source file: m1454.txt
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 21:58:34 -0700

Subject: reducing notes to the octave

From: Aline Surman <stick@uswest.net>

Someone just had a post which mentioned, as part of the message, 
reducing notes mathematically to bring them into the range of an octave. 
Needless to say, this has been done for a long time, and is the only way 
to hear notes which are way up in the harmonic series, or cycle of 5ths.
What has always fascinated me is this: when notes are brought into the 
octave in this way, we are not actually hearing the sound of the note 
itself...it's "up there" somewhere, and our ears are not capable of 
hearing the real tone. Where are these notes? How different it would be 
if we could actually hear them, as they really sound. As it is now, the 
actual notes are theoretical, since no one (no human, anyway) can hear 
them in reality...Hstick