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Is there any account of beats in Schlick? The German word he uses is
<i>schweben</i>, often taken to mean "to beat" because we know
better, but that is not the German sense: <i>schweben</i> means "to
float".<br>
<br>
What Schlich says, really, is this:<br>
... <i>mach </i>[<i>die quint</i>] <i>dazu nitt hoch genug, oder
ganz gerade in. sonder etwas in die niederer schweben, so vil das
das gehor leyden mag...</i><br>
... make its fifth not high enough nor exactly, but somewhat
floating in the low, as much as the ear may suffer...<br>
<br>
We know that this probably refers to a sensation (not a
consciousness!) of beating. But to deduce that Schlick accounted for
beats (or, even more, for an interference between harmonic partials)
would be farfetched, to say the least.<br>
<br>
To answer the question otherwise: there is no mention of
temperament, that I know (or that is known, I'd dare say), before
Schlick. The tuning of Pythagorean diminished fourths (e.g. <i>d-g</i>b)
as approximations of perfect major thirds (<i>d-f</i>#), as
described in several 14th- and 15th-century texts (and earlier in
Safi al-Din) cannot be considered temperaments, as they involve pure
intervals (pure fifths, in this case) exclusively. The difference
between a Pythagorean diminished fourth and a major third is so
little (2 cents) that it hardly could have been considered <i>schwebend</i>.<br>
<br>
Nicolas Meeùs<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:nicolas.meeus@paris-sorbonne.fr">nicolas.meeus@paris-sorbonne.fr</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Le 10/09/2010 16:09, JAY RAHN a écrit :
<blockquote cite="mid:739935.88602.qm@web88105.mail.re2.yahoo.com"
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<td style="font: inherit;" valign="top">Does anyone know of
an account of beats (i.e., interference between the two
tones of an interval) prior to Schlick (1511)? <br>
<br>
Jay Rahn, York University (Toronto)<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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