RE: [tuning] Back at the Helm [Helmholtz]

Joseph wrote,

>But you have to admit that Helmholtz's attempt to tie the Fourier
>analysis in with compound sense of taste is a pretty specious
>argument!... (Not complaining about Helmholtz, of course, just
>observing)

Helmholtz was just making an analogy, and one that is still appropriate
today according to a major school of thought in psychoacoustics (Parncutt,
Sethares?), whereby the apparant "fusion" of the harmonic series is a
learned (perhaps prenatally) phenomenon rather than an inborn one.

>But how about in a "natural" sound. How do people find the partials
>then?? Can computer programs easily do this now??

Yes.

>How does the EAR do
>it??

Look up "cochlea" in the encyclopedia.

>And, finally, how did Fourier HIMSELF do it??... if he was back at the
>beginning of the 19th century. Questions, questions.

Fourier did nothing more than prove the mathematical assertion that all
well-behaved functions could be uniquely analyzsed into sine and cosine
components. This was quite surprising at the time. He was actually
interested in heat, not sound.

My recollection about Mersenne is that he was first to assert the existence
of overtones. I doubt he actually went as far as to say that they determine
timbre.