Beats vs cycles vs cents

[Richard Brekne]

Don A. Gilmore wrote:
> 
> 
> Cents are really a more accurate indicator of how far out-of-tune a note is
> than beats are since they are based on the actual perceived musical pitch of
> a note (100 cents is always a half-step no matter how high or low the
> frequency is.
> 
> Don A. Gilmore
> Mechanical Engineer
> Kansas City
> 

I really have to take issue with this. No one <<percieves>> cents at 
all.  Our perceptions of out of tuneness have far more to do with how 
"clean" any given interval relationship sounds, or how close any 
interval is to what we expect of it. This is exactly beat related. 
Cents is an idealization, a mathmatical representation or modeling of 
musical pitch. There is no musical way of defining <<in tuneness>> based 
on cents to begin with. Only close approximations.  Beats are used both 
individually and whollistically to create a musical effect... the very 
best tuners know exactly what kind of vibrational effects they want a 
piano to send out through the air for each interval and are very good at 
achieving these. Many tuners I know speak of a the overall <<tone>> of a 
tuning.... in kind of voicing sense. <<Voicing>> through tuning is a 
mulitpartial prospect to begin with, which removes it from a simple 
cents perspective from the get go.

100 cents is not always a half step in real piano frequencies.... it is 
at best only a half step for one partial at a time.  Pitch perception is 
a conglomerate of all partials, their relative loudness, and a good deal 
more.

Cheers
RicB