Klarinet Archive - Posting 000421.txt from 2003/08

From: "Tim Roberts" <timr@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Re: "Perfect" rhythm
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 16:56:59 -0400

On Thu, 14 Aug 2003 08:32:23 -0700 (PDT), Claudia Zornow
<claudia.zornow@-----.com> wrote:
>
>A conductor of mine says "Rhythm is infinite." Since a time interval
>can be divided into infinitely many subintervals, it's always possible
>to get closer to perfect accuracy. Is your beat accurate to 0.1 of a
>second? 0.01? 0.001? Pitch is like this too: Is your A at 440 cycles
>per 1.00 seconds? 1.000? 1.0000?...

I'm not sure either of these questions is really valid.

In rhythm, no one really cares whether I play exactly 120 beats per minute.
What matters is (A) am I close enough to not unintentionally alter the sense of
the piece, and (B) do I match the other players in my ensemble. Rhythm is in
some sense a phase-locked loop: anyone with musical sense will adjust their own
tempo when there is a mismatch, so no one gets off and stays off. That is, the
average tempos in beats per minute of all players in an ensemble in a
particular piece are probably identical to 4 or 5 decimal places. Otherwise,
chaos ensues.

A similar statement applies to pitch. No one really cares whether the sounds
from my clarinet has its fundamental frequency at 440 Hz or 440.25 Hz. What
matters is whether my pitch matches the other members of the ensemble.
Fortunately, the nature of sound makes it dramatically clear when two
fundamentals are even slightly off; our ability to hear the "beats" between two
detuned fundamentals mean that we can be very accurate.

I thought I had a point when I started this, but I seem to have lost it.
Sorry.

--
- Tim Roberts, timr@-----.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.

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