 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Sarah
Date: 2001-03-28 22:31
Hi !
This must sound really really stupid to you all, but i've always been told that " The only stupid question is the question not asked".. well.. here it goes - If my clarinet is 10 cents sharp.. and the person sitting next to me is 10 cents flat.. When we play together why wouldn't we would be in tune ?
Thanks
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Author: William
Date: 2001-03-28 22:34
Because both are deviations from zero--you are twenty cents apart, total. Kind of like two piccolos, I guess. Good question, thanks for asking.. Good clarineting!!!!!!!!!!
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Author: jerry
Date: 2001-03-28 23:25
I was going to raise my hand real high because I thought that, as a beginner, I could surely answer the supid questions. But darn! Someone beat me to it. I might learn something here myself though.
Is the 10 cents a part of some kind of music or clarinet term or is this meant to be a shortened version of *percentage*? Hey, I don't know! Some of this *music* language is strange.
Good luck on getting im tune.
~ jerry.
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Author: jbutler
Date: 2001-03-29 00:14
Jerry,
A "Cent" is one-one hundreth of a "semitone" or 1/100 of a 1/2 step whichever you prefer.
John
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Author: Sarah
Date: 2001-03-29 00:43
Huh ? I still don't get it.. Since i'm sharp and she's flat, shouldn't it even out ?
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Author: jbutler
Date: 2001-03-29 00:58
Sarah,
No, because the sound waves are vibrating at different cycles per second, it doesn't work like math. You can still hear the two different sounds.
John
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Author: Torvald Simmons
Date: 2001-03-29 01:30
here's a diagram of two clarinets in tune:
/////////
/////////
now this is you and your friend:
////////////// <=== you being sharp
/ / / / / / <=== your friend flat
you see...they don't really go together.
i dunno...this is a really bad and inaccurate explanation
sorry...
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Author: Peter Spriggs
Date: 2001-03-29 01:32
Sarah,
Think of it this way. If you and this other player are both standing on a lawn facing North, consider this standing side by side as "in tune". Now if you take 10 paces forward and your partner takes ten paces backward then you are 20 paces apart. If you are apart you are not together and just the same in musical pitch if you are apart you are also not together or in other words, not in tune! I hope this clarifies the point for you.
Peter
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Author: Jim
Date: 2001-03-29 05:21
Jerry makes an interesting point that there is indeed some strange language in the music biz. Of course some of that is due to the prevelence of Italian terms in music. The truth of course is that every study, every trade seems to have in some way developed its own jargon. Surely, some is due to technical terms to describe observations, processes etc, but I suspect that lurking in the human psyche somewhere is a desire to exclusivisity, to become part of those on the "in." I worked with a crew of young carpenters from Northern Ireland last year and thought I might have trouble with their accents, but where we failed to communicate was in slang, jargon (theirs different from mine,) and they used the metric system.
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2001-03-29 07:44
Another analogy: You are driving 10miles per hour over the speed limit (engiine parts 'vibrating' faster). Your friend is going 10 mph under the speed limit (engine parts 'vibrating' slower). Therefore you are not going the same speed?
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Author: Anji
Date: 2001-03-29 13:56
I have the same problem with notations; Allegro ma non troppo seems to mean;
"Meet you at the Fermata" with my crew.
Torvald's description is apt.
It's not like balancing a check book, as the two events are coincident.
Here's something weird, if one horn is a single cycle off the other, there will be Positive and Constructive interference. This results in a "Beat" that can be heard.
Sort of like wolf howls (which also sounds like the mob I play with).
Does your crew have a strobe tuner? That's a place to start.
anji
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Author: Rene
Date: 2001-03-29 14:02
Physically you get two frequencies. One is the correct pitch and the other is the difference in pitches. Added together this will sound like a vibrating tone, which is most unpleasant. In German it is called "Schwebung", but I do not know the english word.
Some maths?
sin(a+b)+sin(a-b) = 2 sin(a)cos(b)
where a is the correct frequency and b the derivation. The cos(b) term generates the "Schwebung".
What do you have to do to get to clarinetists to play in tune? Answer: Shoot one.
Rene
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2001-03-29 16:45
Quite a drastic solution, Rene, but thanx for a bit of math, and Anji for bringing up the "beat" phenomenon [sp?] . We oldsters still think in terms of cycles per second [now Hertz] and play in tune with each other by reducing the beats [frequency difference] to zero usually by embouchure. When tuning to a throat or clarion note [440 cps], its easy to do, but in playing bass cl or bari sax, the frequency of the very low notes is so small that [in my experience] its difficult to use the beats, so I try to tune by chord relations using the harmonics rather than the fundemental. I have a feeling of opening a can of worms above. Help, Don
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Author: Bart Hendrix
Date: 2001-03-29 17:34
The original question deals with the concept of averages. If you deal with averages it would seem like the two tones should balance out and sound in tune. Unfortunately, while average is a useful concept in math, it rarely applies in the real world. If you stand with one foot in a fire and the other in a bucket of dry ice, on the average you should be comfortable. The tones do not average out. Rather you still hear each one individually and, as pointed out in the discussion of beats and the math analysis of the situation, the result is unpleasant.
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Author: Willie
Date: 2001-03-29 17:47
Try going over to a piano and pick out two keys right next to each other, say like C and C#. Playing both at the same time will sound terrible. Then try say C and E. Though they still have different sound wave spacing, they will blend.
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Author: Canadian Clarinerd
Date: 2001-03-29 18:20
Okay, Sarah... here's yet another viewpoint on your predicament.
Think of a thermometer at ZERO degrees.
ZERO degrees is perfect pitch for the note, that is to say, IN tune.
If your clarinet is ONE degree ABOVE zero,
and your friend's is ONE degree BELOW zero.
You are, in fact, two degrees apart. Here's a sample diagram.
* 1 degree
] ------------------------ 1
* 0 (In tune)
] ------------------------ 1
* - 1 degree _______
= 2
Hope this helps.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2001-03-29 20:38
One other interesting aspect of this "not so stupid" question is the value of a "cent". It's 1/100th of the difference between semi-tones, but semitones are spaced further apart (in frequency) as we go up the scale, so a "cent" between middle B and middle C (using the A=440 tuning, even tempered scale) is (about)
(261.626 - 246.942) / 100 = .147 Hz.
Between middle C and middle C# it is (about)
(277.183 - 261.626) / 100 = .156 Hz.
Moving an octave up doubles the difference, 2 octaves quadruples it, etc. (power of two since we double frequencies to get octaves).
Which is why a tiny bit off in tuning on the higher notes is more noticable than the lower notes - and the higher notes are harder to control to boot!
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Author: jerry
Date: 2001-03-29 22:21
Sarah,
If you have two FM or (AM) radios, turn them both on and tune both to the same FM (or AM) station. Then tune one of them up about 50 HZ or less and the other down the same amount (50 HZ may be a little too far off the *center* frequency but you get the point). You should be able to hear the same station on each but they will sound out of sync. If you turn them back to the same frequency, one will be, in effect, *zero* beat with the other.
Hope this helps.
~ jerry
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2001-03-30 13:14
Well said, Don, even if not quite on the subject. Just think how hellish it is to get a piccolo in tune with a screaming Eb clarinet, with frequencies up arouind 3000 hertz, yet composers do write this silly combination.
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Author: George
Date: 2001-03-30 15:03
I am reminded of the story of the three statisticians who went hunting and saw a deer. The first one fired, and missed by about 10 feet to the front. The second fired and missed by 10 feet to the back. The third yelled "We got it!"
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2001-03-30 19:44
What an inventive group of analogies! They should answer the averaging question very well. Thank you, Gordon [NZ] for the compliment re: my post on the general problem of tuning [beyond the practice room using a tuner calibrated to the Tempered Chromatic Scale as in my old Chem/Physics Handbook] . It has always seemed to me that, when playing with others, a high degree of cooperation is required in the many facets of expression to produce good music, of which one is chordal tuning [perhaps different from using a tuner {IMHO}]. While I have had the experience of tuning the very low notes on bass and bari, and "fighting" a [sharp?] piccolo with my Eb Soprano in the Great Rocky Mountain Brass Band [Silverton, CO], you can see that I have only an engineer's concept of musical physics, and do appreciate/learn from all of our discussions. Don
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Author: Julia Meyer
Date: 2001-03-30 20:37
Mark (charette)--by "even tempered" do you mean well tempered or equal tempered, or neither?
Please clarify....
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2001-03-30 21:46
Julia - The frequency tabulations I referred to above [both the old A 435 {1891} and the A 440 {1936} ] are entitled"Equal Tempered Chromatic Scale" . [ FWIW] Don
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Author: jerry
Date: 2001-03-31 06:17
"The third yelled 'We got it!'"
I love it, George.
~ jerry
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Author: Meredith
Date: 2001-04-02 00:09
Just simply listening should help if you don't want the 'cents' confusion. How does you 10 cents sharp fit in with the rest of the ensemble? You may need to pull out your barrel a bit but listen and try to make your instrument's sound play in tune with the rest of the band. A very hard thing to do but the younger you start the better.
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2001-04-02 12:54
Don I play flute/picc more than clarinet, but because of my clarinet playing experience I have developed the belief that within reason, it is the flute/picc player's job to tune to the idiosyncrasies of a clarinet player's intonation because it is far easier for an accomplished flute player to adjust tuning (by many cents) in the way they play than it is for a clarinetist.
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