Milo T. Frobisher, Senior Research Analyst at RTH Labs, sent along the following, asking for your assistance:
Greetings, Hrrundi —
I wonder if you’d be so kind as to post the attached file on Rock Town Hall at your earliest convenience. It may help address the issue of “instant recollection” that some claim is possible upon hearing a few distinctive notes played on an elctric amplified guiitar. Our goal in assembling the audio sampler I’ve forwarded is to determine whether the notes are what is being recognized by RTH’s over-educated rock nerds, or the “tone” of the guitars in question. I for one have my doubts about the possibility that “tone” on its own is sufficient to generate recollection, but, with the help of RTH’s membership, we shall see.
You’ll note that all the audio samples in this collage are backwards. This should have no effect upon tone, but ought to do a reasonable job masking the musical phrases in question. I assure you all of the tunes in question, when played “forwards,” ought to be quite easily recognized by the basement-dwelling, mac-and-cheese-eating, pock-marked denizens of the Hall. To make matters easier, the RTH Labs have selected only the first second of all the songs being sampled.
If, as I suspect, few of the sampled songs are recognized, please post the second file I’ve attached, which features these same songs, played *forwards*. And please make it clear to those Townsmen with recording facilities enabling them to “flip” these tunes on their own, that doing so would run counter to both the spirit and technical purpose of this exercise.
Thank you once again for your service to the advancement of science in rock and roll, Hrrundi. You are a great asset to these halls, to be sure.
Sincerely,
Milo T. Frobisher
Senior Research Analyst
RTH Labs
