Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: Pied Piper
Date: 12 Mar 03 - 06:01 AM

Hi CraigS

I'm afraid that your perfect pitch will move, as you get older. If I remember correctly it will go flat. I'm glad I don't have it for this reason.
I hope I've not pissed you of too much, but forewarned is forearmed.

All the best PP

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: GUEST,Rag
Date: 12 Mar 03 - 08:19 AM

In one of our sessions we don't seem to have much of a problem with tuning - everyone sorts it out by finding a note and tuning to it. On the other hand, we have another session where despite the fiddles being initially in tune, the players always tweak them up, never down, so during the course of the night all the fiddles go sharp and then other instruments try to follow, until a box joins in then there's lots of accusing glances and more tweaking. But mentioning instruments out of tune in a session can set off some touchy people. We usually just say, "I think I've gone out of tune, anyone have an A?" then most folks get the idea and retune.

By the way, there's a wonderful collection of Irish tunes collected by Dr George Petrie a couple of hundred years ago. He made the mistake of carrying around a tuning fork and then writing down lots of the tunes exactly in the key they were played... so we have lots of tunes in Gb, Ab, Db, Eb, Bb minor, F minor and so on. The music is peppered with accidentals and the easiest way to figure out what's going on is just to rewrite them out in a sensible nearby key.

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: Declan
Date: 12 Mar 03 - 11:06 AM

From what I hear, a lot of Uileann pipers had chanters in flatter keys in the older days, whereas "the peoples key" is now deemed to be 'D', many uileann pipes would be pitched in 'C' or even B or B-Flat.

A lot of fiddlers would tune down to play with these chanters. As a result in some areas of Ireland, where the Pipes were prevalent, notably in Clare and East Galway there in a lot of fiddle tunes in keys that would be awkward on alot of instruments. This means a lot of Reels & Jigs played in C and F Major and Dm and Gm.

Most of these are awkward to back on the guitar without the aid of a trusty capo. However they are really nice keys to listen to in moderation. A long session all played in flatter keys can be a bit wearying after say the first 3 hours !

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: Pied Piper
Date: 12 Mar 03 - 11:14 AM

As I understand it Uillean Pipes changed up to D in order to get more volume for playing in Vaudeville.
PP

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: GUEST,Rag
Date: 12 Mar 03 - 04:17 PM

On the Uillean pipes, it seems according to Tomas O'Canainn's book on Traditional Music of Ireland, that until the mid C18th, the pipes were tuned with two drones both tuned to D an octave apart and then a third drone was added, again tuned to D, an octave below again.

The standard pipes were designed early in the C19th with chanter, bellows, three drones and three regulators, though some have four regulators. The more normal setup, we are assured, is to have a tenor regulator of five keys from F# to C in the treble clef, a baritone for D to A in the same clef, and a large bass regulator giving G to C an octave below the tenor regulator.

O'Canainn argues that the extra regulators were only added to suit the nineteenth century ears.

Since the regulators can be tuned, as can the drones, it seems that since the chanter can also be replaced, the whole thing is hugely tunable.

And there was me thinking the fiddlers in Clare were doing it to shut up the boxes... Seriously though, I've seen pipers in Ireland tuning to all manner of keys.

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 06:46 AM

at Mr Happy's Come-All-Ye last week http://www25.brinkster.com/folkorbit/localvenues.htm#wednesday
, a scottish chap brought a chanter from highland pipes (but without the pipes themselves). it sounded really indescribable-but maybe due to highland pipes being tuned somewhat different to other instruments.

he didn't seem aware of the tuning incompatability & also played a flute which seemed equally discordant.

even so he didn't piss anyone off by any 'superior posturing about 'traditional' etc, & opted just to play solos- not joining in while others were playing.

hence everyone enjoyed the evening & if folk are concious of differences of this sort it's still possible to achieve a healthy balance.

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 10:26 PM

A while ago KimC said "One thing I wonder about, though, Don, is that if tuning wasn't really standardized, how do we know that Mozart's Ab wasn't Beethoven's F#?"
and Don Firth said "When Vivaldi or Mozart or Beethoven specified what keys they wanted their compositions to be played in, they had specific sounds in mind."

I won't repeat it all here, but in the One-Chord Songs thread there was a lot of music theory (some may pass over the head of some, but that's OK!) about "Just" and "Tempered" intonations (there are other threads about this theory too.)

Don's comment is interesting, because it skims over the real reason WHY they did this. The "Just" system as the referenced thread elaborates, means that for instruments tuned to say C Major in "Just" Intonation, playing in other keys means that the notes are "out" for any keys other than the "base" key that you tune the instrument to.

"Equally Tempered" Intonation tuning did away with all that, with both positive and negative results:

Positive; all instruments could now play with all others in any key without retuning (other than for purpose of absolute pitch - the relative pitches were now all in agreement!). The Well Tempered Clavier was the big demonstration piece for this - which is WHY is was composed! It was a BIG HIT of its time!

Negative; the particular sounds of certain keys (sad, happy, etc) relative to the original "Just" tuned base key now disappeared entirely, as the relative distances between notes was the same in ALL keys. This is what is really meant by Don's remark, perhaps more than he conciously intended - although I don't know (and don't care, it really doesn't matter to me cause I was not trying to insult him!) his level of experience in Classical Music Theory! :-)

I don't know of too many electronic tuners that can be set to pure "just" intonation - if anyone does, I'd like to know! - they are all in "Equally Tempered" intonations tuning!

So --- depending on how old the particular Tradition is   :-) (see the other thread!) a "Traditional Musician" perhaps could be performing in "Just" - a relatively easy thing to do on an unfretted string instrument or the human voice - it merely relies on his sense of "Perfect Pitch"! Playing along with such a muso with "Equally Tempered" instruments would be "interesting" to say the least... and everybody else would try to claim that he was "wrong"!

Interestingly "Traditional" singers may NOT be in Pure Modern "Equally Tempered" Intonations - there were countless "Temperings" before the mathematically based modern "Equally Tempered" (often confusingly abbreviated to merely "Tempered") system swallowed everything else - some still exist on this planet! (The Orient - Africa, etc)

A comment was made about 19C "collectors" putting collected tunes into particular keys - they were also struggling with the "Temperings" and the Modalities (Also see the referred thread!) - classically trained musos believed only in "Equally Tempered" - Folk Temperings were only finally killed off by the spread of the "Equally Tempered" Piano Accordion! Other free reed Squeeze Boxes added their nails to the coffin too... Pianos were tuned "Just" or some form of "Tempered Just" until Portable "Equally Tempered" Tuners were available. Most people (Folkies!) normally tuned to a piano. Orchestras traditionally tuned to the oboe.

Of course I doubt that the original muso that started off this thread was aware of the above ... :-) the discussion has already gone over that ground!

Pardon Me for repeating this...
QUOTE
Came across an interesting reference in Irish Traditional Music. Seems that it was considered bad manners to advise a fellow session fiddle player that he was out of tune. The accepted courtesy was to say "Sean, can I borrow your wee fiddle for a moment to try out that tune you was playin'?"

Then play a tune, and stop and say "I'm sorry Sean, the thing's gone out of tune now while I was playin' it"

and then retune it... and pass it back :-)
UNQUOTE

Robin

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 10:37 PM

Reading what I just posted, I left this out:

I can't tell any difference in "emotion" - sad, happy etc between keys (of the pieces of the periods when such was all the rage) as played by Orchestras nowadays, for the reasons I went thru above - These pieces are now all perfomed in "Equally Tempered" Intonation. My pitch sense is OK, but I don't have "Absolute Pitch" often referred to erroneously as "Perfect Pitch".

I have a treasure in my collection. A beginners book for the Recorder.
It has the famous "Air in G" (Major) - the Author has cleverly transposed the piece to F Major to allow him to present it to the student who can at that stage can only play F Major notes, as the F# key hasn't been taught! :-)

Most people can't tell the difference aurally! - although some Classical Musicians may get a little uncomfortable...

Thaks for reading my rant...

Robin

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 11:23 PM

It makes a good deal of sense. Folk song collectors in the early part of the 20th century often noticed that singers appeared to be using intervals that pre-dated equal temperament, and non-classically trained fiddle players (having no frets) often still do that, though we have to make adjustments when playing with fixed-pitch instruments. To my ear, that means that I often have to play a bit sharp or flat on certain notes so that they fit with, in particular, the free-reeds.

You can get electronic tuners that will do just as well as equal temperament nowadays; unfortunately I don't remember who makes them. A friend (classically-trained fiddler escaped from the straitjacket) has one, and I'll try to remember to ask.

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: Don Firth
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 04:02 AM

Robin, actually, I skimmed over the matter of pure or equal temperament because I didn't want to add another element to a subject that some people seem to find unduly complicated already. I've had discussions with a lot of folk musicians who've had little or no formal musical training (sometimes shunning any knowledge of music theory for fear it will pollute their purity as folk musicians) who have some peculiar ideas about what equal temperament actually is. I've actually had it used as a verbal club against anything I try to say about music: for example, "because you've studied music theory, you're limited to just playing certain notes, whereas I'm free to play any note I want," and other such twaddle. Since the original question had to do with someone refusing to tune with other people at a session, I was plumping for the acceptance of a standard of pitch accepted internationally and which most instrument makers have in mind when they build an instrument, be it fixed pitch like a clarinet or an instrument that has to be kept in tuned, like a guitar. My idea was to save everybody a lot of time and aggravation by accepting and tuning to that standard, not clinging to some misconception about what "traditional" musicians do or don't do.

Just for the record, three years at the University of Washington School of Music, two years at the Cornish School of the Arts, and private theory lessons with Mildred Hunt Harris, plus lots of private lessons in voice and classic guitar. I'm always open to learn more.

It's my understanding that Vivaldi, Mozart, et al often did maintain that different keys had different emotional qualities, and it may very well be because they were using just tuning and it struck them that way. I have met musicians, both classical and jazz, who insist that each key has it's own quality: "D is bright and sunny," or "G, even though major, is dark and somber," and on around the circle of fifths, ascribing qualities like this to each key, major and minor. And this, even when dealing with instruments tuned in equal temperament. I tend to think that this may be a bit of "one-upmanship." To me, different keys on the guitar do seem to have different qualities of sonority, but not any particular difference in emotional quality. But this is because of the different voicings of first position chords in each key. Other than the way different keys sound on specific instruments, I can't hear such qualities inherent in each key regardless of instrument. If it is there it's too subtle for me.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 05:06 AM

String pianos (ie not eloctronic) are tuned using stretched tuning. This means that the lower notes are flattened and the higher notes are sharpened: without this the harmonics of the low notes would be out of tune with the corresponding high notes. Why? Because the harmonic stucture, or overtones if you like, are between those of a perfect string and a metal bar.

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: treewind
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 05:20 AM

Scriabin and Alkan were famous for having synaesthesia - seeing colours when they heard music, and associating particular colours with particular keys.

The idea of keys like D being "bright" and flat keys being more sombre, for example, probably has a lot to do with the use of open strings in the string section. When a violin is played in D or A the open strings may be used or may vibrate in sympathy. In keys where the open string notes are not used or are not on the notes of the key chord they have less effect. In G the open G string will resonate, but that's the lowest string of the instrument so imparts less brightness to the sound. Also, for instance, some of Bach and Handel's works use a high D trumpet which only works properly in that key.

Interestingly this has nothing to do with absolute concert pitch. If concert picth in Handel's time was flat, the strings were tuned flat (by modern standards) so a work is D would still have those bright sounding open strings.

I'm sure the wind instruments of the time had key related peculiarities too. A baroque flute sounds very different in different keys, because some notes are stronger than others, while a modern instrument is designed to be more uniform.

Anahata

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: Pied Piper
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 05:31 AM

Being a Piper I am very aware of intonation issues.
I tune my pipes to a scale of just intervals. The problem comes when playing with 12ET instruments.
The lower the pitch of the other instrument the better, if the instrument is in the same octave, beets can be a serious problem.
This applies particularly to the low G (actually Ab) which is a 7/4 ratio and a lot larger than a 12ET tone down from the tonic A (Bb).

All the best PP

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 06:09 AM

A lot of very useful information in this thread,but the basic problem is - IS it a session or an Open mike/singaround.I have been to events advertised as sessions which most attendees used as a place to ego trip and play complicated arrangements in weird keys.Despite the organiser insisting it was an'Every body will join in'session.
IMHO a 'Session' is somewhere where everybody can join in and learn by playing with other musicians,so turning up at a session and NOT tuning in to everyone else is at the very least impolite.

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: Pied Piper
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 06:41 AM

Spot on, but they don't lissen.
PP

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 12:34 PM

1) Don, I agree with almost everything you said theory wise. Respect your training! I can't hear any emotion in the KEYS, but sometimes in the pieces (the intervals, timimg, etc).

Yes to hearing colorations (treewind).

Yes to the open strings things, but some of this myth about emotions was applied to keyboard pieces, harpsichords, etc BEFORE PianoFortes were invented, and to non-stringed instruments (woodwinds etc which do have certain resonances...). Yes (treewind), some woodwinds have totally different characteristics in different parts of their ranges, which means that any "electronic imitation" has to usually be some sort of compromise sound. Midi can be great fun, but they have to pinch the sound from "Real" instruments... and usually lose most of the expression that the real instrument has. I can usually tell when someone is electric keyboarding an accordion sound...

2) Stretched tuning for pianos: Primo, my Piano accordion tuning man, says similar things about P/A's - they can also be a bas**** to tune anything else to, especially since some (smaller ones) of them have unswitched multiple reeds intended to be slightly out of tune and thus beat ... (vibrato/musette etc) ... also the vibrato effect (wet/dryness) is usually not constant over the keyboard in the smae manner as the pitch stretching ... :-)

3) Piedpiper: I agree.

4) Leadfingers, you're perfectly right you know... :-) I did get a bit carried away, didn't I? :-)

5) I had thought that it might be almost impossible to tune my triple strung hammer dulcimer, but discovered that if one of the three strings for a note was just a little a bit off, it tended to get "pulled" into tune sympathetically (but once all 3 are spot on the volume is greater!) ... and once the damn thing WAS in tune, it tended to STAY pretty well, provided that the temp & humidity could be controlled. Funny, I don't seem to have quite the same amount of troubles that others claim about having to be tuning all the time...

6) and Don, I'm sorry, I'll put on my dunces cap and stand in the corner...
(puts thumb in mouth, shuffles, scratches floor with toe) ...

for about 5 secongs... :-)

Robin
(who plays more than one instrument, but not at the same time... and is NOT any expert on guitars or harmonicas...) :-)

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 12:39 PM

Oh one more thing about "tuning"

A good whistle/flute player can "blow" the instrument into small pitch shifts by ear.

Robin

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: Don Firth
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 01:58 PM

No problem, Robin. You obviously know what you're talking about.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 11:24 PM

Thanks Don

Now I wish _I_ knew what I was talking about....

:-)

Robin

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 05:20 AM

"A good whistle/flute player can "blow" the instrument into small pitch shifts by ear." Brass players do the same - they call it 'lipping in'

Subject: RE: Help: 'Traditional musicians' & Tuning?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 05 Jun 04 - 07:28 AM

'Traditional Musician' attended Mr Happy's Come-All-Ye this week with brand new guitar!!

All cheered when he took it out of equally brand new case & commenced to play all in- wait for it!- 440Hz concert pitch!

After he'd finished & the applause & huzzahs had died down, he quipped, 'it was in tune when I bought it!'

All's well that ends well, eh!