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From: Peter Morrissey
Date: Wed, 02 Oct 1996 12:48:53 -0700
Subject: Re: Tuning without a tuner (was RE: Reed fatigue revisited)

JOHN THADEN wrote:
> By playing two reeds at the same time and listening for "beats". For
> instance, if holes 1 and 4, blow, of an A diatonic are tuned exactly an
> octave apart, at 440 and 880 cycles per second (hertz), playing them
> at the same time will produce a sound free of any oscillations or
> beats. If hole four is flat, say 798 hertz, then when played with hole
> 1, you can with some practice hear the resulting sound increase and
> decrease in volume--and change in quality--twice per second. A slow
> beat like this can be tolerable, but faster ones can sound aweful.

I've noticed when I play my Herring 64 that I hear this when I play the two
C notes that are side by side. In this case, they are not an octave apart.
I thought the sound was kind of neat, but it sounds like it may be an indication
that at least one of the notes is a little out of tune.

The other time when I noticed a similar sound, though probably unrelated was during a
live performance of Carey Bell playing a chromatic 64. I noticed a very steady undulation
of the sound, it was so steady that I didn't think it could have been attributable
to his vibrato. I also kind of suspected some sort of electronic effect being involved,
but I would be surprised if some of his ability would rely on something like this.

_Pete M.