Don't Panic Over Laurel And Yanny

I woke up this morning, hopped on Twitter, and was confronted by the Laurel-Yanny debate. I happened to have my headphones on and took a listen. I clearly heard "Laurel." Show's over. Move on.

I was doing something else later, and ran across it again. This time I played the audio through my laptop speakers . . . I clearly heard "Yanny."

What gives?

I did some research and found where the New York Times had tracked it down to a high school student in Georgia (USA). In the course of his studies the other day, he used his computer mic to record the audio of the word "Laurel" being pronounced at vocabulary,com. When he played it back, it sounded like "Yanny." He posted the audio on Reddit with a poll asking what others heard, and it took off from there.

More than just a huge time waster (it's that too) this was in interesting exercise in psyhoacoustics. The mic used, in addition to the ambient background noise at the moment of recording, added certain frequencies to the original content. Those additional frequencies create the "yanny" effect. Depending on what you use to play back the audio, it might either emphasize those frequencies so it sounds like "yanny" or emphasize the lower frequencies that dominated the original recording.

There's also the matter of the age of the listener. As we age our sensitivity to higher frequencies decreases, so younger people would find it easier to hear "yanny" when the listen to the audio.

Out of curiosity, I used my own base mic to make some recordings. First, I recorded my own voice saying "Laurel." A spectrum plot of that looked like this.

My "baseline" recording

Then I used the mic to record the controversial Laurel-Yanny audio at different distances from my speakers. The first one was sort of middle of the road.

Notice the spikes in the 1500-2000 Hz range. My guess is this is what got picked up and causes the "yanny" effect. On the next one I held the mic closer to the speaker.

This one I heard as closer to sounding like "Laurel." The spikes are still there, but the lower frequencies where "Laurel" comes across most strongly are very full.

Finally, there's this one.

It was recorded with the mic at the greatest distance from the speaker, and the lower frequencies are less dominant, allowing the higher transient frequencies to shine through, making it more likely that you'd hear "Yanny."

If you go to the Times you can find where their staff has created a little app that lets you adjust the pitches and frequencies to hear more "Laurel" or more "Yanny." It's a pretty cool little effect.

Giving Tuesday 2017

I very rarely talk about non-musical things here on my music blog, but I'm making the rare exception this time.

November 28, 2017 is Giving Tuesday.

Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday are all about shopping for gifts to give others (or even, secretly, oneself) that make you and someone your care about feel good for awhile.

Giving Tuesday, though, is about giving something to others that can make you feel good for a long time. This is an opportunity to support charities that are helping people in the US (where I live) or wherever in the world you live.

Because of the intense recent focus on sexual harassment and assault across the political, entertainment, and business landscapes, I thought this would be a good time to commend to you two organizations dedicated to fighting sexual abuse and helping survivors.

The first is the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. RAINN provides a national toll-free, 24/7 hotline for survivors. They also have a chat capability for survivors who go to their website. In addition to survivor support, RAINN is active in public education, policy advocacy and consulting. Survivors have been contacting the group in record numbers in the wake of #MeToo so they can use the support.

RAINN has a solid 3-star rating from Charity Navigator.

The second organization is Darkness to Light. D2L is devoted to reducing child sexual abuse, with a long term goal of ending it entirely. They have trained over 1.4 million people to spot the signs of child sexual abuse and offer various training programs to help adults be responsible stewards of children in their care. They also provide helpful information on their site that can help you right now to become a better protector of kids.

D2L is not rated by Charity Navigator because they now get most of their revenue from providing program services. (Hence they're more of a service organization than a charity.) However, they have been awarded a gold seal of transparency by GuideStar, and continue to rely on contributions to sustain and grow their noble efforts.

I hope you will consider making a donation to either RAINN or D2L on Giving Tuesday.

Remembering Keith Emerson

I saw the reports earlier today that Keith Emerson passed away at the age of 71. While Emerson's music may not have influenced me as much as some other artists, I had great respect for his abilities and a keen appreciation for his innovations on keyboards. My first exposure to his work when I was a teenager left a distinct impression.
The first time I heard Keith Emerson, it was with his signature group Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. I was at my brother's house and he let me check out some of his records with headphones while he and some friends of his were playing cards. The first album I checked out was ELP's Tarkus. The opening of the title track, a side-long anti-war epic, begins with synthesizer tones that stack on top of each other, gradually building and phasing around the speakers (and with headphones, inside your head). The next 20 minutes were a tour de force of complex harmonies and odd meters, mixed with more conventional rock elements. It was an eye, and ear, opening experience.
Eventually I collected and digested all of ELP's early albums, including their self-titled debut, plus Trilogy, the live Pictures at an Exhibition, and their classic Brain Salad Surgery. As a drummer back in those days, I was much more tuned in to Carl Palmer's drumming. In the fullness of time, though, I have developed an appreciation for Emerson's blending of jazz, rock, and classical (including avant garde) musical elements. His career included composing art music and film scores as well as ELP and his earlier band, The Nice. Progressive rock would not be the same without his influence, both musically and as a flamboyant performer. RIP.

Merry Christmas 2015

I'm about to be swallowed up by holiday activities, so I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you a joyful holiday. Whatever you celebrate at this time of year, and however you celebrate it, may it be a happy time for yourself and those you love.

If you happen to be music shopping after Christmas, I hope you'll consider Circadia or any of the individual tracks from the project, It's available at most of the online stores, so please consider it when you're using that Amazon, iTunes, or Google Play gift card you found in your stocking.

I'm sure I'll have something to talk about next week, so I'll save my New Year's wishes until then.

Happy Thanksgiving 2015

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in the US. I'll be having a simple, quiet day. I have much to be thankful for. Friends, family, health, and of course all the buyers who find uses for my music. May my work serve you well. And if you just stop by to check out my tracks, I'm thankful for you as well. Please drop by whenever, and check out my wares. I'm always adding new stuff to my portfolio.

For those of you in the States, enjoy the holiday.

Pondering Next Moves

Business is relatively slow for the moment here at the background music factory, so I'm wondering what to do next. Warning: this post is partly update and partly off-topic.

Ultimate Classic Rock: Why Do They Do That?

I was looking through morning headlines and saw an interesting story about the band Rush. I went to check it out, and of course along with the content were lots and lots of ads. I get that. They have to make a buck. This particular site with the story was Ultimate Classic Rock.

There was one particular quirk on this page, though. It was a flash video in the right sidebar, advertising some tire outlet or other. It wouldn't let me navigate on the page until I watched the whole ad. Then, because the ad had pulled me back from where I was to it's position on the page, I had to go back to the point where I left off to continue reading.

I got to the end of the original article and saw a link to something that looked interesting. But before I could click it - you guessed it - the tire ad hijacked me again. I left that page and do not plan to view anything on Ultimate Classic Rock for the foreseeable future. If you want to advertise, fine. But guys, you just drove me off your site. How's that helping your cause?

Off-topic: Where is the Outcry Over APA Torture Support?

A news story broke this week that should trouble a lot of people, but it doesn't appear to be making a ripple. What gives?

Farewell Edgar Froese

I was thinking I might blog about my experience with the new Mixcraft 7 digital audio workstation this morning, when I saw the news about the death of electronic music pioneer Edgar Froese. Mixcraft can wait.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Sax

I have been known to mark the passing of musicians who had an affect on me, so I'd like to change things up a bit and acknowledge an important birth.

RIP Paul Revere

I was working on the post I just published a few moments ago when I saw the news about the death of Paul Revere at age 76.

RIP Joe Sample

I just read this evening about the death of keyboardist Joe Sample at the age of 75. Here are a couple of examples of his versatility and mastery.

Thoughts on Moving

If you're here to check out my latest music, I'm still on hiatus, and this post is decidedly off-topic.

From Russia, With Spam

I'm getting a lot of traffic from Russia today. There are a bunch of reference links to a site that says it's soe sort of Internet movie site. And in case I don't open the long link, there are short links that - surprise! - point to the same place. There's a really neat service I found at longurl.org that will expand short links without actually opening the linked page so you can see what it is before you open it. That's a good thing because with some of these sites getting spammed is the least of your worries.

спасибо, но нет спасибо

March Madness

Yesterday, I took the whole day to watch the NCAA college basketball tournament. It was one of those "bucket list" sort of things I had always wanted to do at least once. I'm glad I did, but now it's time to get back to writing music. I did create one short piece Wednesday - an "impish" introduction - that is now online at Pond5. I'll be posting a sample of that here at some point, maybe next week.