<HTML>In a message dated 2/11/01 11:06:55 AM Central Standard Time, pianotoo@imap2.asu.edu (Jim Coleman, Sr.) writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">I continue to trip over his use of the word beatless, but now I'm thinking that there may be a sense in which he does hear something beatless. I would like to get the HT people involved in this discussion at this point, because there seems to be something akin to this in the equal-beating scheme of historical tunings which gives the impression of no beats when actually there are beats. I have heard the HT people say that when there are proportional beatings in a temperament chord, the beatings counteract one another. What say you, Ed Foote, Bill Bremmer, Paul Bailey, Owen Jorgensen? Could Virgil be saying something which you all recognize as one of the benefits of equal beating HT's? Let's try to pursue this without the personalities issues coming up.</BLOCKQUOTE> I'm lucky I caught this post because I haven't had much time for the computer lately and even today, I am taking it in to get a major upgrade.  I don't know when I'll be back on line again. I learned a lot about tuning from Jim Coleman, George Defebaugh, Virgil Smith, Steve Fairchild, Owen Jorgensen, Fred Tremper and many others, including Members of my own Chapter.  I tuned for about 22 years strictly by ear before I ever started using an Electronic Tuning Device (ETD), in my case, the Sanderson Accu-Tuner II (SAT).  Getting to understand how to use the SAT and administer the PTG RPT Tuning Exam also taught me an immeasurable amount. From the very beginning, I had heard that some people listen to individual partials when they tune various intervals.  I always had a hard time understanding this because I never thought I did.  I first learned about what I call the Rapidly Beating Intervals (3rds, 6ths, 10ths, 17ths, etc.) from George Defebaugh.  Since these were new to me at the time, it was very difficult for me to discern fine gradations in beat speeds but I seemed to catch on fairly quickly once I knew what to listen for. Today, when I tune an octave or unison aurally, I'd have to say that I still hear pretty much what Virgil does, the whole sound.  I often can hear one or more of the upper partials, usually the 3rd partial if I focus on that but it doesn't have anything to do with how I tune.  To me, the entire process of tuning is one of controlling beats.  Indeed, there are times when an interval should be beatless, namely the unison but in all Well-Tempered Tunings, including the Equal Beating Victorian Temperament (EBVT) that I designed and use most often, there are some pure (beatless) 5ths. I have come to understand that neither an octave nor a 5th (and probably a 3rd for that matter) can never be truly beatless.  All anyone can do is make one set of coincident partials beatless.  However, from a practical point of view, there is nothing to prevent any interval from being *perceived* as beatless.  I usually do play with this perception factor by pushing things as far as they can go until a beat can be heard but backing off just short of the perceptible beat.  Thus, I often tune an interval that is supposed to be beatless nominally with a very slow beat that helps my scheme, as a whole, work. I used to worry that I could not perceive the individual partials of an interval I was tuning until I realized that if I could hear a beat, then I *must* be hearing the partials.  So, I believe that what Virgil hears with what he calls the "whole" sound is simply the blend of partials.  If an interval such as an octave sounds beatless, it simply means that a certain blend of partials has been achieved.  There may, in fact, be no two partials perfectly matched but the beat which occurs between a lower set may be canceled out by the beats which occur in a higher set.  He finds that pure sound simply by searching for it. There most certainly is a canceling out effect when two sets of beats are exactly the same.  When tuning a unison, there is a sudden drop in perceived volume when that unison becomes absolutely pure.  A piano tuned with poor unisons sounds "louder".  Until very recently, I have never heard of anyone advocating anything but pure unisons.  I still believe firmly in trying to get the purest unisons possible.  If there is a desire to get something else from the piano by manipulating the tuning, it is temperament and octaves that are best manipulated.  The best unisons possible will support whatever idea there is to obtain a different "color" from the piano.. When there are false beats which cannot be suppressed, it is usually possible to make them much quieter and stiller sounding by using the canceling out effect of Equal Beating (EB).  Simply by careful unison tuning, the noisy false beat may be quieted by producing an equal but opposite beat which quiets the unison considerably. The canceling out effect is an important part of the EBVT.  It allows me to make the triads at the top of the cycle of 5ths be perceived as much purer than they really are.  My C4-E4 3rd, for example, beats at 6 per second but when played as part of a larger chord, the chord as a whole has a slow, lilting sound, nearly identical to what is heard in the very restrictive temperaments like 1/4 or 1/5 Comma Meantone or the Kirnburger Well Tempered Tuning.  In essence, its like a stolen base, I've got my "pure" sounding chord without having to pay the price for it in harshness at the bottom of the cycle of 5ths. I hope this sheds some light on the subject. Sincerely, Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin</HTML>