I noticed that the “D” on my Cleartune app on my iPhone set to Standard Just Intonation does not match the “D” on a stand-alone tuner (Peterson Strobosoft, also set to Just Intonation). Here’s a copy of the correspondence with the Cleartune manufacturer:
Original message from me:
Device: iPhone3,1 (5.1.1)
Settings: Standard Just Intonation
Temperament key of D
The pitch D played on Cleartune on my iPhone is several hz higher than the pitch of D played on a Peterson stand-alone tuner set to just intonation. It is also several hz higher than D played on equal temperament tuners.
(from) Matt:
Steve, there could be a difference in the offsets between devices. Cleartune locks the offset for A to 0 for the key of C, and rotates the temperament to apply it to other temperament keys. So in the key of D, B would have a 0 offset. Is it possible that the Peterson is offset to 0 beginning with the root note? What Hz does the Peterson produce for D with the same settings? If this is the case - a quick workaround would be to multiply A4 by 0.991 - for 440.0 this would be A4=436.0. This will offset your root note back to 0.
I had already made this adjustment by modifying the pitch of the tone produced by Cleartune to match the Peterson, but I was surprised that Cleartune locks the offset for A to 0 instead of locking the first note of the scale to 0.
This is all stuff I’m still trying to get my head around, so please forgive any stupid questions here.
The pipes are tuned for JI, but also for A=440, correct? So with the aforementioned cleartune app, you would still want A=440, right? Even though it would mean that D is slightly off compared to a standard tuner, that’s what you’d expect, right?
Well there is I think no “correct way” to do this.
That said I think it odd to seemingly arbitrally choose the 6th degree to have a zero offset from the equal tempered scale - for a D just scale this will give a D and an A very noticably sharp of the equal temperament. 16 cents for the D, 18 cents for the A
I’ve yet to be play with any group that tuned to a B !!!
I would think it better to have A be 440 (hence string players can tune their A strings to A440) and all the other notes would fall where they must.
So for example for D just the D would be 2cents flat of a ET D
and for C just scale the C would be quite sharp of ET at 20cents
and so on.
In the end its not so much the tuning but the playing in tune that matters.
It does make a whistlemaker’s life ‘more interesting’ if they are making just tuned whistles
while I was pondering/editing/writing my post two others appeared…
MTGuru is (as usual) is correct in that JI is relative to the tonic.
But the question arises - What is the pitch of the tonic?
And to that there is no good answer - except that in reality if there are string players involved they probably want to tune their fiddle, or cello, or whatever to A440 and leave it alone, and not retune (as say a good guitar player might) to play in a different key. And they probably want to be able to use open strings. So the pitch of the tonic probably ends up being related to A440 in some way… that is A440 is part of the scale. Practically I have not carefully checked what really happens!
Of course if you’re playing an instrument with fixed tuning - a piano, or a box you will have to do what ever is needed to sound good with them. As I said above “It’s the playing in tune that counts…”
Enough thinking, time to practice that new tune I am learning - ‘The Yellow Wattle’
You might be right about this, but I was thinking that since my drones are the tonic and playing much of the time, that I would want the tonic in tune with other instruments. Maybe that throws off the pitch of other notes too much.
Sometimes, I wonder why there is a preponderance of queries regarding just intonation, electronic tuners, tempered tuning, specific Hertz for certain notes, etc. I have usually tuned my chanter’s G, B, and d, (along with the drones and regulators,) to a Marine Band or Special 20 G harmonica, and I occasionally check the accuracy of the A with a 440 fork. Works great. You can feel it. You can hear it. If your local box player has good reeds, tune to him. What do you want to do? Watch blinking lights? Close your eyes and become transported. It’s not a particle accelerator. It’s about music, not engineering.
Steve, I believe in Just intonation with a root of D, the G will be a couple of cents flat of equal temperament, the A a couple of cents sharp, minor deltas from other instruments tuned in equal only. For session playing, I generally have my chanter tuned for A440, with the hard bottom D matching equal temperament, and have the F# and B close to the correct just intonation pitch, maybe a few cents sharp of ideal flatness so I can have some flexibility with blending better with other non-just tuned instruments, I can always flatten with alternative fingerings.
I’m so glad for this thread. I’m always sharp according to my Cleartune app but not according to other tuners. It happens with the flute and whistles, too. There’s less of a variance when I use the Equal Temperament setting, but “Standard Just” seems to average about 5 cents sharp. Thanks for posting, and thanks to all for help with the “math.”
I got spoiled young when people told me I had perfect pitch. As such, I’ve generally gone by ear for 40 years. Then I got the Cleartune app and it, combined with the general vagaries of the pipes, have had me wondering if I’ve been driving people crazy all these years!
I’m trying to find a table of values for how many cents out each note on the scale should be for each note on the chanter.
I’ve got a Korg LC-120 tuner which you can program for different intonations. You enter in in +/- # cents for each note.
Most “Just Intonation” charts showing +/- cents for each note given that the tonic note is +0 cents of equal temperament. However, given that our tonic is D and we’re tuning for A=440, it’s the perfect 5th that is +0 cents, and the tonic would therefore be very slightly flat of equal temperament.
It’s easy enough to run up your own table in a spreadsheet, using the fact that
cents = 1200 * log2 (a/b)
Where a is the upper pitch, b is the lower pitch and log2 is log to the base 2. a/b you can find for each note from any just intonation article, and the offset you require is the difference between 100* semitones and the cents value you’ve just calculated.
I would set your root note to be in tune with an equal tempered scale, not the A, though the difference is small. You want to minimise the difference and setting your fifth to be equal doesn’t do this.
Well, this can be a matter of both opinion and practicality and could be more complicated than your programable tuner will accomodate. There is also the question of note pitch variance with different fingerings.
Books on the subject;
Tuning and Temperament by J.Murray Barbour (ISBN 13: 978-0-486-43406-3)
Temperament by Stuart Isacoff (ISBN 978-0-571-23446-2)
How Equal Temperament ruined Harmony by Ross W.Duffin (ISBN 978-0-393-33420-3)
Personally I no longer refer to the tuning of the chanter as “Just Intonation”… it is closer to a Monochord tuning that I did discover noted down in the first of these books, but I don’t have the time at present to search through and point you to the exact page.
If you just want the ‘normal notes’ then you could start with these déviations from EQ;
D = 0, E +4, F# -14, G -2, A +2, B -16 ,C -29 and C# -10… of course , again this all dépends on fingerings and personal préférences.. prefer less diviation at F#, B and C… the C fingering giving harmonic flat seventh is fully forked… this allows one to obtain C# in a good place and to open the ‘forking fingering’ to get that Clancy sliding C coming through the EQ position.
Then there is all the sharps and flats to consider; is your F natural to be a flat seventh in the key of G or a perfect minor third to the Drone (D)… etc etc…
There are several other usefull fingerings that can be allowed for… just dépends what you wish to actually do with your Tuner.
