source file: m1379.txt
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 22:36:21 -0400

Subject: Microtonal phones

From: monz@juno.com (Joseph L Monzo)

Just thought I'd mention this, since it
seems we're trying to document all the
places where we're hearing microtones:

The tones which sound when you press
numbers on the keypad of a touch-tone
phone are in ratios.  I had figured them
out once, because their arrangement into
dyads  follows a geometrical pattern
across the keys, but they were never
written down.

The dial tone is also some kind of just
major 3rd.

Also, when I called someone tonight,
the sound of their phone ringing in my
earpiece was a trill-like alternation of two
tones which formed exactly the 19/16 we've
been discussing in the Hendrix chord
-- I had just listened to a MIDI sequence
of it I made right before I made the phone
call, and not only were my ears particularly
sensitized to it, but it was also in the
same key (F#)!
 
It seems that microtones are creeping into
all sorts of nooks and crannies of our lives!

   Joseph L. Monzo
    monz@juno.com
    4940 Rubicam St., Philadelphia, PA 19144-1809, USA
    phone 215 849 6723

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