Reading through some old whistle reviews, I have noticed some good players mention how much the like their whistle with “just” tuning. There are some explinations of this option. However, since I don’t have a formal background in music theory I can’t figure out what the advantage this tuning would offer. How different does a “just” tuned whistle sound? Are there any playing advantages to this?
Just temperment is when something is tuned in accordance with the Harmonic Series. Whats that? Here is how it works a string stopped at the halfway point will play an octave above the pitch of that string. Stopped at other points it will play other notes (3,5, ect.). When notes like a 13th or a 9th are played in the harmonic series they are not mathmatecally the same distance apart from each other. Equal temperment means that every note is exactly how ever many (I don’t know the amount) hertz apart from each other. A just whistle is tuned in accordance with the harmonic series. Just temperment is more pleasing to the ear and because a Whistle is only playing in a couple keys tuning on a just whistle it is not that big of a deal.
There is an easy way of looking at this. Two rules: 1. If you are playing over drones, you want just intonation otherwise the third and sixth sound awful. Uillean pipes are tuned in just intonation. 2. If you are playing in an orchestra, you need equal temprament or you’ll sound off against the other instrument.
For Irish traditional music generally, just intonation sounds better and fiddles and flutes will tend toward it, but equal temprament will work well enough esp. if playing with guitars and pianos.
There is also a hard way of looking at this, which involves a bit of musical theory. If you run some searches, you should find some of the many threads about this.
Like it’s a bit out of tune. This is because you are used to hearing equal tempered tuning which is actually a bit out of tune. See item 3.9 on the Hosaphone™ faq:
http://hosaphone.com/hosaphone-faq.html#3)
Are there any playing advantages to this?
Only if you like making the really good fiddle players happy, but pissing off everyone else. Technically it’s just a whistle and you won’t even notiice a difference, except that it sounds out of tune wth the fixed pitch instruments.
By the way, all of this relates to something else you’ve been wondering about, to wit; why those really good fiddle players seem to cop such an attitude about the use of electronic tuners. Seems like they’re such a godsend, don’t it? Well, those things can only tell you if your pitch is “correct,” but not if the pitch is the correct one, the lying barstards.
KFG
Does anyone else spot an ironic parallel with this thread , especially with regards to the C natural intonation?
I read a book about temperament. While an extremely fascinating read, very little of the information was useful from a pracitcal standpoint. As a practical guide, Bloomfield’s explanation is perfectly sufficient 
To sum up it up…“equal temperament” (tuning like found on a piano) is only one of many different tuning theories developed over the ages. All of them involved compromises and trade offs in the tuning somewhere. Just tuning is another, different set of trade offs. The practical implications are as Bloomfield outlined above.
I don’t believe this is correct.
The reason for equal temperament is so a single instrument can play in any desired key. If an instrument is only going to be played in a few related keys, it is more logical for that instrument to be set up in a scheme, such as just intonation, more directly related to the actual harmonic frequencies that will fit together to make chords and intervals in those keys without dissonance.
In orchestras, instruments that are capable of subtly adjusting pitches, like horns and unfretted stringed instruments, I believe will generally gravitate to just intervals because they sound spot on in chords and harmonies with other instruments and voices. Choirs tend to gravitate towards natural harmonic intervals (just intonation), rather than the arbitrary, equally tempered intervals in singing chords and harmonies for the same reason. Singing in a choir, you can literally feel it in your throat when you and the other voices are cleanly in harmony and when you are not. When you are singing the chord cleanly in harmony, you are singing in just intonation, not equal temperament, regardless of whether you or your choir director have given any thought to the difference between the two tuning schemes.
The tradeoff is not that just intonation instruments don’t sound as good against other instruments, but they sound better against a drone. The fact is, just intonation instruments should sound better against other instruments, too.
The actual tradeoff is that you can only play a just intonation instrument in a limited number of keys. To play in other keys, you have to select another just intonation instrument tuned to the desired key(s). This isn’t a problem with whistles and harmonicas, where you use different instruments to play different keys, so these are often available with just intonation rather than equal temperament.
It appears, from having examined numerous whistles dating back to the mid-1800’s, that equal tempered whistles are a rather new development. (I’ve seen a similar trend in the limited number of Indian Bansuri flutes I’ve examined. Those dating back forty or so years appear to be tuned closer to just intonation, while many of those being made now appear to be equal tempered.) I believe this is an artifact of the use of electronic tuning devices, replacing the attuned ear of a seasoned instrument maker.
Antique or vintage whistles, and those whistles that have inherited their tuning from an old line (e.g., Generations) mostly seem to be set up with something between equal temperament and just intonation, which allows some flexibility for the player to push the relevant notes a little bit one way or the other.
Best wishes,
Jerry
The point is that orchestra instruments are expected to be able to play chromatically and in all in keys. That pushes them toward equal temperament and brass players, for example, whose instruments are naturally tuned in just intonation learn to adjust toward equal. That is not to say that musicians will not sweeten thirds and sixths a little when given the chance. But equal temperament is the accepted tuning standard for orchestra instruments.
The tradeoff is not that just intonation instruments don’t sound as good against other instruments, but they sound better against a drone. The fact is, just intonation instruments should sound better against other instruments, too.
“Sound better against other instruments” I don’t understand: either you are playing unison or an intervals, whether it’s a drone or another instrument, or the hum of the hair dryer. Just intoned intervals sound better (in the home key and adjacent keys anyway), so intervals played on two just intoned instrument will sound better. But a just intoned instrument played “against” an equal-temperament instrument will grate on certain notes. (Did the tone of my first post bother you somehow?)
The actual tradeoff is that you can only play a just intonation instrument in a limited number of keys. To play in other keys, you have to select another just intonation instrument tuned to the desired key(s). This isn’t a problem with whistles and harmonicas, where you use different instruments to play different keys, so these are often available with just intonation rather than equal temperament.
It appears, from having examined numerous whistles dating back to the mid-1800’s, that equal tempered whistles are a rather new development. (I’ve seen a similar trend in the limited number of Indian Bansuri flutes I’ve examined. Those dating back forty or so years appear to be tuned closer to just intonation, while many of those being made now appear to be equal tempered.) I believe this is an artifact of the use of electronic tuning devices, replacing the attuned ear of a seasoned instrument maker.
Antique or vintage whistles, and those whistles that have inherited their tuning from an old line (e.g., Generations) mostly seem to be set up with something between equal temperament and just intonation, which allows some flexibility for the player to push the relevant notes a little bit one way or the other.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Did you check the intonation across several older whistles? This is very interesting. Some of us have noticed and discussed the tuning of the Generations for a while (and had a good chuckle at the chromatic-tuner crowd), but I have never taken the time to really look into it. There are several historical and modern tuning compromises between equal and just intonation, including well-tempered, meantone, and Werckmeister, to name some popular ones.
Anyone who is really interested in understanding this should make themselves a crude koto. A string instrument tuned by a movable bridge which divides the string into two parts. It needn’t take any more skill to do this than is needed to insert a screw eye into a Hunk O’ 2x8. You don’t even have to make a sound box. Just put the 2x8 on a table and the table will make a good enough soundboard that you can hear it well. Being able to hear it well is all that need be acomplished. We aren’t making a concert instrument here, just a throwaway learning tool.
You will also need a yard/meter stick, because you are going to tune it with the stick (you will actually physically measure out thirds, fourths, fifths, etc) and by ear, not with the little Devil’s box.
Another instructive thing to do is to make a similarly crude mountain dulcimer with movable frets. Bits of weed whacker string, paper clips, half dowels, either tied around the fingerboard or held on by blue tack, double sided tape, etc.
Play around with that for awhile and you might start to grok what all this “mode” stuff is really all about.
KFG
Probably what Bloomfield pointed out (sorry it’s early and I haven’t caught up on the reading yet) but the assumption just intonation sounds out against other instruments only flies assuming all other instruments are tuned to equal tempered scales which is a false assumption. Fiddleplayers, pipers and to an extend fluteplayers will surely gravitate away from equal tempered scales, many ‘fixed pitch’ instruments like concertina and some good accordeons are tuned to various meantone temperaments.
On the ‘well tempered’ thing: I was reading (and listening) an interesting site on reconstructed tunings for Bach’s music which effectively shot down the assertion heard here at times Bach’s well tempered clavier was written for equal tempered instruments.
Didn’t you get the memo? We must all bow to the piano as our Lord and master.
Ave, Cristofori! The Lord’s creator. Ave, Tuner! The Lord’s minion.
The funny thing is that if you try to use an electronic tuner to tune a piano it will end up sounding really funny.
Reality is what happens no matter what you believe.
KFG
I did but as I hinted at above the piano’s keys may not always be as black and white as some suggest. I was looking at this site last week but there are loads of other sites devoted to the different keyboard temperaments in Bach’s music. Interesting stuff.
Great thread everyone.
It’s been a long long time since I was in a music history class, but if I remember correctly, almost no instruments at all available in J.S. Bach’s time would have been built with equal temperment.
I believe Bach’s music is often cited as a reason the movement toward equal temper starting gaining momentum after his death, though.
The whole push for equal temper was primarily for keyboard instruments. Even by Beethoven’s time, almost no wind instruments would have been available tuned to equal temper. They would have one of several different meantone tunings, with whatever additional peculiarities were mandated by the quirks of the specific instrument. (Equally tempered bugle, anyone? 
)
My understanding on flutes is that until Boehm’s new system was introduced in the mid 1800’s, no one considered an equally tempered flute to be very desirable.
I’ve played simple system flutes and whistles long enough now that the scale of the Boehm-system flute sounds wrong to my ears. In particular, the F-sharp and C-sharp are very sharp and when I play the silver flute I tend to lip those notes down towards the simple-system scale.
–James
Oh I know. I’m just being goofey here. Over at The Session I’ve posted about digital pianos that will allow you to select temperaments at the push of a button, and there’s always that pitch wheel thingy when yer playin’ melody lines. I argue that because of this the digital piano is more suited to trad playing than the acoustic. Ironic, innit?
I’ve posted all sorts of disparaging things about the piano, and I really did mean them, and yet I’m sitting not more than a few feet from one and was actually playing it only minutes ago, but I was playing music written for it (Scott Joplin; Bethena) , not trad.
KFG
I know, but talking about these things on this forum it has been brought up in rebuttal to my posts old JS intended his keyboard in ET.
In the same way the tunnelvision crowd has called me ‘a Generation apologist’ with whom no ‘rational discussion’ could be had for putting forward the same, probably still too ridiculous for words in your man’s eyes, suggestion regarding whistle tuning Jerry is now putting forward.
Both responses ironically came from people making whistles, I know where I won’t be ordering a whistle.
A little more on the orchestral premise …
Specifically which instruments in an orchestra are truly fixed pitch?
The entire string section would be nonfretted instruments. I’ve read descriptions of how players in a brass section must practice adjusting pitch to exact harmonic (just) intervals so they don’t clash against each other when playing chords/harmonies. How fixed are the pitches in the wind section?
It seems to me, wherever instruments or voices are playing chords/harmonies, all involved would gravitate to the true interval, which will sound most spot on, regardless of whether the instruments are nominally set up on an equal temperament scheme.
Again, the only reason instruments are set up for equal temperament is so a single instrument can be played in any desired key. For orchestras, that would only mean that as a player moves from key to key, s/he plays the scale a little different from exact equal temperament in each key. I’m inclined to think this would be so automatic with experienced players that they only think of themselves as playing in tune for whatever keys and chords/harmonies they’re called upon to play, and not as “adjusting” their scales from equal to just.
In other words, they would play what sounds right to them, and that will most likely differ from the exact equal temperament scales an electronic tuner would indicate as “in tune.”
Best wishes,
Jerry
I don’t think equal temperament had been invented by Bach’s time. Bach of course wrote the well-tempered clavier in order to demonstrate that a piano could be tunes in such a way that it could play in all 12 keys and related minors, with full enharmonic substitution. This “well temperament” was developed by a predecessor of Bach’s, Andreas Werckmeister, and the temperaments he developed are often called Werckmeister I, Werckmeister II etc in English. (I know someone who has a whistle in Werckmeister II.) People in Bach’s time demanded that stuff sounded more in tune than a modern piano, and meantone temperaments were most commonly used (making Bach an innovator). Meantones sound good in only a few related keys. Mozart (who was born only about 25 years after Bach died was trained on the fiddle in meantone in which a sharp is sharper than a flat is flat. If I remember correctly, a whole step is divided into 9/9th and the intervall from a note to the related sharp is 5/9th and a flat is 4/9th. That means that enharmonic substitution doesn’t work and that F# and Gb will beat (being about 30 cents apart).
The issue with the orchestra is not whether an individual instrument can correct for purer intervals. The point is that equal temperament is built into every every orchestral instrument into which a tuning can be built, by default. Fiddles being an exception because of the double stopping, but people are taught to correct toward equal temperament, not away from it, and I people to whom a “just” third or sixth will sound flat.
I think they rather correct away from exact harmonics toward equal temperament.
Do go back to my original point though: Are you suggesting that one should sit down in an orchestra with a just intoned flute? (And incidentally, the reason that good violinists correct toward just intervals is that they are taught to play in equal temperament.)
My point is very simple.
If an ensemble, orchestra or choir plays or sings a chord, it clashes unless the pitches are spot on for the true harmonic intervals – for exactly the same reason a chanter will clash against the drone if it’s not tuned to true (just) harmonic intervals relative to the pitch of the drone.
It’s hard for me to imagine that a group would practice getting their chords and harmonies in tune and then check themselves against equal temperament so they can readjust towards equal temperament and away from being in tune with each other.
That would be extremely difficult, btw. It’s much easier to adjust one’s pitch to another pitch so they’re in harmony than it would be to adjust one’s pitch an arbitrary amount away from being in harmony so as to maintain the artificial standard of equal temperament.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Jerry, I think you’ve got a good point.
One thing hasn’t changed between Bach’s time and now: it’s the job of the musician to play his instrument in tune in the context in which he’s playing.
If I’m in session and I’m in tune with the fiddle but we’re both out of tune with the concertina, both flute and whistle have to tune to match the instrument that can’t change.
In the classical world, how you’ll approach the issue will depend on what instruments are present.
If there’s a piano, xylophone, or other fixed-tuning instrument, then it’s the responsibility of all players that play in unison with it to match the instrument that cannot change.
If there’s not a fixed-tuning instrument, then it’s very possible the musicians will start to move toward just intervals when possible and as much as the context will allow them to.
The guideline, then and now, was and remains quite simple: you have to listen, always and constantly, to yourself and your fellow musicians.
–James