause a displacement in the
cochlear frequency map in the sharp direction. In this model, hair cells that
formerly resonated for a given tone (e.g., E) and relayed that stimulus to the
auditory cortex now respond at a lower frequency (e.g., D#). Because the hair
cells that are triggered by this lower frequency remain hard-wired to relay a
signal to a higher frequency recognition site in the auditory cortex, one
perceives the tone at a higher frequency."</P>
<P>In other words: The BM stiffness is conjectured to decrease with age. I
doubt, however, that the change of BM stiffness with age really explains the
mentioned frequency-map shift. At frequencies above 1 kHz, the place of
maximal excitation shifts apically by about 0.5 octave-distance (i.e., by
about 2 mm) if the sound-pressure level is reduced from 100 dB to 30 dB.
According, e.g., to Chapter 6 of the fifth edition of "An Introduction to the
Psychology of Hearing" by B.C.J. Moore, the analysis of nerve-spike time
intervals plays an important part in pitch perception.</P>
<P>Reinhart Frosch,<BR>CH-5200 Brugg.<BR><A
href="mailto:reinifrosch@bluewin.ch" target=_blank>reinifrosch@bluewin.ch</A>
.<BR><BR></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----<BR>Von: <A
href="mailto:bmarvin@esm.rochester.edu"
target=_blank>bmarvin@esm.rochester.edu</A><BR>Datum: 08.02.2012
21:24<BR>An: "<A href="mailto:smt-talk@lists.societymusictheory.org"
target=_blank>smt-talk@lists.societymusictheory.org</A>"<<A
href="mailto:smt-talk@lists.societymusictheory.org"
target=_blank>smt-talk@lists.societymusictheory.org</A>><BR>Betreff:
[Smt-talk] Perfect pitch and aging<BR><FONT
face="Times, Times New Roman"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><BR>Dear
all,<BR><BR>My understanding is that the creeping sharp of absolute pitch
is, as Fred intuits below, a physical change in the ear with age (thus it
has nothing to do with listening to early music, etc.). I am not sure
now where I learned this, but I was told that the basilar membrane (in the
auditory system’s cochlea) stiffens with age. In normal hearing
the basilar membrane is activated tonotopically, with high frequencies
activated at the base of the membrane and low frequencies at the apex; this
leads to our perception of pitch. Somehow the stiffening of the
membrane must lead to different activations, here or further up the auditory
system. Does David, or anyone else, know whether this explanation has
been studied?<BR><BR>Betsy Marvin<BR>Eastman School of
Music.</SPAN></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></DIV><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Smt-talk
mailing list<BR><A
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target=_blank>http://lists.societymusictheory.org/listinfo.cgi/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org</A><BR><BR></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
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