Constructive and destructive interference of waves can produce beats, which are alternating loud and soft patterns. Beats occur when two sounds with nearly identical frequencies are played together. The beat frequency is the difference between the two original frequencies. In the example, Kevin hears 12 beats over 4 seconds between his guitar strings tuned to 280Hz and an unknown frequency. Using the beat frequency formula, the unknown frequency is calculated to be 283Hz since it is described as higher than the known frequency.