Klarinet Archive - Posting 000403.txt from 2000/08

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Unloading.....
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 19:33:37 -0400

On Tue, 15 Aug 2000 17:08:21 EDT, LeliaLoban@-----.com said:

> In the process of answering my question about flat-sounding top tones
> on cheap little pianos, you've explained why I drive myself nuts when
> I try to play my clarinet on pitch along with accompaniment I play and
> then save (home-grown MM1) on my Yamaha Clavinova keyboard. Sometimes
> when there's a problem, I hear the illusion that my clarinet is right
> and the piano is wrong, even though I know that digital piano *can't*
> go out of tune unless I deliberately raise or lower the programmable
> pitch. Thanks for the explanation.

Thinking about this again, I'm not so sure that the two phenomena are
connected. Is a clavinova anharmonic?

I've noticed that I tend to assign 'rightness' to a piano rather than to
myself, even if I suspect the piano may be out of tune, and even on
occasions when subsequent investigation shows it indeed to have been out
of tune. I suppose that's a psychological effect. Perhaps there's a
similar psychological effect in the opposite direction with an obviously
'synthesised' sound.

There's another experience I've had that's influencing me to take this
line: if you listen to an organ, which is usually tuned to equal
temperament, playing a simple major chord, and then make the mental
shift of imagining that that chord is instead being produced by an
orchestral wind section, it suddenly sounds much more 'out of tune'.

This indicates to me the possibility that there's some mechanism that
chooses one note, or one instrument, as a standard against which to
judge others, and that several factors may be operating in that choice.

Can you perhaps unpack the experience "I hear the illusion that my
clarinet is right and the piano is wrong" for us a little more?

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN family artist: www.gmn.com
tel/fax 01865 553339

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