Re: Perception of difference - aesthetics


"Peter H.M. Brooks" <peter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:e7huhl$akb$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Lance wrote:
Peter.H.M.Brooks@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
He said that C sharp and D flat are different notes. As I said, this is
clearly false, you press the same key on the keyboard and the frequency
is the same. It is also, clearly, true as a piece that is in one key
will be treating the note differently from a piece in another - and an
entirely chromatic piece will treat it in a third different way. So, to
our ears, the same note will indeed be different in, I think, an
important way. Those of use who have perfect pitch may not see it that
way - I'd be interested to know if anybody with perfect pitch can say
whether or not this is, in fact, the case.


Are they not different notes in fact? Only the well tempered klavier
system makes them the same note to prvent having to retune the piano
everytime the key of the music is changed. Which means that they are
slightly out of tune. But in the scales they are different notes, I
think.

It all rather depends on how you define these things. C and D are now
defined in terms of the frequency of the sound, so, middle C is 262Hz, D
is 293.7Hz, so C sharp and D flat are 262 + 293.7 = 555.7/2 = 277.85Hz

The frequencies of notes in the equal-tempered scale form a geometric
series, not an arithmetic one, so the frequency of C sharp and D flat =
(frequency of C) * (square root of ((frequency of D) / (frequency of C)).

Philip.


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