[pianotech] Do fourths beat faster?

[Jeff Deutschle]

David:

Thanks for the response!

I guess if I really want to understand the theory, I will have to do
the math, which I am capable of.

On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 7:20 AM, David Andersen
<david at davidandersenpianos.com> wrote:
>
> On Feb 7, 2009, at 4:20 AM, Jeff Deutschle wrote:
>
> I would have to do additional math to understand this thoroughly, but
> I can now see how 4ths and 5ths might be tuned so that they beat at
> the same rate across the keyboard (or close enough to appear that way)
> if the octave stretch is large enough.
>
> Not LARGE enough. PRECISE enough. In my tunings, all the fourths "seem" to
> beat close to the same pacific, rolling beat, usually about 1.5 beats per
> second, but it could be 1.0bps, or it could be 2.0bps. When all the fourths
> beat like that, and all the fifths are slightly compressed, with no
> discernible beat, you have a highly idealized equal temperament and a
> precise, full-sounding, "automatically calculated" custom-to-every-piano
> stretch down to the bottom and up to the top. All of the traditional equal
> temperament checks---thirds, sixths, tenths, seventeenths, minor
> thirds---conform and line up in an idealized fashion. All of the octaves
> "sound" or "appear" beatless.
> All I can say is I welcome anyone reading these words to look me up at the
> California PTG Conference in Burbank, February 19-22. I'll be heading up the
> big bad Steingraeber wing of the Hall of Pianos, therefore dead easy to
> locate. I would be thrilled to show you exactly how this works. You can
> watch me tune and ask questions. I'm going to drive a stake in the heart of
> one of the oldest, most toxic illusions in the book: the beat rate of
> fourths and fifths increase and decrease in speed like other intervals do in
> equal temperament. THEY DO NOT. Not in the world I live in, which is the
> world of my ears, which are connected to the trillion-dollar package, the
> greatest tool of all. Please come by the booth; all skeptics welcome. I'll
> have a private room with a piano in it, so we can get right to work. Come on
> down. I'll prove it to you.
> "Experience always---and I mean ALWAYS---replaces belief."
> Shri David Andersen Ji
>
>
> Hope this helps...
> David Andersen
> rainy (yay!) California



-- 
Regards,
Jeff Deutschle

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