"Where's the Beat?"

[Richard Brekne]

kam@flash.net wrote:

> >...What is the difference between beats and natural beats?...
>
> Howard, List,
>
> I remember reading that article and this is what I surmised.
>
> The countable beats, to which you mention, is listening to the relationship
> when comparing two specific partials.
>
> The natural beats, to which Virgil refers, is listening to the cumulative
> relationship of all the partials without specifically isolating any one of
> them.

Yes....well... while I am the first to admit there is something about this
notion that seems senseable... I have to admit that Virgils useage of terms,
ratios, and numbers relating to what beat rates are caused by this at that
combination of frequencies and the like, leave me wondering if he really has
the slightest idea of what he is really talking about.

That being said.. I found it interesting to read his declaration that matching
partials such that one has either a 2:1 or a 6:3 octave type, results in an
octave  with a "slight natural beat on the flat side" and that tuning octaves
in which the natural beat is eliminated when the unisons are tuned will be
"wider then the first seven of Reyburn's so called octave stretches". These
followed by the statement that "Jim Coleman's Pure 5ths temperament will result
in a natural octave bead on the sharp side."

Notice that these statements seem to apply equally to all ranges of the
piano... with no real difference...ie a 6:3 octave in the high treble is still
going to yeild a "narrow" natural beat octave.  Aside from that kind of
thing...these statements open a door that might allow us to look closer at the
possiblity that there is some phenomena going on that has been overlooked so
far by those from the ETD world.

If its a hearable beat like thing we are looking for... and in the range Virgil
states... it should be measurable in some sense also.

>
>
> Keith McGavern
> Registered Piano Technician
> Oklahoma Chapter 731
> Piano Technicians Guild
> USA

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