Excellent article on flutes and tunings

[peeplj]

This article is about various tuning schemes, how they are derived, and what they mean in the context of playing a flute, especially a Baroque flute, in tune.

Even though this is written by a maker of Baroque flutes, Catherine Folkers, the information is equally true no matter what instrument you play.

This should be required reading, in my opinion, for all players of wind instruments.

Strongly recommended.

--James

[Cork]

Folkers & Powell.

[jemtheflute]

Thanks for that link, James - superb article!

[talasiga]

Yes, it is a totally ageable article for me.
I include drone based practice every time
that I can when I play flute.
I like the fact also that the article is just not based
on theoretical notions but rests on WHAT IS HEARD.

[MikeS]

That was a very nice article, as others have said. Tuning is a fascinating subject in orchestral playing, as well. Different instruments have different pitch tendencies. Some are physical (like multiple valve combinations on brasses), some are cultural (string players tend to hover on the low side of fifths), and some vary with key and temperature. Good players are aware of all these things and are constantly listening and adjusting.

An orchestral trombonist like me can, in moments of weakness, give in to the dark side and use this knowledge to torment the violists who sit in front of them. For example, in the fourth movement of the Brahms Second Symphony there is a wonderful largamente section in A major. Brass players have a tendency to play thirds a bit low to give chords a warmer sound. The violists know this and are ready for it. If you play your C sharps just a bit on the high side of the pitch you can watch the violas squirm and widen their vibrato. Their E, which they will tend to play low anyway, suddenly sounds way too low. A few bars later, when you have the E and they have the C sharp, you play just a hair under the pitch. You have them now, since they are now playing very slightly too high on the finger board and can really only use vibrato to pull the pitch up, not down. You get points for every violist who moves their thumb and double points for any one that actually stops playing.

Not that I would ever do something like this…but there are rules of engagement. You would only do this at a very early rehearsal and only after a violist had previously given you the evil eye for playing too loud. As a novice session flute player I do not yet have the fine pitch control to try something like this. I’m also too busy just trying to keep up to be aware if the fiddle player is trying to pull something on me. One of the true glories of music is that there is always so much to learn.

[jemtheflute]

Nice stories, MikeS, and sooooo revealing I'd never have guessed that brass players had a dark side. Under all their beer-and-beards image (no, it isn't only Morris dancers who have that!), it is hard to tell, of course......

More seriously, you're pretty unlikely to discover that much finesse about tuning in an ITM/context . Far more likely is having to contend with a piper with a new reed s/he just can't get to behave , or all us flutes being differently sharp and unable to discern the fact ...... and whistle players who just don't tune even if they have a tunable whistle ....... and fiddlers whose bows are out of tune , never mind their strings, for which, unlike classical fiddlers, they need 4 fine-tuners and never touch the pegs ......And then there's wet-tuned melodeons ........

[andyras3]

I like this and would like to explore it.

Does anyone know of a decent set of drones I could download to have a go with this.

Many Thanks

Andy

[hans]

you could use a sine wave, generated by the Tuning Fork software or the Auto Tuner software you can download from
http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~tuner/tuner_e.html

You can then let the software emit a constant drone, of any note.

maybe others know of better sounding drones.

cheers,
~Hans

[david_h]

Does anyone know of a decent set of drones I could download to have a go with this.

These were linked to on an earlier thread : http://www.idrs.org/multimedia/MIDI/PUB/Drones.htm (thanks whoever it was)

I find sine waves not too helpful, because they don't have any harmonics. I guess it depends on whether you are hearing an interval or an interaction between your note and the harmonics in the drone. However, beats against as sine wave pitched at the fundamental are very easy to hear.

Reassuring to read in the article that 2nds and 7ths could be tricky - glad its not just my cloth ears.

Question. That article and drones, as mentioned by talasiga, are about hearing two or more notes together. What happens with solo or unison melody playing (no drone or harmony) when notes are heard in succession. Is there a tendency to play the pitches relative to a home note scale (as with a drone) or are successive intervals sometimes 'pure' - say a fifth or fourth between successive notes tending to an exact ratio rather than whatever the notes in the scale are ?

[peeplj]

Question. That article and drones, as mentioned by talasiga, are about hearing two or more notes together. What happens with solo or unison melody playing (no drone or harmony) when notes are heard in succession. Is there a tendency to play the pitches relative to a home note scale (as with a drone) or are successive intervals sometimes 'pure' - say a fifth or fourth between successive notes tending to an exact ratio rather than whatever the notes in the scale are ?

Well, when playing unaccompanied, you have two points of reference: you have tonic of whatever key you are playing in, the ear will look for all intervals to be in tune relative to the key you're in, and you also have the interval between the note you're playing right now and the note(s) you played before it. If either is off, you will be out of tune, even if you are playing by yourself.

Tuning is about context. The F-sharp that is in tune as the third of the D-major scale isn't the same F-sharp that's the leading tone of the G scale. Even if the pitches are identical, the note will sound different because it is used differently.

If you don't take anything else away from the article, I think you should take this: tuning isn't done after you compare your G or A or whatever note to a reference pitch. Even when you're playing alone, tuning is a matter of constantly listening and adjusting as necessary. You have to always listen; there just aren't any flutes that will automagically play themselves in tune if you don't listen. That's true of our Irish flutes, it's certainly true of the Baroque traverso that the article was written for, and it's also true for even the most expensive handmade Boehm-system flutes.


--James

[david_h]

Thanks. I think I have a third point of reference - what I am used to the tune it sounding like. And a fourth, what I do when playing along with a recording. I sometimes feel my sense of what sounds 'right' is being pulled around in ways I have no control over. I have trained myself to use a tuner as a monitoring rather than a controling device - and sometimes the needle goes to very strange places in a very determined way.

[peeplj]

I have found a lot of value in listening to good fiddlers play the music as well.

They don't have the limits we fight of having limits as to how big a tonehole can be, or how far up or down the tube it can be placed and still be reached. They have a lot of leeway in where, pitchwise, most of their notes can go, and their ears guide them to, as david_h points out, the "right" sound for a tune.

I think you can learn a lot from the choices that they make.

--James

[andyras3]

[quote="david_hThese were linked to on an earlier thread : http://www.idrs.org/multimedia/MIDI/PUB/Drones.htm (thanks whoever it was)
[/quote]


Thanks David, hours of fun

[MikeS]

Question. That article and drones, as mentioned by talasiga, are about hearing two or more notes together. What happens with solo or unison melody playing (no drone or harmony) when notes are heard in succession. Is there a tendency to play the pitches relative to a home note scale (as with a drone) or are successive intervals sometimes 'pure' - say a fifth or fourth between successive notes tending to an exact ratio rather than whatever the notes in the scale are ?

Intellectually, I think it is a combination of the two with melodic contour as a third element. Take a tune like "Off She Goes" in D. The tonic is not played until the second full measure, so is the first interval you play (A to F sharp) a "pure" step and a half or the fifth of a chord to the third? You could also hear the A and play the F sharp as a major 6th of an A chord.

How you play it will depend on a lot of things, some in your head and some in your hand. We are all different and our instruments are all different. You know the key signature going in, but what does that mean to you? Did you just finish another tune in D and have the tonality fixed in your head? Have you had some theory training; if someone played you a note and asked you to sing down to the major 6th, could you do it? Do you have a flute where the A or the F sharp is a tiny bit flat and you've gotten used to hearing it that way? What would you do if someone said, "Let's play it in G?" You hear B a lot more often as a sixth than a third; have you adjusted your technique a bit by habit to play it that way?

I’ll add my agreement to the folk on this thread who are talking about the concept of what sounds right. Think about the English grammar you use every day. If I asked you to give me the past participle of the verb lay, could you tell me off the top of your head? You would likely know that, "I have lain the dishes on the table," is wrong, though, and that, "I have laid the dishes on the table," is right. You probably know this because one sounds right, not because you have a comprehensive knowledge of grammar rules. What you do have is a lot of experience listening to and speaking English. Especially playing alone, most of us will take our experience listening to music and playing our instruments and play what sounds right. As much as I enjoy thinking about the nuances of tuning, playing a jig at 132 beats per minute does not leave me much time to ponder.

[david_h]

Plenty to think about there MikeS and some suspicions ('wonderings' would be better) confirmed, thanks. For example I have always had trouble pitching C# and that distracted me from working on the tone. Things improved when I worked out that I was having trouble with the 7th in D (probably never having got it right on whistle) and that if I played simple tunes in A I had something more definite to aim for and could come back and worry about it in D later. As for singing intervals my ability at that is embryonic but it seems to be coming down to two things - getting the right note then getting the note pitched properly. I'm glad flutes have holes to help the first bit.