Doppler puzzle

[Mark Schecter]

Hi, John.

Well, I have to skip over the math to what I think is a common sense 
objection. So I trim to:

John Delmore wrote:
> If you had measured A220, instead, your respective velocities would be 
> 2.042 m/s, 1.918 m/s, and the rate of decrease in velocity would be 
> 0.0124 m/s.

I can't follow your mathematical logic, but here's a bit of musical 
logic that I think refutes the above statement.

If I'm listening to the stopped ice cream truck, and a single note is 
elevated 10 cents, that elevation is the result of my traveling at 
whatever the calculated speed directly toward the truck. My speed does 
not change when the frequency of the source pitch changes to another 
note, and neither does the cents offset (assuming internal in-tuneness 
of the music).

Put another way, if I'm tuning a string and I raise the fundamental 10 
cents, all the harmonics (partials) increase by 10 cents as well. If I'm 
playing a chord on the guitar and I slide a bar (perpendicularly) up the 
strings, they all retain their relationships to each other as they 
increase in absolute frequency. If I'm listening to a musical source 
that contains harmony, as long as my velocity and direction (directly 
toward or away from the source) do not change, the intrinsic 
musical/harmonic relationships do not change, and I hear the harmony as 
intended, save for the absolute frequency offset that results from the 
relative speed of non-zero.

So, there's no need to break out the big arithmetic guns unless you 
think I'm all wet, and that rattling my brains would dry me out. Would 
you agree that my examples hold water, or am I missing something? Thanks!

-Mark Schecter