How We Hear

[Don]

Hi,

I've never bothered to measure the 1st partial after an attempt to set the
unison at the 7th partial using an etd. The aural results are what matter,
and those, to my ear, were unacceptable.

At 06:39 PM 23/10/2004 -0400, you wrote:

>You're talking about getting the ETD to memorize the offset of the 
>7th partial on one string, then moving over to the next string in the 
>unison and setting that strings 7th partial to that offset, and then 
>measuring the two 1st partials to see whether they match? Or maybe 
>even, listening to them?
>
>No I haven't. I bought RCT v3 seven years ago, and although I still 
>have it on an old laptop, never made the jump from acoustic to ETD. 
>(I seem to remember being to impatient, waiting for the spinner to 
>stabilize.)
>
>Your disappointing results would seem to come from the distance from 
>1st to 7th partial being different from one string to another in a 
>unison. Could be, on occasion. I listen to not just the 7th but the 
>others on down to the 1st, and it does happen that with a zero-beaten 
>7th there will be other partials (usually one if at all) which are 
>still moving. The same way there can be a false beat in the 3d 
>partial on one string, ruling out the possibility of a clean unison 
>at that partial level. Once again I shut out all but the 7th, 
>zero-beat that, and use the resultant unison as a starting place from 
>which to "smudge" the unison, should that be required so as to 
>disguise the false beat in that one 3d partials.
>
>Under ordinary circumstances, the generation of the partial series 
>among strings in a unison is consistent enough to insure that with 
>one of the higher partials zero-beaten, the others below will also be.
>
>The 7th partial is my favorite. The even numbers tend to lose their 
>identity, all being the tonic of the same key signature. Among the 
>primes (3d, 5th, and 7th) the 3d is too quickly doubled by the 6th. 
>Both the 5th and the 7th avoid this, but the 7th is a better choice 
>for me. 1.) It's higher than the 5th and thus is a finer "vernier 
>knob", and 2.) it reminds me of the Blues's natural place in the 
>Harmony of the Spheres.

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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