source file: mills2.txt
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 19:53:07 -0800

Subject: Ghosttones reply ^n Sea Turtles...

From: clucy@cix.compulink.co.uk (Charles Lucy)

I thought sea turtles were an endangered species.
There's a whole family surfing about 50 yards beyond my monitor in
Hilo Bay.
Anyway....
>Are you sure that the ghosttone positions line
>up exactly with the fret positions, and aren't
>slightly displaced in some places? 
 
How wide is your finger? How thick is a fret?
 
>Giving the frequencies of fretted notes doesn't 
>specify the frequencies of the ghosttones you 
>get when you touch the string directly above or 
>near those frets.
 
Of course the fretted frequencies are 
the fretted frequencies.
The ghosttones producted by touching at these 
positions are another value, which I am to test.
 
>Please just give me a simple list of the ghosttones 
>in your proposed series, with their frequencies and 
>string positions, and don't include string positions 
>which have no ghosttones--they just clutter the list.
 
I will do as soon as I get back home and get it organised.
 
>The best way to notate the string positions would 
>probably be as a percentage of string length, since 
>this can be translated to any string, and easily 
>compared to other models of where vibrational
>nodes are found.
 
Percentages sound fine to me: 
So first octave would be 50% etc.
 
 
>That was your text, so you should know.
 
I thought it was a "dumb" query. 
 
>Saying "usually related to..." is not a sufficient
>specification. 
 
Agreed! I need to test on a real instrument or string.
 
>How is it that you don't already know the pitches of 
>the ghosttone sequence for which you claim to have a 
>better model? 
 
Because I did the experiments ten years ago, and I have moved house
thirty times in the meantime. The original results are probably in
the 
barn in Herefordshire UK, and I am currently in Hilo, Hawaii.
 
 
>So the other frets which produce B's don't represent 
>ghosttone positions?
 
The other B's are really irrelevant, because you will get the same 
result from each end of the string.
The only other B fret positions on the string which is tuned to "A", 
will be on the second half of the string. i.e. >50%
 
So all values for ghosttone positions will be 50% or less,
as the upper 50% will be a mirror image of the lower 50%.
 
 
 
>Where does an octave fit into a sequence of fourths
>and fifths? As you know, no number of fourths and
>fifths will produce an octave (except in equal 
>temperaments). 
 
At the first stage. i.e. at the 50% position.
 
> and octave above (2nd octave fret); 3/4 of distance 
> nut to bridge: 
 
>Same problem; octaves never occur in a sequence of
>fourths and fifths. Please explain this contradiction.
 
 An octave is an octave, is an octave.
 
 ratio 2/1 in these cases.
 
Therefore ocatves are at 50%, 25%, 12.5% 6.25% etc.
yet which octave, I have yet to ascertain again.
 
>Have you measured the frequencies of the open string
>and this ghosttone using a tuner to see if their
>interval ratio is indeed 2.988824? This would be an 
>obvious first test of your model.
 
Yes, yet it tells me more about the electronics and
limitations of my tuner, than about the string sounds
or frequencies it is supposed to be reading ....
 
Counting beating against another nearby tuned string with
a metronome makes more sense to me.
 
Charles Lucy

(Wonder if they continue surfing after dark?)
It's sunset here in hawaii.

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