Natural Beats

[Richard Brekne]

Hi folks... gotta bring this up again as I have been dinking around,
listening... playing with my RCT and Tunelab and in general paying
very close attention to a lot of sounds I have been taking for
granted these past hundred or so years and have started to wonder
about something I thought I might throw out for your consideration.

First... let me say I am convinced now there is a beat like
phenomena that corresponds directly to Virgils natural beat. In a
previous post I wrote something about a beat like sound that happens
as you get very very close to an intune unison. You get past the
long meeeeeooooowwww ish kind of effect and it pops up right at
you.. very obvious really once you first notice it.... It beats just
once and rather quickly (no more then a half a second or so), and
then disapears.... as you adjust the unison you can get even this to
dissapear.... or even become a bit slower before it disapears.. when
it is gone the unison is like dead on intune.

Well, I  got to thinking about why this isnt picked up by ETD's..
why it hasnt been measured...(at least as a beat phenomena) and why
it seems like so very very many tuners seem to miss "discovering"
it. The last isnt so strange really, as its typical of the kind of
bi-sound that we are taught not to listen to... then there is all
this "mystic" surrounding the present term useage...

But then this about why ETD's dont pick it up... and why its not
been measured. This is a very hearable phenomena. That says to me it
is measureable. But tho it is beat like.... its not a beat... at
least not in the traditional sense. The affect, and manipulation of
it reminds me more of disscussions we have all had about attack and
decay time.. strings in or out of phase... this kind of thing... and
I got to thinking perhaps we have simply been looking in the wrong
place for this little goodie.

So I am wondering is it possible that as a unison is becomes very
very close to being dead on intune... there exists a window where a
beat like change in amplitude can exist and can be manipulated. I
would estimate that the fastest rate of this "beat" I have yet to
hear is about at the speed of 2bps and I cant seem to get it to go
slower then about half that speed before it simply wants to
dissapear. You can be a tad flat or sharp of the string you are
tuning to... and depending on this you can also influence how an
octave sounds.. we get right into this pitch fall thing...

Anyways.. these thoughts have been swimming in my head the last
couple days and I thought I would see what any of you have to say
about them.

One thing is seems very clear to me tho.. There is something to all
this Virgil and his Natural beat thing.

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