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Re: Difference tones

Author: Craig Matovich
Date: 2006-12-28 18:00

The flute instructor at Shenandoah Conservatory, Dr. Francis Lapp Averitt, where I studied and later taught oboe used difference tones extensively in her teaching.

She did her doctoral thesis on them and their applications for refined tuning.
Just intonation was her interest and she developed instructional materials on the subject. Difference tones were the vehicle to approach the intonation goals.

Difference tones are definitely easier to hear with two flutes than two oboes, but once you get used to hearing them they are very noticable, even with different instruments. When I performed with Dr. Averitt in the woodwind quintet, she would coach us on hearing the best tones for pure intonation, and that was very useful especially at cadences. Highly chromatic music posed special probelms for just intonation, but there were techniques to at least bring some benefits of the just tuning into that music as well.

Its pretty interesting to delve into the subject and lots of scale and tuning theory to go along with it.

She published articles in Flute Talk about the topic. If you google search Francis Lapp Averitt you will find information about her and her contact information.

Difference tones are sometimes called subjective tones since they are produced by our brains and do not physically exist otherwise. Pipe organs produce the lowest tones using difference tones (since 64 foot pipes are usually impractical.)

Post Edited (2006-12-29 00:30)

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