Generator

Beat rates for laying equal temperament

Each link in the chain of fifths, inside one bearing octave, with the rate at which its coincident partials beat — the third partial of the lower note against the second of the upper for a fifth, the fourth against the third for a fourth. Rates run from 0.59 to 1.12 beats per second, a spread of 0.52. This temperament narrows every fifth equally, and the rates still differ, because a beat rate is a difference in hertz and scales with the register.

Drawn above with its standard settings, which is almost never how an essay draws it: an essay states the numbers it is arguing about, so the figure a reader meets there is about that argument rather than about the drawing in general. Every option a placement passes is checked against the ones this function actually reads, because an option it does not read is silently ignored and the figure quietly draws what is above instead.

It makes a noise. 6 of its 6 placements carry sound, built from the same numbers as the drawing, offering these buttons: C–G, tempered — 0.9 beats a second, C–G, tempered — 1.8 beats a second, C–G, tempered — 2.7 beats a second, Just the two partials that beat, The same fifth, pure — no beat at all.

Called by 1 essay

the blast radius of changing it

A tuner counts beats, and that is the whole method

Laying a temperament sounds like the most subjective job in music, and it is arithmetic. Every interval in the bearing octave has a target rate in beats per second, the rate follows from the ratio and the register, and a tuner who hits the numbers has produced equal temperament without ever thinking about a cent.

tuning · Beating

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