Virgil's beatless octaves.

[Tom Cole]

Kevin,

A single string will not beat because it doesn't have any coincident
partials. The partials of a single string are far enough away from each
other that you don't hear any beats.

Tom Cole

"Kevin S. Riggs" wrote:
> 
> Hi folks,
>  I've been reading this thread for a while and must be a little confused
> (relative newbie).
> If a single strings' partials have inharmonicity, theoretically it seems
> like it should
> beat on its' own. Unless something is astray I only hear one beatless
> tone. So something,
> maybe the phase relationship, cancels out the beats. Why should it be
> hard to believe that
> the same thing can be accomplished when tuning an octave? When my
> octaves are tuned so that
> I hear no beat, none of the coincident partials are necessarily pure.
> But it sounds better
> to myself and my customers tuned in that fashion. May be a bit
> simplistic but I would
> greatly appreciate any attempt to enlighten me. Any takers?
> 
> Thanks, and have a great day!
> Kevin S. Riggs
> NC associate