Concordance

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Revision as of 02:35, 27 October 2026 by Ground (talk | contribs) (Created page with "'''Concordance''' (opposed to discordance) is a measure of how well harmonics of different notes in a chord line up. It is often equated to consonance (opposed to dissonance), although consonance is cultural rather than physical. == Conventional models == In order of complexity: * Tenney norm[https://en.xen.wiki/w/Tenney_norm] * Wilson norm[https://en.xen.wiki/w/Wilson_norm] * Harmonic entropy[https://en.xen.wiki/w/Harmonic_entropy] == Harmonic Cross-Beating == {{UTBox...")
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Concordance (opposed to discordance) is a measure of how well harmonics of different notes in a chord line up. It is often equated to consonance (opposed to dissonance), although consonance is cultural rather than physical.

Conventional models

In order of complexity:

  • Tenney norm[1]
  • Wilson norm[2]
  • Harmonic entropy[3]

Harmonic Cross-Beating

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This section is written from the perspective of User:Ground and may feature proposed concepts.
Harmonic cross-beating diagram of two saw waves from 55 to 880 Hz. The beating confidence curve has a mean of 20 Hz and a standard deviation of 6 Hz.

Harmonic entropy is the accepted standard for quantifying concordance, but it does not explicitly take register and timbre into account. It uses a probability distribution for how likely an interval is to be perceived as a certain ratio, which is a choice I contend with. I created harmonic cross-beating to address these issues. This model doesn't use ratios at all, and the probability distribution is for whether a difference between harmonics is heard as beating.

Algorithm

Calculate the frequency difference between each harmonic of each waveform and each harmonic of the other waveforms to get a set of all possible beating frequencies. Multiply them by the relative strength of the current two harmonics being evaluated. Then multiply them by a "beating confidence curve" that approximates the strength of audible beating. Finally, sum everything.

Psychoacoustics

My hypothesis is that perceived dominant beating frequency in an interval with a given register and timbre is similar between listeners and can be mathematically modeled to high confidence, which can be used to approximate the vague consensus of concordance using a perceptual probability distribution.

Having the axes in frequency space rather than logarithmic space really shows how the concordance wells have a constant width in terms of frequency, which is what I predicted, and new concordance wells gradually show up as the frequencies increase. The cross-beating values become unusually large as the waveforms approach the assumed audible beating frequency.