pitch perception

[Ron Nossaman]

> johndelmore at suddenlink.net wrote:
> 
>> But how exactly does this affect temperament and stretch when
>> tuning for guinea fowl???
> 
> At least I wasn't called a foul guinea..
> 
> it must be Friday.
> 
> -Phil Bondi(Fl)

Now, the joke here, guys, is that it wasn't a joke. I sort of 
expected someone would comment to that effect. Setting pitch 
with beats against an arbitrary standard is not altogether 
unheard of among piano tuners, so identifying pitches against 
an internal neuronal clock standard isn't that much of a 
stretch. Internal clocks of varying sorts are easily enough 
verified by flying a few time zones out of your area, or 
changing the timing at which you take your meals, or comparing 
two or three beat rates as you position those contiguous 
thirds in that octave. If you have an internal clock that 
allows you to remember a beat rate for some seconds after you 
can no longer hear it, and compare it with two more without 
losing track, then the same mechanism ought to be able to 
identify pitch to some degree.

I suppose Phil's clock/comparator is more stable than most, so 
his pitch perception is unusually accurate.

Mine, however...
Ron N