inharmonicity/beats

[Tom Cole]

Howard,

What Don wrote is what I would say as well. Just to reinforce, I would
give the example of playing two notes and listening for the beats. If
the beats are difficult to hear, I'll experiment with playing one or
other of the notes louder to produce a better beat. The strength of the
coincident partials needs to be nearly equal, I'm concluding, to produce
a detectable beat.

Tom Cole

"Howard S. Rosen" wrote:
> 
> Tom,
> 
> I was going to write the same thing to Kevin as you did, but just as I was
> about to hit the send button, a thought came to mind and I erased my letter.
> Theoretically inharmonicity *should* cause beats but you and I know that we
> don't hear beats on a single string resulting from inharmonicity. Here is my
> thinking: Remember Helmholtz and his work with "difference tones"? Well,
> using a string with a fundamental of 800Hz, if inharmonicity causes the 2nd
> partial to be 1602 instead of a textbook 1600, then there would be a
> difference tone of 802 Hz. This 802 would be coincidental with the
> fundamental of 800 and thereby cause 2 beats per second. So you see,
> theoretically it happens, but we just don't hear it. I can't explain why nor
> am I certain that my scenario is correct. What do you think?
> 
> Howard S. Rosen, RPT
> 7262 Angel Falls Ct.
> Boynton Beach, Fl  33437
> 
> hsrosen@gate.net
> 
> <!--StartFragment-->
> Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 18:25:09 -0800
> From: Tom Cole <tcole@cruzio.com>
> Subject: Re: Virgil's beatless octaves.
> 
> 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