Whistle Sale...Plus some thoughts on Just tuning

sturob · Post by **sturob** » Tue Dec 31, 2002 4:02 pm

I must concur with my fellow Houstonian that Generation QA is probably just plain poor.

OR . . . Generation has one kick-butt whistle tuner genius who's messing with us.

And the off-kilter whistles, if they're really just-intoned, will sound fine. Why bother checking the whole scale with a tuner? Check the bell note and listen to the rest of the scale. OR, better yet, have your tuner play the bell note and play the scale against it. That'd tell you how in tune it is!

Stuart

Cayden · Post by **Cayden** » Tue Dec 31, 2002 4:03 pm

Meantone is used for tuning concertinas, by some people at least.

A while Uilleann pipemaker Geoff Wooff and myself were listening to a CD with Bach music for which the clavithingy was tuned differently to suit every piece. Highly interesting and listening should be made mandatory for all the guys here who think their whistle is perfect if the equal tempered tuning machine says all notes are dead on.

StevieJ · Post by **StevieJ** » Tue Dec 31, 2002 4:13 pm

If you were to tune a piano "justly," this is how you'd do it. Take a pitchfork, but only one, and tune that note. A=440Hz, for example. Then tune all the other A's to that A. You'll notice, if you use an analyzer, that to sound "correct," your A's will get a little sharp to the predicted values the further you go up the scale. Meaning, while the next A might come out to 880Hz, the following A might be 1762Hz or sharper. Likewise, as you went down the scale, the notes would get a little flatter. I'm not sure exactly why it is, but the phenomenon is well-described.

Stuart the phenomenon is called the "comma" and the reason for it is that God made a mistake. At least that's as good as any answer I can find.

If you tune a piano the way you describe, I'm pretty sure your ear would in fact lead you to tune the octaves mathematically perfectly, with a perfect 2:1 ratio between the frequencies every time. Your ear would not tolerate octaves that are not perfectly in tune.

What you would then have to fudge would be the fifths - the other integer-to-integer mathematical ratio between notes in the scale (3:2).

The comma or discrepancy arises when you follow the circle of perfect fifths: you soon end up with an octave that is out of tune. This means that any instrument with a range of more than an octave or two is going to run into trouble pretty quick.

In other words there probably is no perfect, just tuning system. Great minds have been at work on this one since Pythagoras' time.

A page that I found very helpful is this one: http://www.rdrop.com/~tblackb/music/temperament/. The author gives several tuning systems that have been tried over the epochs.

He explains the comma business very well. I finally understood why my cello-playing sister told me that for playing string quartets she has to tune her bottom string about a quarter-tone sharp in order to stay in tune with the violins. Weird!

[ This Message was edited by: StevieJ on 2002-12-31 17:15 ]

Wandering_Whistler · Post by **Wandering_Whistler** » Tue Dec 31, 2002 4:15 pm

Ah, some posts have come in since my little experiment, so:

I grabbed a random Generation from my desk, and did the hot water treatment to make it tunable, even though I'm really against that for a non-tunable whistle. I made sure there was no plastic in the windway, and the whistle is clean. I tuned on A. With that tuning, this particular generation ends up:

D +15
E +15
F# -7
G +8
A 0
B +27(!)
C# 0
C-nat at 0XX000 +57(!)
C-nat at 0XXXX0 -8

Now, based upon <a href="http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php ... um=1">this thread</a> I get the impression that just temperament should be something totally different.
I think it's safe to say that if Generation is attempting to make their whistles just tempered they're failing just as badly as if they were shooting for even temperament.

Now, as for a 'clavthingy' tuning differently for every piece, surely it's not being suggested that we carry a reamer and JB Weld and fundamentally alter our whistles to suit every piece.

[ This Message was edited by: Wandering_Whistler on 2002-12-31 17:18 ]

Zubivka · Post by **Zubivka** » Tue Dec 31, 2002 4:33 pm

Stuart, thanks for the direct answer. I knew that "helical" demonstration for just tuning. For theory, I'm about OK, the prob' is applying it.
I reckoned fiddlers/violonists correct by ear (and thanks for correcting my typo) between C# up and Db down. OK.

But for them bow-stringers, it's so easy : just bend your left fingers up or down.(

don't worry : I'm scared to death of facing these free-tune instruments; I envy them, too. However, they can brag about chromaticity (yo!) but don't exactly sound IMHO like whistles or even (yo! yo!) recorders). Parenthesis ended <EOF> so...

Here's my problem : how can you make them bloody # be tad sharp going up and tad flat going down on a bloody diatonic instrument, or even bloody-even-tempered * chromatic

There's gotta be some sacrifice somewhere. Is the whole set of # to be sharpened ? But then it will be distinctly off going down...

*I mean on a piano, 't would be easy: just double every black kee

** Hey it's all me : I AM a bloody-even-tempered man. Just like General Bourricot (1745-1814, Bourricot Jean, Charles, Marcel, born/maiden-named Velin d'Arches Arriba, Juanita) wrote in our history with red-gold letters : Moderation, more moderation, ever more modernisation !

[ This Message was edited by: Zubivka on 2002-12-31 17:45 ]

ErikT · Post by **ErikT** » Tue Dec 31, 2002 4:35 pm

Here is a good book on the subject of Temperament that traces the developement of music (mostly within the Western theatre, though not entirely). Great reading.

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 71-3430508">" Temperament: The Idea That Solved Music's Greatest Riddle"</a>

Erik

Zubivka · Post by **Zubivka** » Tue Dec 31, 2002 4:48 pm

Peter, I'm puzzled.
I thought--sorry, wrong, I was told (but so often...)--that Bach was one of the fathers of equal temperament, for anything Klavier and "well-tempered" ?

ErikT · Post by **ErikT** » Tue Dec 31, 2002 4:52 pm

Zoob,

They actually did make the piano (organ actually) that you are suggesting. It had double keys everywhere - what a mess! It was around the time of Bach (who indeed was a pioneer in TET tuning).

Erik

Doc Jones · Post by **Doc Jones** » Tue Dec 31, 2002 5:16 pm

Clarification:

The Dixon Bb whistle has a home. THe flute still needs one.

Doc

Zubivka · Post by **Zubivka** » Tue Dec 31, 2002 5:44 pm

Wishing you Doc all success for 2003. And a keyed! whistle, er, flute IS somewhat to look forward too!

(sorry I chicken out from flutes, and you don't have a Burkelite in G...)

Doc Jones · Post by **Doc Jones** » Wed Jan 01, 2003 12:20 am

The Burke A and Low F have homes.

See first posting at the top of list for the great tooters still available.

Doc

sturob · Post by **sturob** » Wed Jan 01, 2003 1:31 am

I know I shouldn't be playing on the board now, but . . .

Zoob, in response to your points:

Bach did write for a well-tempered instrument: a piece called the Well-Tempered Clavier. But his other stuff, particularly at that time, would not have been played on well tempered instruments. The harpsichords would have been tuned to the right key for the pieces, for example.

As for the question about sharp going up and flat going down . . . that's more of a phenomenon of going up octaves rather than note-to-note; it's not likely to be relevant on a whistle. The whole thing about diatonic instruments is that you have to fake the accidentals, like on our whistles (except the Cnat/C# on our whistles, I guess).

As for Steve's commments about the ratios . . . I sort of meant in general you'd go sharp as you go up. You're right, the octaves would have to be pretty close. But I had learned that all the ratios in just intonation are integer:integer, as follows:

C 1/1
D 9/8
E 5/4
F 4/3
G 3/2
A 5/3
B 15/8
C 2/1

The site you mentioned is indeed a nice one, but the ratios he mentions (non-integer for the most part) are for meantone tuning and not for just temperament. The 'just' ratios can all be expressed with integers.

Stuart

Ridseard · Post by **Ridseard** » Wed Jan 01, 2003 1:53 am

FWIW, to my ear, the just temperament of the pipes does not clash with the equal temperament of (most) whistles, flutes, and fretted stringed istruments. If there is a slight tension between the intonations, it certainly does not detract from the authenticity of the sound or the enjoyment of the tunes, and that's all that matters (at least to me).

Doc Jones · Post by **Doc Jones** » Wed Jan 01, 2003 8:48 am

Boy, I sure agree with that. My Just-tuned Reyburn sounds great with guitar, mandolin, etc.

Post by **rich** » Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:23 pm

On 2002-12-31 17:48, Zubivka wrote:
Peter, I'm puzzled.
I thought--sorry, wrong, I was told (but so often...)--that Bach was one of the fathers of equal temperament, for anything Klavier and "well-tempered" ?

It's more complicated than that -- equal temperament wasn't particularly well-accepted when it was introduced, and while "well temperament" refers to temperament which lets one use all musical keys, "equal" wasn't considered a well temperament when WTC was published.

http://www.bachfaq.org/welltemp.html

Cheers,
<ul>-Rich</ul>