Klarinet Archive - Posting 000299.txt from 2004/11

From: Tony Pay <tony.p@-----.org>
Subj: RE: [kl] pitch standard
Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 17:10:31 -0500

On 7 Nov, orm1ondtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby Montoya) wrote:

> Forest Aten wrote:
>
> > [4 cents] might be "very audibly out of tune" when you are working with a
> > piano...but it's not significant in an orchestra or band performance
> > situation.
>
> Forest, this is a question, not a challenge or disagreement:
>
> Assuming that you had decided that a certain pitch was necessary in a
> certain ensemble situation --- and putting 'social courtesy' aside,
> thinking only of the music --- how far "off" would you say that a player
> could be before the other ensemble members would be justified in
> commenting that the player was "out of tune"?

You wouldn't say anything like that. The situation is too complex.

One thing to realise is that quasiunisons like A439 and A440, off by 4 cents,
create one-per-second beats. An octave higher, quasiunisons off by 4 cents
create two-per-second beats, and two octaves higher four-per-second beats....

So if you have a 'margin of error' of 4 cents, you can't play in tune high
up.

David Renaud wrote:

> At midrange orchestral musicians may lower a 3rd deliberately 1 to 2 cents
> to slow it down outside equal temperment.

Here, he's talking about what departures from equal temperament we need to
make in order that a major third sound 'in tune'. But we do that sort of
thing all the time, not only with thirds.

> In the upper and lower ends margins of error increase exponentially....more
> then 4 cents.

This is a bit confusing. Actually, it's just in the upper register that you
can't afford to be 'out' by too much. There, if you make errors that are too
large, you can't play well in tune.

In fact, I think it's better to talk about your errors in terms of Hz. So,
in the simplest case of unisons, because you need to keep the beat-rate low,
you need to match the *frequencies* equally accurately in whatever register
you are. You can see that, high up, the fraction of a semitone (the number
of cents) you can be out is smaller.

Added to all of that, what isn't often appreciated is that 'out of tune'
itself is highly context dependent.

To take an extreme example: a couple of years ago I played a piece that was
written for two orchestras (the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group) that were tuned respectively to A430 and
A440, which is a *50 cent* difference!!

Much of the piece was written to be played by only one of these groups at a
time; but I was very surprised to find that the parts that were played
together didn't sound half as excruciating as I had imagined they would.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd tony.p@-----.org
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE http://classicalplus.gmn.com/artists
tel/fax 01865 553339

... It's worse than that, it's physics, Jim!

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