foot

1. The unit of metre, a distinct rhythmic unit of two or more syllables. 2. Of a pipe, the part below the mouth. 3. Old term for a refrain, or a drone-ba . 4. A unit for the designation of the pitch of pipes and instrs. arrived at as follows. Sound travels 1056 feet per second, the tone C,, has 33 vibrations a second; 1056 + 33 = 32 feet, the length of one sound wave; a 32-foot pipe will therefore sound C,,. The pipe giving C (two octaves below middle C) is about 8 feet long. This is taken as the normal length, and while the pipes that make up a so-called 8-foot stop (q.v.) decrease in length as they ascend the scale, they are considered as belonging to the 8-foot tone and they sound as written or played, i. e., when an 8-foot stop is on and the key of mid. C is depre ed, mid. C sounds, etc. If this key is depre ed when a 4-foot stop is on, the tone an octave higher sounds; when a 32-foot is on, a tone two octaves lower sounds; the 2-foot and 1-foot stops produce tones respectively two and three octaves higher than the key depre ed. A stop then is named from the length of its longest pipe and lowest tone. From this use arises the designation of instruments by foot-measure, or foot-tone; an instr. sounding as written (e. g., the flute) is called an 8-foot instr., one sounding an octave higher (e. g., the piccolo-flute) is called a 4-foot instr. Furthermore, this designation is used of octaves; the letters in the great octave (vide PITCH) are known as 8-foot (as 8-ft. C, D, etc.), those in the small octave, as 4-ft. c, d, etc.; those in the once-accented as 2foot, and those in the twice-accented as 1-foot. The word foot is sometimes abbreviatéd by an (’) as 8’, 16’. The metrical system has been applied with much inaccuracy; 8-feet = 5 metre; 4-feet = 3m.; 2-feet = 2m.; 16-ft. = 5 m.; 32-ft. = Quinte (10 = 5 lH 3; 3> i I a 3) 10 m.; and a feet) = za. 3 5 and 5 metres re, 12 b spectively. Tierce (6 z 3 > 13 and4 feet) = Io (4), and 2 () D7 “= (or 2), 2(or 1), Os § metres respectively.