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!