Yardarm103669107@AOL.COM wrote: > John, list: > I have been thinking about Virgil's approach for several years, and with him > here in Chicago, we get a lot of his thoughts more directly! > > While I have a lot of disagreements with the language and the logic of > Virgil's arguments, one thing is certainly incontrovertible--his octaves are > pretty nice. But what I see being avoided in the attempt by him and everyone > to define "natural beat" or the lack of beats is the fact that an octave with > no beats is physically impossible. This does not mean that the aural effect > can be near to beatless, but that if you really know what is going on in that > interval, there are still going to be beats between coincident partials at > some point in the spectrum of harmonics. Yes... this is the problem surrounding Virgil... this particular use of the words "beat" and "beatless". Yet he does draw a distinction between beating between partials and what he is trying to describe, and he does call it something else... "natural beats". So when he says he can tune a beatless octave he is obviously not refering to the impossible...(ie beatless coincidents at all points)... rather to this "other kind of beating". ....... > What this (psychoacoustics) means is that Virgil is selecting out the most > characteristic (strongest) harmonic structures to listen to in each note of the > interval of the octave and then matching them as closely as possible. The > resulting interval will sound out with slightly more amplitude than an interval > tuned wider or narrower; but the fact remains that, although the ear can elect > to hear to these sounds as ONE, they are in fact not, but groupings of selected > (voiced) partials acting as a "single" formant tone. While they may appear to > be perfectly tuned, they are not, and while just they are appearing to be > tuned, the rest of the partial spectrum is beating at coincident partial levels > above that. > > Does this make any sense to anybody? So far, it's the only conjecture that > makes sense to me. Thoughts, any and all. Sure makes sense to me... tho we have to admit we are still guessing... Still you are off on a fascinating tangent here. I wonder if this "formant tone" (as you describe above) is such that it is easier for the ear to "elect" to hear it as a single sound. If so... it should be somehow a measureable phenomena wouldnt you think ?? > > Paul Revenko-Jones -- Richard Brekne RPT, N.P.T.F. Bergen, Norway mailto:Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no
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