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tuning a minor 7th

Author: Liquorice
Date: 2006-07-08 09:58

How do YOU tune the 7th in a dominant 7th chord? eg. the F in the chord G-B-D-F. There are differing theories, some tune it high, some tune it low.

I just did an experiment with my clarinet and synthesiser. I got the synthesiser to play sustained tones while I fooled around with various tunings of various notes on my clarinet.

If I get the synthesiser to play a C and I play a flat enough E, then I hear a low-pitched difference tone of a C (two octaves lower, I think?) If I play an Eb sharp enough with the C then I get a difference tone of A-flat, creating an Ab major chord. Getting the difference tones in tune shows me that I've found the "pure" interval.

So, back to the dominant 7th. The people that tune it high say that they are playing a minor 3rd above the 5th. Therefore the F has to be sharp enough to get a pure minor 3rd above D. But this creates a difference tone of B-flat, which clashes with the B in the chord. However, this is not a "resolved" chord, so maybe the clash isn't so bad? In any case, a sharp 7th sounded acceptable to my ears.

Then I tried playing a flat F. If I tuned it low enough (which was extremely low- more than 20 cents below an equal tempered F) then I heard a very faint difference tone of a G, perhaps 2 or 3 octaves lower. This would be great for the chord, but I question whether it is reasonable to expect woodwind instruments to be flexible enough to tune over 20 cents flatter to produce a pure minor 7th. However, this very flat 7th also sounded acceptable to my ears.

Maybe my ears just find anything acceptable??! What do you all think about this?

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