Orch. Instrument Aperiodicity Again

Paul E. mentioned a means in which FFTs could fool us into thinking that
a partial is not exactly harmonic.

That reminded me that Dave Hill, who I hear say is on the list now, has
done many voice- and some musical-instrument-sound decompositions using a
different technique - more or less superheterodyning if I remember
correctly (it's been a while). In any case, it certainly admitted the
possibility of partials being nonharmonic, and followed each partial's
pitch with extreme precision.

Its accuracy was clearly validated by the fact that the sounds recreated
from the decomposition were almost perfectly indistinguishable from the
originals. They are certainly vastly superior to any other synthetic
instrument-sound reconstructions I've ever heard. I think that most would
agree.

It would be interesting to hear if he saw evidence that orchestral
instruments had nonharmonic partials. Dave?

> I wonder what Charles Lucy would have to say about this...

By the way, just in case anybody was wondering, I'm pretty sure that
that thingie about legislating pi=3 is a joke. I'll admit it had me going
for a while, but I wasn't sure until I looked up the web page for the
Alabama state legislature and couldn't find the legislator's name, and
found that the Governor's name was incorrect. So if it's not a joke, it is
at least a very OLD story.

But I've certainly a lot of scientifically ludicrous statements from
certain politicians before, and the bit about Indiana having attempted and
failed to legislate a rational value for pi apparently is true.

So I guess there's no need for Charles Lucy to be concerned that
LucyTuned music would, to be legal in Alabama, would have to be played in
equal-temperament!