Subject: Re: [Harp-L] comb material

[EGS1217@xxxxxxx]

Vern writes:
 
"It has been done twice.  Once at SPAH 97  and again at  Buckeye 98."
 
yes...but flawed and certainly neither double blind or  scientific.  Way 
before my time, but up pops my disagreement with you  once more.  People who, like 
me have extremely acute hearing  (even within my own family) have come up in 
our discussions.  You  will not allow for any possibility that there might be 
some folks  (not specifically me) who can perhaps hear more differences in 
sounds and  tones...than either one of us...so too perhaps, in combs than other  
people?  
 
How do YOU know with absolute certainty that what I or the  person sitting 
next to you on the subway/at a concert hears isn't  completely different from 
what you hear?  How can any person judge  what one person hears vis-a-vis 
another?  That's where an  audiologist would come in...but even then, their testing 
is done with  gauges and machines.  No one knows exactly what  another person 
hears. Just one of those facts of life.
 
So I've said to you before (on another list) that it can't be a  proper 
"scientific experiment" (ergo Single or Double Blind as in Garry's  mention of it 
never having been done)...if You keep insisting on  controlling it.  Since you 
do insist on it being completely under  your control (based I assume, on your 
$1000), then it cannot be  scientific or unbiased. Then the age (based on 
hearing acuity) of the  participants comes into play as well, since the rationale 
was that  young people - I believe someone mentioned 12 - 14 as probably the  
optimum age for hearing health (do correct me if I'm misremembering this  
since I don't have time to look it up)  for the test  subjects.
 
I've also made clear I don't care about your money.  It'd be the  last 
incentive for me to participate.  I find it vaguely embarrassing  (and not a bit 
insulting, actually), since the whole premise is more about  what one player 
hears from his/her own instrument and nothing at all to do  with monetary gain.  
 
So round and round we go.....
 
could it be Vern... that most people simply go about their  business knowing 
what they know about what they can hear from their own  instruments and simply 
pay no more heed to your wager, and that might  possibly be why the issue 
keeps resurfacing just when YOU  believe you've "beaten it to death"? 
 
 A real, objective scientific study would surely resolve  the issue for once 
and for all, wouldn't it?  Until then,  it's quite likely that folks are 
simply tired of being harangued if  they express a contrary opinion, since at this 
point it still is only  your opinion, isn't it, without real scientific back  
up?   
 
Elizabeth





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