Tuning and pitch

Subject: Tuning and pitch
From: GUEST,DB Grate
Date: 22 Mar 03 - 12:00 AM

I've been playing my guitar or mandolin along to various recordings and I'm wondering if some musicians tune down or up from standard or true pitch so as to get the same sound with an easier to make or play chord.For example,tune the guitar strings down ,then play an easier to make G and C chord instead of an awkward F and B flat.I know the old capo is available for guitar,so this may be more relevant to the mandolin. I swear I listen to some celtic stuff thatis in D or G,but if my mando is tuned up to "correct",same as the piano,pitch.the tune will demand an F chord and the tune is in F. Can someone clarify and make sense of this? Thanks.

Subject: RE: Tuning and pitch
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 22 Mar 03 - 12:42 AM

I've come across a few instances where it is obvious that someone has tuned down a whole step to accomodate their vocal range. They'll be singing in F, but the runs and licks on the guitar are obviously out of G fingering.

Bruce

Subject: RE: Tuning and pitch
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 22 Mar 03 - 02:08 AM

Urban legend has it that changes in pitch in commercial recordings are most often made after the fact by the recording expert, who may speed up or slow down the tape to make the tracks take up the right amount of total time on the record - or for other more esoteric reasons. Addition of "effects," and even instruments, that weren't there at the recording session is so common that one should not be surprised if the recording sounds somewhat different than what was played.

About the only way to know for sure would be to find someone who's willing to admit having done it (on purpose).

John

Subject: RE: Tuning and pitch
From: C-flat
Date: 22 Mar 03 - 03:22 AM

Several blues players "de-tune" a semi-tone. Some claim it's because they want to use the heaviest gauge strings they can, for tone, but still want to be able to get some bend on the string, and others, because it makes life easier if you're playing with a horn section(all those sharps and flats).
I know Stevie Ray Vaughan fell into the former group, whereas I, who hated playing the blues in E^b, the latter.



Me and SRV in the SAME sentence? .....Hmmmmm!

Subject: RE: Tuning and pitch
From: greg stephens
Date: 22 Mar 03 - 04:04 AM

Fiddlers often tune down a whole tone to fit in with the melodeons(button accordions) or pipes pitched in C instead of D. This is not uncommon in Ireland and England, and was pretty much universal practise in Louisiana in the early days of cajun recordings. The fiddler Kate Barfield that I often play with always carries two fiddles, tuned a tone apart.

Subject: RE: Tuning and pitch
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Mar 03 - 05:38 PM

Nothing to stop you using a banjo capo on a mandolin.

Subject: RE: Tuning and pitch
From: greg stephens
Date: 22 Mar 03 - 05:54 PM

One rather basic reason, thet has not been touched upon, is that people record things slow on accasion, and then speed them up: for the simple reasonable they haven't got the technical capability to play as fast as they would like it sound on the recording.
   Whether I have ever done this myself...well, I'll plead the fifth amendment.

Subject: RE: Tuning and pitch
From: Little Robyn
Date: 22 Mar 03 - 06:08 PM

My husband has his guitar permanently tuned down a tone so he can easily play along with my Northumbrian pipes, which are in F.
Then he uses his capo when he joins with others and anyone trying to follow him gets very confused! Ha!

Subject: RE: Tuning and pitch
From: wysiwyg
Date: 22 Mar 03 - 07:35 PM

And I have one 21-chord autoharp permanently tuned down a half step because I like to sing in B and E and who wants to refelt all those chord bars? I have another true-tuned for fiddle tunes, jams, and stuff.

~S~

Subject: RE: Tuning and pitch
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Mar 03 - 07:39 PM

It's quite common for 12 string guitars to be tuned a tone low to reduce the stress on the instrument from all those strings.

Subject: RE: Tuning and pitch
From: Grab
Date: 22 Mar 03 - 08:06 PM

C-flat, it's not uncommon in rock at least - it allows the singer another semitone of range, which can be useful. Oasis for one tend to do that.

Tin whistles come in C and D tunings as well, where you play the same fingers on the C but it comes out a tone lower (again IIRC, my wife's the whistle player, not me :-) I guess this would be to fit in with melodeons etc tuned the same, as per Greg's post.

Graham.

Subject: RE: Tuning and pitch
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 22 Mar 03 - 09:29 PM

Alright. Alright. We confess. We recorded one song which was a tad low for Jerry's range so we tuned both the banjo and guitar up one whole tone and played in A using G fingering.

We feel much better having confessed this and getting it off our collective chest.

Please forgive us. We promise it will never happen again.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: Tuning and pitch
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 22 Mar 03 - 10:04 PM

And yet another twist, often if I make something on a scratch pad a little off tune, but later add another track with a fixed pitch device, eg Harmonica, I use the speed control to adjust the pitch of the playback so it is all in the same - now inbetween key - tuning.

Subject: RE: Tuning and pitch
From: Kaleea
Date: 22 Mar 03 - 11:17 PM

In the olden days of vinyl records (& before) it was also common that recording equipment was not up to the same standards as modern equipment so that the end product of a "record" would sound flat by what some would call a semi-tone or more. I used to know all of the old Beatles songs in the actual pitch in which I had heard them (& of course sung along!) so that one day when I was singing a one of the old songs within earshot of the organist in the church where I was choir director, the organist made a terrible face & informed me that I was singing out of tune. I was, in fact, singing the song exactly in tune with the pitches which I had heard on the "record," and which happened to be about a half step flat! Then there is the fact that when one takes the recording made in one country and play it on equipment made in another country, stuff happens. The electricity is not the same everywhere nor every"when." Stuff also happens when you play very old records such as 78's on more modern equipment. I was the very fortunate recipient of the only records ever made by a fine lady who was a founding member of the Tulsa, Oklahoma Opera. She had studied in San Francisco as a very young woman, and had literally "cut" the records. I graciously accepted them & proceded to go home & make a cassette tape recording of them on my equipment. When the lady heard me listening to the cassette one day, she was quite alarmed, as the recordings sounded quite unlike her voice in her youth--there was a definite wobble, and her singing sound a bit flat here and there. I quickly reassured her that the old victrolas back then did not always spin at the same rpm as modern equipment, therefore the pitch was surely sung accurately by her, but sounded different because of the equipment. Sad thing is, after she passed on, no one in the Tulsa Historical Society seemed interested in the recordings. Her only nearby family (nephew & wife) did not care for opera, nor did they know of her friends. I, however, still cherish them.

Subject: RE: Tuning and pitch
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 02:25 PM

This is a bit of thread drifty, but not too far.

Actual concert pitch has varied a bit over the years - so when that happens, do all the people with perfect pitch suddenly find that they don't have it any more, and are out of tune, while a new set of people who previously didn't have perfect pitcu suddenly find they do - or can the perfect pitch lot just adapt? I mean, is the perfect pitch there in their head fixed or is it tunable?

Subject: RE: Tuning and pitch
From: pavane
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 04:32 PM

So who ordained that the guitar 'must' be tuned to EADGBE?
Tune it however you wish!

Subject: RE: Tuning and pitch
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 09:31 AM

Sarah Carter is reported to have kept her guitar tuned down several half-steps so she could then capo up and play with her favorite chord positions, C, I think it was.

Lots of modern Carter family enthusiastis who play guitar emulate this technique.