How We Hear

[Don]

Hi Bill,

I'd be interested in knowing if you have "set" a unison to the "7th
partial" with an EDT and then listened to the result. I have, and find the
result less than satisfactory.

At 10:53 PM 22/10/2004 -0400, you wrote:
>
>This may be true, but, being the aural tuner which I still am after 
>all of these years, I'm using the higher partials as a vernier fine 
>adjustment on the fundamental during unison tuning. In some PTJ 
>article it was mentioned that a "dead unison" is best done by 
>zero-beating the highest partial we can hear. If a 7th partial (my 
>favorite) beats at 1bps, I know the 1st is on a slow roll one beat 
>every 7 seconds. (And the 2d every 3.5 secs, and so on.) If I slow 
>the 7th beat rate down to 0.5bps, the period of the 1st partial's 
>beat rate would stretch to 14 sec., and the slope of its rise and 
>fall would be so mild as to be unusable in zero-beating that 1st 
>partial. Much easier to slow the 7th partial beat rate from 1/2 bps 
>to zero, rather than the 1st partial from 1/14 bps to zero.
>
>So it's this fine tuning knob that I would have to do without, by 
>tuning with a soft blow. Not that I bang my way through a tuning. But 
>I would have to be playing very quietly not to hear the 7th partial 
>even up into the 5th octave.

Regards,
Don Rose, B.Mus., A.M.U.S., A.MUS., R.P.T.
Non calor sed umor est qui nobis incommodat

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