Vocal ranges

["ROSSI J.A." <rossi@nusc.ARPA>]

It is clear that people can make some pretty dumb claims that are more or less
taken as true by unthinking people.  I'm glad that someone finally has reacted
to the absurdity of 8 octave vocal ranges.  This, of course, applies to
usable singing range, only.  Just for the hell of it I tried to see how 
how quick a rise time I could get out of a vocal 'click'.  After examining
the envelope of what I feel is the best click I could mouth, I have determined
that I can get a a slew rate of under 10ms out.  Now, for practical 'click'
purposes a click with a rise time of 4 or so ms is not a very good click, as
far as clicks go.  But for musical use, it's good enough for government work.
Now to my main point.  Let's look at this from two standpoints.  The first one
being the most absurd, is also the one which should prove most interesting
to the brain dead people who will believe that David Bowie has an 8 octave
range.  Lets say that (ignoring harmonic content) that I can accurately
click using my voice.  This would give me a low end of anything I choose as
far as frequency goes.  For instance if I choose to click once every 10 sec
then my effective lower end is 0.10 Hz, however If I choose to click only
once every 1000sec I get my low end down to about 0.0010 Hz.  Notice that
between these two low ends there are about 7 octaves of range.  Now to be
valid, we are assuming that I am clicking periodically and consistently for
a duration long enough to be considered cotinuous and periodic.  Also
notice that this clicking is musically useable (John Cage would approve of
such things, however, IED limited musical imagination is stuck in thinking
about violins and banjos so he would not accept the proposition that
a 7 octave range between .1 and .001 Hz is musically valid).  If we run
this absurd argument to its limit we come up with a musically valic vocal 
range which approaches infinity and is limited only by lifespan and
accuracy of the timing between clicks.  Now, if we look at another argument
which incorporates perceptual psychoacoustics, we find that an 8 ms click
can be no shorter than 8 ms, and imposes on itself a frequency limit of
its length and whatever periodic interval is needed (say 2 ms for argument).
If it were possible to mouth clicks as fast and accurately as one wanted
we come up with a bottom range of about 100 Hz (this isn,t very low and
if you count larnyx stuttering the click duration can be easily shortened to
less than 5 ms.  Wait !! What am I thinking about, what am I writing?
This is not real.  You are only dreaming that you have read this.  Does
anyone know a good piano? I mean personally.  Has anyone played Zoom,
Schwartz an Pathagliano?  What is the meaning of the messages I have been
receiving from Doug Traynor?  Are all these questions related?  Does Doug
Traynor know the effective span of Frank Sinatra's voice?  What happened
at the cabin near the cool lake before everyone started to hallucinate
these colored objects?  What is the meaning of the term Experiment V?
What does Wicinski thinlk the color and shape of the objects are? Do these
colored shapes occur only in the DC area?  Why is Doug Traynor's mail
address in UCLA's computer?  Is whatever it is that caused the people in
the cabin by the lake to see the correct shapes and colors available
for general consumption?  Dis the toaster pop or was it unpluged?  Help?!?

'Do not remove this tag'
John (Acting Director)
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