Inside Beats

[Richard Brekne]

Hi folks...

Just got through reading Virgil Smiths's article "Where's the
Beat" in the Jan issue of the Journal. I have been wondering for
a while now just what he means by this expression "inside beats",
and perhaps I am a bit closer to understanding him after reading
this article...perhaps not.

Along about the 5th paragraph in this article is the following
sentence sequence.

"IF A3 has a fundamental frequency of 220hz., then F3 sounding at
176 hz. would produce a pure major 3rd at an exact 5:4 ratio.
True so far, it would then seem that, in order to expand the
F3-A3 3rd by 7bps, F3 should be lowered by 7 beats to 169 hz."


Excuse me.... but isnt this like blantantly wrong thinking ?? The
reasoning here is part of a "proof" to show that the beat rate of
roughly 7bps in a major 3rd is created not by the beating of the
fundementals but by the beating of the 5th and 4th partials of
the respective fundementals. Ok..... but isnt this obvious ?? Am
I missing something here ?? I was under the impression that by
now we all understood enough about beats and partials that if one
was for some reason to look at the beat rate between a
fundemental of 220hz and another of 176hz we already knew we were
looking at 44bps.  Why on earth would anyone think that adjusting
one or the other of the fundementals of these two frequencies by
7 hz would result in a bps sounding interval ? Because this was a
"pure" third to begin with ???? That would seem to me a bit
er..... misunderstood to say the least.

Ok... so I may be the one who misunderstands... I will certainly
re-read this article a few times to see if I can figure out what
he is getting at....but for the moment I must admit I am clearly
miffed...grin.. so if anyone can shed some light on this I would
be greatfull.

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