resultant tones

[Richard Moody]

John Meulendijks wrote....
   > Let's assume it happens on c''', then there is a feeling of a
> root F on the fifth f''-c''', and a feeling of C' on g''-c'''

I have never heard this on a single note.  But now that you mention it I will
listen.  I remember the first time I heard "lower tones" when checking
intervals.  It was very quiet in the orchestra pit in a good size auditorium. I
thought I was  hearing things, or it was  the acoustics, or my ears were stopped
up from a cold or something.  They sounded more inside my head.   Sometimes I
could hear them better than other times.  Sometimes not at all.  Later on at
various places sometimes I could hear them, but most of the time not.
    I do not know what to call these tones other than "resultants"  a term organ
builders use to describe a lower tone created by the difference of two tones
sounding  together.  For example two tones that have a difference in frequency
of 32cps should sound a resultant of 32cps; a very low note on an organ pipe,
more of a sensation in the chest than in the ears.   I don't know what the
difference would be of a tone between say 100 cps and 130 cps as compared to 400
cps and 430 cps.
    Since experiencing these fleeting "lower tones" while tuning, I have
discovered them very pronounced on my synthesizer through headphones. You have
to have all reverb and LFO off with pure saw tooth or square wave patches.  In
the range of middle C play 3rds down, listen for a very low tone that sounds
more "in your head" than in the earphones.

    When you say c'   do you mean Middle C?  or what we call C4  or sometimes
C40
or simply the 40th key on the piano?   So from Middle C it would be  as below ?
?

               c' = (C4)   c'' (C5)   c''' (C6)  c''''(C7) c''''' (C8)

                c (C3)   C (C2)    CC (C1)  CCC (C0 )

Also, do you read German?  Specifically is your German as good as your English?

---ric

----- Original Message -----
From: John Meulendijks <jmjmeulendijks@planet.nl>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2001 3:58 PM
Subject: Re: inharmonicity/beats


>
> Apart from this I've experienced many times the feeling (not sure about
> actual hearing) of two low bass notes playing a fifth and a fourth under the
> note I'm tuning in the 5th and 6th octave. I think they are related to each
> other as a a lower octave of the fifth and an even more lower octave of the
> tuning note.  Let's assume it happens on c''', then there is a feeling of a
> root F on the fifth f''-c''', and a feeling of C' on g''-c'''. A
> fysicist-teacher said it was in my head  (but in a polite way: we tend to
> complete a sequence of upper partials without having the basic tone (the
> first partial) actually sounding). Any other explanations?
>
> John Meulendijks
> Tilburg
> the Netherlands
>