[Bell Historians] Re: Musical scales, bell register

[Carl S Zimmerman]

At 13:43 +0000 06/12/04, Nick Bowden wrote:
>Bickerton, Roderic K (SELEX) (UK) writes:
>>
>>  Regarding the bell register, why have notes at all?
>>  Surely the frequencies (Hz) are all that is necessary, and preferably
>>  all 5.
>>  Perhaps the register could eventually contain a small sound bite of the
>>  bell being struck, so that predominance decay and other analysis could
>>  be done if a researcher wished.
>>
>
>I prefer to see the notes and ideally the number of cents flat or sharp,
>rather than just the frequency - in the same way with weights as cwt, qrs &
>lbs rather than just lbs or (heaven forbid) kgs.
>Nick
_____

But if you want cents flat or sharp, then you must have a declared 
tuning standard against which the flatness or sharpness is measured. 
It's much simpler to let the note names be just an approximation and 
leave the precision to the frequency field.  From there, one can 
compute flatness/sharpness against *any* desired tuning standard.

CSZ