Hunting the Natural Beat

[Richard Brekne]

Yardarm103669107@AOL.COM wrote:

> John, list:
> I have been thinking about Virgil's approach for several years, and with him
> here in Chicago, we get a lot of his thoughts more directly!
>
> While I have a lot of disagreements with the language and the logic of
> Virgil's arguments, one thing is certainly incontrovertible--his octaves are
> pretty nice. But what I see being avoided in the attempt by him and everyone
> to define "natural beat" or the lack of beats is the fact that an octave with
> no beats is physically impossible. This does not mean that the aural effect
> can be near to beatless, but that if you really know what is going on in that
> interval, there are still going to be beats between coincident partials at
> some point in the spectrum of harmonics.

Yes... this is the problem surrounding Virgil... this particular use of the words
"beat" and "beatless".  Yet he does draw a distinction between beating between
partials and what he is trying to describe, and he does call it something else...
"natural beats".  So when he says he can tune a beatless octave he is obviously
not refering to the impossible...(ie beatless coincidents at all points)...
rather to this "other kind of beating".

.......

> What this (psychoacoustics) means is that Virgil is selecting out the most
> characteristic (strongest) harmonic structures to listen to in each note of the
> interval of the octave and then matching them as closely as possible. The
> resulting interval will sound out with slightly more amplitude than an interval
> tuned wider or narrower; but the fact remains that, although the ear can elect
> to hear to these sounds as ONE, they are in fact not, but groupings of selected
> (voiced) partials acting as a "single" formant tone. While they may appear to
> be perfectly tuned, they are not, and while just they are appearing to be
> tuned, the rest of the partial spectrum is beating at coincident partial levels
> above that.
>
> Does this make any sense to anybody? So far, it's the only conjecture that
> makes sense to me. Thoughts, any and all.

Sure makes sense to me... tho we have to admit we are still guessing... Still you
are off on a fascinating tangent here.  I wonder if this "formant tone" (as you
describe above) is such that it is easier for the ear to "elect" to hear it as a
single sound.  If so... it should be somehow a measureable phenomena wouldnt you
think ??

>
> Paul Revenko-Jones

--
Richard Brekne
RPT, N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway
mailto:Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no