On Apr 23, 2010, at 9:49 AM, Laurence Libin wrote: > How do you know it's a small minority? > "Know" is maybe a strong word, but it is definitely a tentative working opinion based on many years of my own experiences as well as what I have heard from many, many colleagues. Even the most ardent believers in how wonderful various patterns are will tell me, when asked, that the majority of their customers and of those who listen are unable to distinguish the difference. I guess I should note I am talking about fairly subtle patterns, not on the level of Vallotti, but on the level of Moore or Bremmer's Equal Beating Victorian Temperament. At some point you get to a pattern subtle enough nobody will be able either to execute it or hear it, can't we agree on that? The Di Veroli "Almost-equal" is in that realm, with maximum variant from ET of 1.1 cents - two bulges toward that maximum, with increments of 0.2 to 0.5 cents leading to the bulge. Some say they can hear that. I'm not sure I can achieve it with enough accuracy as a tuner, and I know I can't hear it. One assumes that there is a continuum along which at a certain point some small number of people will be able to hear the difference. So at that point on the continuum . . . > >> >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fred Sturm" <fssturm at unm.edu> >>> So we run up against the question, once again, of where the limits >>> of significance actually lie. Is it, in fact, significant that >>> some small minority can hear the difference and values it? (Well, >>> it is significant for those people, assuming they are actually >>> that acute and sensitive in their hearing and that suggestibility >>> is not a part of the phenomenon). >> > Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico fssturm at unm.edu
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