 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: igor
Date: 2005-06-12 19:36
Is there an objective criteria? How flat is flat? 5 cents? 10 cents? 50 cents? I even heard that supposedly playing sharp is not as bad as playing flat? And supposedly some people even do it on purpose to stand out?
So is 50 cents sharp better than 20 cents flat, etc.?
There must be better terms for what I am trying to say so please excuse a layman's terminology.
First of all, flat relative to what? Another instrument? Or some kind of an absolute value, such as A440?
If the reference point is another instrument, such as two clarinets playing together, that we get something called beats. When I was about 12 or something like that, we tried to make our own "electronic keyboard" with my friends. You know, everyone seemed to be into building their own imitation of Moogs etc. 30 years ago. None of us had a musical ear and we didn't know anything about acoustics but I clearly remember the picture on the oscilloscope when the most knowledgeable of us had two oscillators oscillating at slightly different frequencies. Now I know what that was. But I don't seem to be able to hear it. I read somewhere that even a non-musical ear can hear that if you know what to listen for. My question is, can the “discomfort threshold" due to beats be quantified in terms of cents/frequency differences?
The second case, as I mentioned previously, is when we compare to some kind of an "absolute" value, such the concert A. It is still a mystery to me what people mean by the "absolute pitch". So, let's suppose I play a note, and they can immediately tell that I am playing flat without any reference point? Flat relative to what? The A440? Or A442? The older generation still probably remember the time when the concert A was like 410Hz or something like that? Does the whole world sound to sharp to them now?
Also, how about the case when the reference point is the instrument itself, i.e. the "tone stability", if you will. For example, even for me it is immediately obvious when the pitch is varying when I am playing a very long note. I am not sure how much that in cents/Hz but I would guess that in such a case a deviation of just 1-2 cents would be discernable as an "unstable" sound. What do you think?
How stable, in cents, is a tone of an experienced player when playing a long note? Close to zero?
Another thing that I have in mind is how well the instrument is in tune with itself. I read somewhere that all woodwind instruments have "weak" notes (or fingerings of the same note) that sound slightly flat or sharp relative to their designated frequencies in the equal temperament tuning. Is this an issue with clarinets, too? I am not talking cheap imitations here that always sound out of tune.
But what about reputable manufacturers? Can it be that they have different "weak" notes due to different design etc.? So that two perfectly tuned (to A440) clarinets would still appear to sound out of tune on certain notes to a trained ear?
And finally, the question that bothered me for a long time. In the modern times of the equal temperament, is there any reason to write music in different keys other than trying to get a different coloring based on difference in intonations of different instruments? Let’s imagine that all instruments are perfectly in tune with themselves, like the electronic instruments are. Would it be even theoretically possible to tell one key from another? The only reason to change a key would probably be just to transpose into the range of a different instrument…
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Author: BobD
Date: 2005-06-12 20:30
You sure said a mouthful there, Igor. No way I can answer your questions but maybe make a couple of comments. Right now my right ear is about 1/3 volume due to something and I can tell you that causes all kinds of problems. As the temperature rises I start going sharp. I don't realize it at first but eventually I'm aware that I'm not sounding right. About that time somebody will tell me I'm sharp. With the exception of tuning devices I guess all human perceptions of sharp and flat are relative.
Bob Draznik
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Author: stevensfo
Date: 2005-06-12 21:43
>>In the modern times of the equal temperament, is there any reason to write music in different keys other than trying to get a different coloring based on difference in intonations of different instruments? Let’s imagine that all instruments are perfectly in tune with themselves, like the electronic instruments are. Would it be even theoretically possible to tell one key from another?
I guess someone with perfect pitch or an awful lot of experience could do that quite easily.
As for different keys, well, the first ever music was obviously singing, and so songs had fall into a certain range or your average middle age peasant would have no chance of singing it. Thus, most keys are C, G, F, Eb etc. Of course, you could always try C#, but your lute/mandolin/cornemuse player would probably have denounced you as a witch and done rather nasty things to you.
The rather stranger keys with lots of flats and sharps are necessary for players to show off, make study books nice and heavy, keep doctors employed coping with our nervous breakdowns and discourage 'common people' from studying music.
So far, it's worked very well. ;-)
Steve
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Author: igor
Date: 2005-06-13 00:03
As for discouraging common people, I bet that was the main reason for whoever came up with terms like semidemiquaver!
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-06-13 12:22
<<Is there an objective criteria? How flat is flat? 5 cents? 10 cents? 50 cents? I even heard that supposedly playing sharp is not as bad as playing flat? And supposedly some people even do it on purpose to stand out?
So is 50 cents sharp better than 20 cents flat, etc.?>>
Any deviation counts as out of tune. In practice, very small deviations aren't noticeable to anyone, larger ones are noticeable to sophisticated listeners, and even larger ones are noticeableto any musical listener.
'Sharp' has sometimes been thought to be less offensive than 'flat' (..better sharp than out-of-tune", as in the old joke) to an audience; but I'd say most professionals now find both equally offensive.
<<There must be better terms for what I am trying to say so please excuse a layman's terminology.>>
Your terminology is OK, but you do seem to want, in a few words in a resistant medium, to be given an understanding that is probably only to be achieved by some study of the matter. However.
<<First of all, flat relative to what? Another instrument? Or some kind of an absolute value, such as A440?>>
'Flat' and 'sharp' can be used in both senses. 'Out of tune' is commonly used either to characterise playing that is not 'in tune' with itself, or to characterise playing that produces sounds that are not in tune with what the orchestra or piano (say) are currently producing.
It would of course be possible to claim correctly, in defence, that the whole orchestra was playing 'sharp', or the piano was tuned 'sharp' relative to an agreed pitch, say A=440.
(BTW A=440 is not the only pitch you can agree on. Baroque players often play at A=415 and classical players at A=430, for example.)
The question of what playing 'in tune' either with yourself or with others actually means is quite complex, but at least a part of it is to do with 'beats'. There is a big literature.
[snip of explanation of 'beats']
<<My question is, can the "discomfort threshold" due to beats be quantified in terms of cents/frequency differences?>>
The frequency of beats is given (in units of 'per second') by the numerical difference of the frequencies of the two notes. The discomfort appears to rise as that frequency increases up to a certain point, at which the two notes are perceived as separate tones.
The question of 'absolute pitch' is slightly mysterious to those who don't possess it. Boulez said once that he knew that a certain note was a certain pitch in the same way that he knew that somebody's jacket was green. It just *was* a G# (or whatever).
Britten said that his absolute pitch had gone sharp (or flat, I can't remember which) over the years, so what used to sound to him like an in-tune A was still an A at 440Hz, but now sounded to him like a *flat* A.
(Don't ask me: I don't possess absolute pitch. And even if I did, what could I say to add to that?)
<<Also, how about the case when the reference point is the instrument itself, i.e. the "tone stability", if you will. For example, even for me it is immediately obvious when the pitch is varying when I am playing a very long note. I am not sure how much that in cents/Hz but I would guess that in such a case a deviation of just 1-2 cents would be discernable as an "unstable" sound. What do you think?>>
Depending on the context, yes. Perhaps larger than 1-2 cents in most cases.
<<How stable, in cents, is a tone of an experienced player when playing a long note? Close to zero?>>
Close to zero.
There is a physical reason why a long tone on the clarinet gets flatter, to do with the changing concentration of CO2 in the lungs. An experienced player compensates for this (it's quite small) as well as the fact that pitch varies with dynamic (which can be quite large, cf the crescendo F# in the Messiaen 'Abime des Oiseaux').
<<Another thing that I have in mind is how well the instrument is in tune with itself. I read somewhere that all woodwind instruments have "weak" notes (or fingerings of the same note) that sound slightly flat or sharp relative to their designated frequencies in the equal temperament tuning. Is this an issue with clarinets, too? I am not talking cheap imitations here that always sound out of tune.>>
Yes, it is an issue, and players compensate for it. It's an important part of what being a good player consists of.
Interestingly, you can make a clarinet 'better in tune with itself' by sophisticated bore design. However, this has the effect of making the instrument less resonant, so there is a tradeoff.
Different players prefer varying degrees of this tradeoff.
<<But what about reputable manufacturers? Can it be that they have different "weak" notes due to different design etc.? So that two perfectly tuned (to A440) clarinets would still appear to sound out of tune on certain notes to a trained ear?>>
Yes, but two expert players of the different instruments wouldn't sound out of tune, because they would have learnt to compensate for the deficiency.
<<And finally, the question that bothered me for a long time. In the modern times of the equal temperament, is there any reason to write music in different keys other than trying to get a different coloring based on difference in intonations of different instruments? Let's imagine that all instruments are perfectly in tune with themselves, like the electronic instruments are. Would it be even theoretically possible to tell one key from another? The only reason to change a key would probably be just to transpose into the range of a different instrument...>>
It might seem so. The fact that a performance of Bach on period instruments is a semitone flatter than a performance on modern instruments seems to be the least important difference between the two experiences for most listeners, though some sopranos find baroque pitch makes a big difference to their performance.
Opinion is divided on the science, but for whatever reason, there is a long history of association of different keys with different affect, and it's sustained by the practice of many composers of the past.
Tony
Post Edited (2005-06-13 12:48)
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Author: stevensfo
Date: 2005-06-13 12:45
>>>As for discouraging common people, I bet that was the main reason for whoever came up with terms like semidemiquaver!
Actually, the term is demisemiquaver, which is a 32nd note.
Anyone still around after that gets clobbered with the term:
hemidemisemiquaver, ie a 64th note.
If all else fails, use the 128th note:
Quasihemidemisemiquaver.
Isn't music fun!
Steve
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Author: jim S.
Date: 2005-06-13 15:19
I wish we could have a discussion between professionals with absolute pitch and those without regarding whether different keys truly have a different "flavor" in the context of an orchestral performance. Clearly, instruments can produce notes with differing timbres, but not a whole orchestra (though perhaps a whole section can).
Or, perhaps a better test would be something played on a synthesizer. Would those with absolute pitch agree on the difference in "flavors" of keys while those with only relative pitch not be able to?
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Author: igor
Date: 2005-06-13 15:26
Thanks Tony. Study of the matter would be helpful indeed, and I am certainly moving in that direction. I just thought those were relatively simple questions that could be answered in a few words, which you did and I appreciate it.
However, lesson learned. I need to learn to formulate my questions more concisely and ask them one at a time, and ask them in a suitable message board/newsgroup, perhaps rec.music.theory in this case.
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2005-06-13 15:55
Igor,
I like the way your mind works. Please don't censor your queries on my account.
Tony,
I appreciate having your insights, too. Every so often, for the drill, I play with my tuner on the stand and try and try to just get the little Korg's green light to come on. Now I'll go try to close get under my 2-cents!
Bob Phillips
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Author: george
Date: 2005-06-13 17:03
I guess I still don't understand exactly what someone's having "absolute pitch" means. Does it mean that the person can hear a periodic sound and tell precisely what the frequency is? Or what?
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Author: igor
Date: 2005-06-13 19:40
Thanks, Tony, I totally agree with you. I didn't mean to sound like I wanted more info that I got! To the contrary, I wouldn't even expect anyone to go into great level of detail. Like I said, I just need to formulate my questions better and I shouldn't sound like I am requesting more info that I can even handle.
When I was first thinking about asking a tuning question, I was thinking more in terms of "OK, I am blowing a note and the tuner is telling me that I am X cents flat. Is that really flat or that is "OK for now", or perhaps it's a measurement error that is within the device's tolerance range and therefore should be disregarded".
I do have a book on the subject It is called "Acoustical foundation of music" by by Buckus(sp?). Makes a perfect bedtime reading. I fall asleep real quick.
To Bob:
Thanks. I guess the reason why my mind works that way is because I don't have any talents in the area I'd like to understand. I had some friends who could play by ear and they were great at that (or so it appeared). And they would laugh in my face if I asked them anything about "equal vs. just temperament" or a possible correlation between 12 tones to a scale and non-convergance of series of powers of 3 and 2. I bet the premise is that those who can play just play and the rest ask questions.
To stevensfo:
Yes, I do find the British terminology weird. I like the American system which is the same as ours. We borrowed ours from countries like French and Italy, so we have do-re-mi instead of CDE etc. Not a problem when I translate in my mind but imagine a situation when my child plays a note and asks, is it a "si" ("see")? I answer no it is a C ("do" for me) and then realize that's what he said, see=C. I imagine a potenital dialog in English/Italian where si also means yes. In our _old_ notation we also had H for B, and B for Bflat!!! Plus we have terms like dies, becar, and bemol for sharp, natural, and flat, and some fancy interval names, like septima instead of 7th etc. I so much prefer the English (American?) system when intervals are just numbers. So much more intuitive.
Thank you all, again.
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Author: stevensfo
Date: 2005-06-14 10:11
>>>Yes, I do find the British terminology weird.
Yes, I think most Brits do as well! Like ounces/ grams, gallons/litres etc, I find most musicians in the UK using both systems together.
Here in Italy, our eldest son is being taught trumpet by a British lady but using the italian (Do Re Me) system. Our youngest is being taught piano by an italian lady using the British (C D E) system (long story).
Our attempts to play together were abandoned after 2 minutes!
Steve
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2005-06-14 18:49
I think it is more accurate to refer to chords that are in tune or out of tune.rather than single notes. Intervals can be out of tune also. Things should be in proportion. It doesn't matter whether the chord is at A 440, A415 or A450 the intervals have to lock in or ring. If one note is not fitting in then the chord is out of tune. .... If you are playing a C in a band and there is C chord sounding then all the C's must line up. The octaves must be perfect.
If you are playing the E in the same chord your note has to be made flatter in order for it to be in tune with the chord. The thirds of major chords require this adjustment to make the chord resonate. If you looked at a tuning meter while you were playing the third of a chord it would show you to be flat. Be that as it may you would still be in tune with the chord. ie flat isn't out of tune.
The fifth of the chord must lock in as well. If you experience a violin tuning two strings at a time you will hear fifths that are adjusted until they lock in. Start the one note flat and raise the pitch until you hear a fifth that resonates and reinforces itself.
As much as tuning devices will deal with numbers and objective standards in tuning , the musician deals with gray areas and compromise. The ear is the measure and ears vary.
Freelance woodwind performer
Post Edited (2005-06-14 18:53)
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Author: igor
Date: 2005-06-14 19:21
>>If you are playing the E in the same chord your note has to be made >>flatter in order for it to be in tune with the chord.
Umm, does "in tune" in this context mean a pure major 3rd with the "just" ratio of 5:4 as opposed to a tempered major 3d that would then be "out of tune", i.e. slightly sharp, relative to the "pure" one?
So is the flattening necessary to compensate for the difference between pure and tempered intervals (14 cents in case of a major 3rd)?
So basically, when you play a chord on an instrument like piano, there is not much you can do (other than re-tuning it to something other than the equal temperament but it doesn't sound like a practical solution to me).
But if you simulate a chord on multiple woodwinds you can possibly "bend" (is this the term?) a note slightly to make the chord sound better?
That way, you could basically overcome the constraints of the equal temperament and therefore playing in different keys would perhaps sound differently...
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2005-06-14 19:58
You flatten the third to make it sound good! Use your ear. You seem very focused on numbers, ratios etc. My job as a musician is more like a chef than a scientist. If it sounds good....it's in tune. John
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: stevensfo
Date: 2005-06-14 21:29
>>>You flatten the third to make it sound good! Use your ear. You seem very focused on numbers, ratios etc. My job as a musician is more like a chef than a scientist.
Hmmm, this discussion is starting to get very interesting indeed.
Igor is asking for a theoretical/scientific answer, which I think we'd all like to hear, and John's giving an answer which, although not answering Igor's question, is one with which we can all identify and understand.
This business of flattening/sharpening intervals to make them sound right is all new to me. Fascinating!
Steve
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Author: igor
Date: 2005-06-14 22:20
Well, if I could use my ear I wouldn't have to start this topic in the first place. Yes, I am very focused on numbers. I like numbers. I am not a musican. I am not exactly a scientist either which is why I am not looking for too scientific answers involving lengthy formulas etc. Hopefully I am on topic. Would a chef keep adding salt till it "tastes good" or would he just check the recipe?
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-06-14 23:37
<<<If you are playing the E in the same chord your note has to be made flatter in order for it to be in tune with the chord.>>>
<<Umm, does "in tune" in this context mean a pure major 3rd with the "just" ratio of 5:4 as opposed to a tempered major 3d that would then be "out of tune", i.e. slightly sharp, relative to the "pure" one?
<<So is the flattening necessary to compensate for the difference between pure and tempered intervals (14 cents in case of a major 3rd)?
<<So basically, when you play a chord on an instrument like piano, there is not much you can do (other than re-tuning it to something other than the equal temperament but it doesn't sound like a practical solution to me).
<<But if you simulate a chord on multiple woodwinds you can possibly "bend" (is this the term?) a note slightly to make the chord sound better?>>
Yes, all of the above is true. Essentially, our brain tries to fit things into the harmonic series, loosely speaking, and prefers a good fit to a less good one.
You can look at the problem of tuning the major third as the problem of getting what's called the difference tone (equal in frequency to the difference between the frequencies of the two components of the major third) to sound two octaves below the lower note. You can actually hear this problem if you play such a third with a clarinettist friend, for example.
<<That way, you could basically overcome the constraints of the equal temperament and therefore playing in different keys would perhaps sound differently...>>
I don't know what you mean by this bit, though.
Tony
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Author: igor
Date: 2005-06-15 05:46
<<That way, you could basically overcome the constraints of the equal <<temperament and therefore playing in different keys would perhaps sound differently...>>
<<I don't know what you mean by this bit, though.
Well, I was thinking in general, that since in non-equally tempered tuning systems different intervals sound differently, that is believed to be a reason enough to write music in different keys all of which supposedly have different "character" or "color".
But our discussion above probably doesn't apply here. If we were to flatten notes as needed to always achieve a pure interval then it'd sound like some sort of a dynamic or adaptive tuning system, for the lack of a better term. Woodwinds, it seems, are more about melody than harmony. But what if we had an instrument tuned in whatever temperament that is capable of playing chords with the possibilty to bend notes (guitar? violin?) Then, to always achive a pure interval when playing a chord, we would need to play the same note differently depending if it is in the root, 3rd, or 5th position? Now, what if we tried to play some chord progressions that way. Would that sound weird?
But what I fail to understand is according to some sources on the net, the whole idea of the equal temperament was based on the fact that even a trained ear can't always detect such small deviations. According to one study, tests carried out on a significant number of professional singers and strings players showed that the average error margin in their pitch accuracy was greater that a typical difference between tempered and pure intervals.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-06-15 09:09
In fact, even playing melodically, without accompaniment, musicians do temper intervals. Interestingly, that they can do this is partly because the resonance of the acoustic they play in allows them to use the overlap between consecutive notes to judge the purity of the intervals. Playing in a completely anechoic environment disturbs this ability. There are experiments done by Benade in the book I cited.
So, even though our pitch perception mechanisms in isolation may not be particularly accurate, our ability to detect deviations from interval purity is much more sensitive.
Musicians, particularly musicians playing in a wind section, for whom the matter is most crucial, *do* behave like a 'dynamic or adaptive tuning system'. When the harmony is quite simple, that amounts to being sensitive to (and correcting) out-of-tune fourths, fifths and octaves, and tempering major thirds and minor sevenths.
As the music gets more complex, it's a matter of compromise, and a question of deciding which tuning 'sounds best'.
You might ask, why do I say that the matter is most crucial for wind players? Well, it's to do with the fact that a steadily excited instrument like a clarinet, as opposed to an instrument that is struck and allowed to vibrate, has a sound spectrum that is necessarily harmonic -- ie, composed of overtones that fit into a schema of whole-number multiples of a fundamental. That makes discrepancy more perceptible and more offensive.
With regard to different temperament schemes, it is true that the fact that keyboard instruments can't adjust on the fly means that they can be 'in tune' only in a few keys; and that makes keys distant from those keys sound 'funny' -- and therefore 'different':-) Equal temperament was finally adopted as music became more complex, both in the chords used and the keys visited.
Interestingly, Bach's instrument was not tuned to equal temperament, as I had always believed from my youth, but only to a temperament that was closer to equal temperament than some other temperaments. (His famous work was called "The Well-Tempered Klavier", not "The Equal-Tempered Klavier".)
Given all this, it's not surprising that we find it difficult to play in tune with a piano. A note, say a sounding E, played two octaves above a piano C, needs to be tempered flat in order to sound 'in tune' with it. On the other hand, that E on the piano itself will be sharper, so you can't win if that's included in the chord too. All you can do is compromise, and think yourself lucky you're not playing with an organ, whose spectrum is precisely harmonic, exacerbating the problem.
There's a further interesting wrinkle, which is that if you play a unison with the piano, you need to play at one pitch in order to get 'zero-beat' in-tuneness (that's what an electronic tuner looks at too, BTW). However, if the piano plays the note, and then stops, and you play the same note afterwards, you need to play at a slightly different pitch for our ears to judge that we are 'in tune' with it:-)
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2000/08/000543.txt
BTW, a fascinating essay, called "A journey into Musical Hyperspace", that talks among other things about how the harmonic series is implicated in our musical perceptions, is at:
http://www.atm.damtp.cam.ac.uk/people/mem/papers/LHCE/lucidity-note-58.pdf
Tony
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-06-15 11:14
Just to add a little bit more on keyboard instruments to all of this -- pianos are carefully designed to minimise the necessary out-of-tuneness of equal temperament. It's a technical subject, again covered in Benade, and includes the technique of 'stretch octaves' and the minimising of certain 'difficult' overtones.
Barenboim once said to me that you can also *play* the piano more or less in tune. At first I couldn't imagine what he meant; but then he explained that it involved balancing the different notes of a chord so that the unpleasant intervals weren't so noticeable. And in fact, you can often improve a wind chord by balancing it differently, too.
Playing on period instruments, we sometimes choose a temperament for the keyboard instrument that fits the piece. For example, I've several times played the Mozart and Beethoven piano quintets using one of the standard (not very different from equal) temperaments based around Eb, so that that key 'rang' well.
Other tinkerings occur, always to make pieces *sound* better. (John Price is quite right that all of this analysis defers to how our ears operate, and what our judgements actually are. The other side of that is that there are good evolutionary reasons why our ears are 'designed' the way they are, to do with 'auditory scene analysis' and therefore survival in jungle and other hostile environments, filled with animal noises from both predators and prey.)
You can see that someone has altered the Hinrichsen (for example) edition of the Mozart piece in bar 2, which is a dominant 7th on Bb, moving Mozart's Ab up to a Bb in the piano part so that the clarinet player, previously doubling this note on his written Bb (sounding Ab) doesn't get caught between having to play in tune both with this piano note in Mozart's manuscript and the Bb in the bass -- a 'no-win' situation that we noted before in the case of the major third, but in this case with a minor seventh, which can often be even more tricky than the third.
Tony
Post Edited (2005-06-15 11:18)
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2005-06-15 11:46
"Is there an objective criteria? How flat is flat? 5 cents? 10 cents? 50 cents?"
I don't know about 5 or 10, but 50 cents is always out of tune... 
(That American rap person)
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Author: Markael
Date: 2005-06-15 12:19
Barbershop quartet and chorus singers have developed a fairly sophisticated concept of tuning.
I need to qualify that term "sophisticated;” not all barbershoppers are trained musicians. What I mean is that the understanding of harmonics has evolved as this style of music has developed.
Barbershoppers try to "ring chords,” that is, to tune intervals so that harmonics continue as high as the ear can detect. This works best on major chords and regular seventh chords. That's because, with the root of the chord being the fundamental tone, each successive note in the chord is an overtone of the previous note.
Thus, theoretically at least, there is no temperament at all. Since the singing is a Capella, there is constant adjustment so that each interval can be tuned perfectly, with no beats.
Maybe that is off topic for a clarinet bulletin board, and maybe not. I think it is relevant because it moves us away from thinking about pitch in such absolute terms. Barbershoppers don't use tuners. They use pitch pipes, which, of course, vary with temperature.
In my opinion, clarinetists, and wind players in general, rely too much on electronic tuners. I probably go too far in the other direction; I don't use a tuner at all and probably should use one in certain situations.
Still, when you think about it, trying to nail down "how flat is flat" is pretty much irrelevant in actual playing situations. How could anyone sit in a symphonic concert and determine the tuning of each note? If the technology becomes available to be able to do that--God help us.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-06-15 13:10
<<Maybe that is off topic for a clarinet bulletin board, and maybe not.>>
I think it's absolutely not off topic. Hearing an excellent BSQ is a revelation for any ensemble doing similar work, like a wind quintet, and I think it ought to be required listening for many classically 'trained' singers, who are lucky to have a more profound repertoire and often don't live up to it.
<<I think it is relevant because it moves us away from thinking about pitch in such absolute terms. Barbershoppers don't use tuners. They use pitch pipes, which, of course, vary with temperature. In my opinion, clarinetists, and wind players in general, rely too much on electronic tuners.>>
I've never noticed this as a problem -- I'd say that professional wind players use them to tune to at the beginning, and then from time to time as a guide to whether the ensemble is drifting too much in pitch, but nothing more than that.
<<Still, when you think about it, trying to nail down "how flat is flat" is pretty much irrelevant in actual playing situations.>>
In the sense of, how 'flat' is *acceptable*, which is what we started out with, I agree with you. Still, we've got beyond that in the discussion, haven't we? Since it turns out that you can quantify how much flatness (to equal temperament) is required in order to obtain a consonant interval like a third, I think that's worth knowing.
We might judge it using our ears, but that it's mathematically precise, and why, I'd say is both interesting and reassuring.
Tony
Post Edited (2005-06-15 13:12)
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Author: graham
Date: 2005-06-15 13:18
One aspect that interests me a great deal is the extent to which a perception of poor intonation may be caused by "poor" tone (obviously a more subjective judgement than the almost absolute situation with tuning).
I noticed this first several years ago when listening to a CD of a French wind band. My first reaction was that the tuning within the clarinet section was horrific. After a few listennings I began to wonder if I had been right. The predominent impression was of a clangerously reedy sound, and a lack of homogeneity in the tone, that created the sense of zero blending. Was it this, and not a tuning difficulty, that had caused my first reaction? Since then I have noticed with great regularity that, where people dispute intonation, it will often be the fault (at least as much) of a failure to blend tonally, or create a pleasing tonal mix.
I once played a bass clarinet that was out of tune in the upper register. When I played a solo I made the silly mistake of lipping some notes down to get them in tune. I can imagine that I was not wholly successful from a pure tuning standpoint, but the real snag was that the tone became correspondingly unattractive. It is that drooping kind of tone that caused the listener to react so strongly against the perceived tuning weaknesses. When I played it a second time, fairly sharp, but in good tone, the perception went away (though that won't work when having to tune a chord with other players of course).
I also often find myself thinking a player is flat by a small degree, but so consistently so that it offends my ears. But am I really hearing a woofy tone that makes me feel it is flat? Perhaps that is often the case. For example, many British players with wide indistinct sounds often make me feel they are playing out of tune, and probably flat. That may be the reason why I personally find almost any degree of flatness much worse than sharpness. Perhaps I associate "sharp" with a tidy well formed tone, and associate "flat" with a flabby ill-formed tone. Perhaps when I think something is flat I really feel the sound is ugly to the ear, and that it does not sound in tune simply because the poor tone sticks out from the rest of the group.
Does anyone else notice such a relationship?
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Author: igor
Date: 2005-06-15 19:33
<<<Interestingly, Bach's instrument was not tuned to equal temperament, as I had always believed from my youth, but only to a temperament that was closer to equal temperament than some other temperaments. (His famous work was called "The Well-Tempered Klavier", not "The Equal-Tempered Klavier".)>>>
And I believe even to this day people argue about exactly what kind of a well tempered tuning system that was. And I think because of the confusion, this question appears from time to time in newsgroups when people wonder why couldn't he just transpose to different keys using his favorite MIDI software <g>
Thanks, Tony, for very interesting details and links.
BTW, does the edition of the Benade book matter? I usually don't trust "the newer improved" edition hype as publishers sure need to generate profits.
It seems that I can find an ancient (1976?) hardcore edition in a very good condition and very cheap.
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Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 2005-06-15 20:36
I never would have attempted to answer your questions knowing that there are many more expert than I on this board (and realizing that I didn't have a lot of the answers myself, but I just wanted to add a few thoughts to the answers to your original questions.
Regarding whether it is better to be sharp or flat, if two instruments are playing together and one is sharp relative to the other, then the other is flat relative to the first by the same amount. Hence, one would surmise that it is equally bad to be flat or sharp in this situation.
Regarding the need for multiple keys, one very good reason to have them is for those occasions where a piece of music requires a key change. (Of course, I realize that your question is more in regard to playing a tune in one key or set of keys versus playing it in another. This is a question I have wondered about myself.)
Regarding the design of instruments, an advantage a bass clarinet has over a soprano clarinet is that it has more "real estate" on the instrument, allowing for greater possibilities for adding alternative tone holes. For instance, the main reason modern bass clarinets have a double register key is that they have room for it. One theoretically might be able design an instrument that would be perfectly in tune on every note, but I would expect that engineering the mechanisms to automatically open and close certain keys could become quite complex and there probably would not be enough territory to fit all the alternative holes needed.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-06-17 06:04
I've never noticed a significant difference between the 'hardcore':-) edition of Benade and the Dover republication, though it's Art's widow Virginia who has corrected and updated the book, and she's certainly well qualified to do that. I think the Dover edition is quite cheap, though, like all their stuff, and you might want to support them if the price isn't all that different.
I bought it in addition to my old copy, and use it instead, just in case the bit I'm currently interested in happens to be a bit that's been updated.
An excellent URL for information about the acoustics of wind instruments -- perhaps to begin with more approachable than Benade, a book intended to be read as a whole -- is provided by the physics department of the University of New South Wales, at:
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/music/research.html
...and another interesting resource is the collection of lay language papers presented to the Acoustical Society of America; for example:
http://www.acoustics.org/press/130th/lay_lang.html
That's the earliest electronically available one, and all the subsequent ones are available by changing the number '130' in that URL to another, greater number -- up to 148, which is the latest. (You need to modify the 'th' too, eg '131st', '132nd'.)
Tony
Post Edited (2005-06-17 06:22)
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Author: jim S.
Date: 2005-06-17 15:51
As a result of Tony's kind reference above I let my fingers wander and found the following:
If you have the patience (5 minutes or so) you can hear and see a world premier performance of a bit of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto played by an artificial embouchure (and human fingers) here:
<www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~cfritz/projet.html>
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Author: igor
Date: 2005-06-17 21:01
<<I've never noticed a significant difference between the 'hardcore':-) edition of Benade>>
Ooops, either thas was a virus that changed my message or it was a Freudian typo as I sure meant hardcover ;-)
<<I think the Dover edition is quite cheap, though, like all their stuff, and you might want to support them if the price isn't all that different.>>
I don't know much about different publishers so I never heard of Dover.
I usually check stuff at Amazon and failing that I just google.
I checked that book out a while ago as many people were referring to it and the price more that $100 at Amazon. Then I found the old hardcore version for like $5. Now I am seeing that there are newer editions for just a little more. Amazon is an interesting place.
BTW, Tony, is that you?
http://classicalplus.gmn.com/artists/artist.asp?id=1009&bio=true
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Author: igor
Date: 2005-06-17 21:04
OK, I meant to say "and the price was more than $100 at Amazon".
I don't know what's wrong we that I am thinking one thing and typing another. Must be the bacterial meningitis.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-06-17 22:27
This post was just the same as the following one, but without paragraphing -- for some reason it appeared twice, the first time garbled. I tried to delete it, but apparently you can't do that.
Tony
Post Edited (2005-06-18 09:25)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-06-17 22:28
I don't know why you get such a high price. My copy says '$16.95 in the US', and looking at:
http://tinyurl.com/9funn
...it's available at $13.57
And yes, the gmn URL is me.
Tony
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Author: igor
Date: 2005-06-18 01:53
<<I don't know why you get such a high price. My copy says '$16.95 in the US', and looking at:
http://tinyurl.com/9funn
...it's available at $13.57
>>
Yes, like I said, I took another look and got a similar range.
<<And yes, the gmn URL is me.>>
Wow, this board is an interesting place! Here I come out of nowhere and some interesting, high profile people are answering my questions. Thanks.
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The Clarinet Pages
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