Beat Notes

What happens when two sinusoids that are not harmonically related are added?

Figure 1: Beat Note made by adding sinusoids at frequencies 218 Hz and 222 Hz.
\scalebox{0.3}{\includegraphics{eps/beatspec.eps}}

The resulting waveform shows a periodic, low frequency amplitude envelope superimposed on a higher frequency sinusoid.

\scalebox{0.3}{\includegraphics{eps/beatwav.eps}}

The beat note comes about by adding two sinusoids that are very close in frequency.


``Music 270a: Modulation'' by Tamara Smyth, Department of Music, University of California, San Diego (UCSD).
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Copyright © 2019-10-28 by Tamara Smyth.
Please email errata, comments, and suggestions to Tamara Smyth<trsmyth@ucsd.edu>