Is he in tune?

Subject: Is he in tune?
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 10:25 AM

There have been a number of threads about fiddle playing which have included comments on intonation i.e. playing in tune. It amazes me - in some ways - how many players seem to have dodgy intonation. For example, to my ears, the intonation of Pete Cooper and Stacey Phillips on the cds that accompany their fiddle books sound a bit "strange" to me. On the other hand top classical players - and swing players - Stephane Grapelli, for example - always sound bang on.

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 10:51 AM

Very good point Tunesmith. Intonation in my view is one of the most important aspects of playing fiddle styles. Hence I believe a classically trained violinist makes a very good fiddle player easier than the other way round. Don't know if Pete Cooper & Stacey Phillips are classicaly trained.

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 11:25 AM

Are you sure they're not just playing to a different scale?

I'll agree that "in tune" is a whole lot easier to listen to than someone who "plays in the cracks," but it should be remembered that "in tune" must be relative to a specific scale. Orchestras and jazz have pretty much gone to equitempered, and that's what we're all used to. Barbershop, solo fiddle, and maybe unaccompanied voice or trombone solos, are about the only places left where "just" tuning is still heard much. "Other world" music uses scales that sometimes set my teeth on edge.

The use of deep/complex chords in jazz, and in "classical orchestral" work, makes it pretty much necessary to be "in tune" in an agreed on scale there; but lots of old (especially folk) tunes probably were not "made for" chord backup and "strictly in tune" rendition.

I haven't heard enough of the artists cited to offer comment on their specific playing; but "classical training" can be a curse of sorts, if it gets you too intolerant of a little "bend" in the scales - assuming of course that what's being played is appropriate to the music.

John

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 12:54 PM

John, I understand that certain styles have a "different" intonation. For example, a lot of old-timey fiddle playing sounds "sharp" to me - Tommy Jarrell, for instance. But I recognise this as deliberate. With Pete Cooper and Stacey Phillips it's just not quite in tune - at times.

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: Pauline L
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 04:49 PM

Music based on scales different from the ones used in classical European and American music -- modal scales and scales with quarter tones -- may sound "out of tune" compared with what we expect to hear. However, I don't think this explains why Pete Cooper and Stacey Phillips sound out of tune. They're probably just out of tune.

People who play out of tune at jams really bother me. I just can't tolerate the sound. I have to move to a place where I can't hear them or leave the room.

In a similar vein, I've wondered about people who can't carry a tune but sing solo in public anyway. I wouldn't dare. One of my friends says that these people don't know that they're singing out of tune. Would you agree?

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: michaelr
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 05:13 PM

I would guess that anyone who sings or plays out of tune is not aware of that fact, meaning they don't hear pitch well enough to know. If they knew, they'd surely remediate it, wouldn't they?

On the other hand, you have certain styles of music where that sound appears to be essential to the music, such as Cajun fiddling. I'm sure Michael Doucet could sound smoother if he wanted to, but the music seems to innately demand that raw, primitive, dodgy-intonation sound.

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: Sorcha
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 07:36 PM

This might be me...the Deaf Lady...which is WHY I don't sing in public. 'Usually' the fiddle tuning and intonation is pretty good, IF I stay in 1st position........never heard these people you are talking about.

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: Jeri
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 08:30 PM

It could be 'just' temperament vs equal. It's hard to say without hearing the recordings, and I'm not sure I'd know if I did hear it.

Sometimes when I tune my fiddle with an electronic tuner, it still doesn't sound right, and I may be hearing in just temperament. I may just be wrong, too.

I've tried to record a (voice) harmony track using a click track, without listening to the tune. When I play both melody and harmony back together, it sounds off. If I don't play the melody back at the same time, it sounds fine. I figure I'm adjusting to a just tempered scale when I hear what I'm singing along with the melody, and the equal temperament I sing without the melody is just a bit off.

It may just be that the people you named are off the pitch. It's quite easy to do, and I've hear plenty of 'good' fiddle players who seem to have at least a little bit of a problem. You'd think they could hear it when they listened to the recording, but maybe not. Even if they DO hear the oopsies, maybe it's one of those "they won't notice" things.

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 08:36 PM

Have a look here for discussions on this topic:

thread.cfm?threadid=51279

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 02:24 PM

My first instrument was recorder, which I taught myself from books. None of the books explained that you can have your fingers in the right place but the music may still be out of tune. When I started going to workshops with professional teachers, they taught us to play a chord, hold it, and listen to it. Basically, you ask yourself, "Does this sound good?" There is an inner sense which tells us whether that chord is right or not, and it was magical the way the group could alter its playing to produce better harmony.

I suspect that many people that play or sing out of tune are not listening to themselves. They are absorbed in the tactile experience and are not using their ears.

There used to be a trio in my town. Husband and wife played banjo and dulcimer beautifully. Fiddler played the fiddle sharp constantly. I'm convinced he was so distracted by the need to finger and bow that he just didn't listen to what was coming out.

(I don't believe that "equal temperament" or "other scales" have anything to do with it. Mudcatters are musical enough to know sour notes when they hear them.)

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: Cluin
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 02:32 PM

Intonation ain't the only problem. Some of these old-tyme fiddlers are so used to playing by themselves that their timing is all over the place too. Back one up and you spend the whole time playing Catch-Up and Slow Down.

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 03:17 PM

You can be perfectly in tune relative to yourself without being perfectly aligned with concert pitch -- is that what we're talking about here? This is not uncommon at all among folk solo performers; John Hurt is a good example of someone who played "in the cracks" but with all his strings well-tuned in relation to each other.

When you start to jam or participate in a band or group, of course, this becomes a problem.

Then there are those individuals who can play with a high level of skill but can't seem to be able to tune up at all, or even to hear how out of tune they are. Ouch!

I've noticed over the years that my ability to tune up -- actually, to *hear* the finest disctinctions in pitch -- has varied greatly, depending upon how much I'm playing and how regularly.

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 04:03 PM

Maybe your ears are tuned to perfect pitch. I've never known anyone with perfect pitch but I've 'heard' that in some instances it can be annoying.

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 04:21 PM

I believe -- in fact, I'd go so far to say that I know from experience -- that "perfect pitch" can be acquired -- and lost; it's *not* something you're either born with or not, as I had once been lead to believe. Like a lot of other things, it comes from practice.

I never thought I had any special talents for hearing pitch, and as a beginning guitar player (and again years later as a "re-beginner") I had trouble tuning, even with the help of a reference (pitchpipe, tuning form, etc.)

However, during an intense couple of years when I was playing virtually all day every day, I could tune damn near perfectly, for months after losing my little pitchpipe. I assumed for a while that I was only staying in relative tune with myself, but was surprised to learn, when playing along with a piano after weeks of solo busking, that my guitar was absolutely in tune, and did not require adjusting at all.

When I ceased playing with such obsessive regularity, I lost that unexpected tuning ability.

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: Pauline L
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 04:45 PM

Guest, Leeina said, "When I started going to workshops with professional teachers, they taught us to play a chord, hold it, and listen to it. Basically, you ask yourself, "Does this sound good?" There is an inner sense which tells us whether that chord is right or not, and it was magical the way the group could alter its playing to produce better harmony." I'm sorry to tell you that this is not something magical, in the sense that it can be explained rationally. However, it is still wondrous. What you and the others sensed, when you played a chord with all the notes in tune, was overtones, and you heard them, although you weren't aware of them.

The easiest overtunes to hear are created by playing octaves. It's not much harder to hear fifths. By a strange coincidence (-: the violin is tuned in fifths. That's why it's relatively easy to learn to tune a violin by ear.

Jeri, I'm impressed with your ability to sing and hear notes that are tempered or not. That's real talent. The violin, which has no frets, is generally played in a tempered scale so it will sound "in tune" with everybody else. I have read that most violinists play some notes just a tiny bit "off scale" because their instincts show the way to playing a "natural," rather than a tempered, scale. This means that violinists would tend to play an F# a tiny bit high when the note is leading into a G. I've read this but I haven't heard it. It could be tested experimentally and that would be fun.

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 05:13 PM

Certainly these guys would agree that perfect pitch can be learned. Others, like these people, think there's more of an intricate interplay between genes and training (probably so, if I were to guess). Some of you might be interested in participating. I don't know how recent or ongoing this study is.....

There seems to be varying degrees of 'perfect' pitch as well....some people can tell you what a note is and whether or not it is a little sharp or flat....others seem to possess the uncanny ability to tell you within a few cents how sharp or flat the note is. Amazing.

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 05:56 PM

Maybe what's genetic is the ability to learn and maintain "perfect pitch" -- perhaps even those with the inborn ability need to develop and maintain that ability by constant exercise. Not unlike athletic ability (?)

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 11:57 AM

"Perfect pitch" is a poor name for the ability to hear a note and give the name of it. It's rare. I once had a summer job with a music major who had perfect pitch. We were riding home on the bus one day, and something on the bus was emitting a very pure, high squeak. I, wondering if the brakes were about to fail, said "I wonder what that is." She said, "It's D."

That's perfect pitch. She was born with it.

When I was in high school, two of the music teachers tried to see if we could develop perfect pitch. Every once in a while they would say "Sing C!" and we would make a stab at it. It never worked. so perhaps people can cultivate perfect pitch, but I doubt it.

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: Torctgyd
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 12:10 PM

I remember watching a program on the tv and a man with perfect pitch was being interviewed. He claimed it was a curse rather than a gift.

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: Marje
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 12:35 PM

Yes, perfect pitch can be a curse. Those who have it tend to associate songs and tunes with their "proper" key, and if they know the original key or can see the music written on the staff, they find it uncomfortable to listen to the same tune played in a slightly different key, even though it is perfectly in tune within itself.

I think many of us could cultivate perfect pitch if we had a need for it. There are a couple of radio signature tunes whose pitch I can predict, and I daresay if I needed to, I could probably learn to recognise any note on hearing it. But it's not a skill that's needed or valued in our culture, and it could just be a nuisance, so we don't bother.

A singer or fiddler who performs unaccompanied will often use a slightly different pitching from the tempered scale they'd use if they were accompanied by a band. When it's done well, this is what makes the voice and the violin so special to listen to.

What I can't understand is all those guys you see taking ages to tune their guitars, fiddling around with electronic gizmos until their audience lose the will to live, and then singing with no sense of pitch or tuning whatever. Why can't they take the same care with their singing as they do with their instruments?

Marje

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 04:21 PM

"I think many of us could cultivate perfect pitch if we had a need for it. There are a couple of radio signature tunes whose pitch I can predict, and I daresay if I needed to, I could probably learn to recognise any note on hearing it."

   I believe this is very true. How many of us will spontaineously begin to sing a song that we are well able to sing, but start in a key somewhat higher or lower than we normally sing in? And then discover we are singing in the key we hear the song in on the CD changer or in the car radio. (Neil Young songs only sound right sung in the upper registers of "R" and thats where "Needle and The Damage Done" always seems to end up for me.) I can see how this could work as nmemonic for devolping perfectish if not perfect pitch.

Don

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 04:29 PM

I simply do not believe there is such a thing as "perfect pitch" in the sense of a note having an absolute pitch value - so many hertz.

Modern A is 440 Hz.

Medieval was 415 Hz. Which was or is "perfect"?

That being so, all pitch is a matter of convention.

The relationship between different notes, now that is another matter.

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 15 Dec 04 - 12:15 AM

"The relationship between different notes, now that is another matter. "

I think that is exactly right Richard. There was a time when A was different in different countries I have heard. We only know it is A because some said it was and everyone else paid attention. That A could could have been 441. It is the relation ship between identified tones that we hear as perfect. Any anyone who can hear that relation has perfect pitch.   And the name is assigned to that tone and is recognised by others could be A, B, C or even M, N, O, P.

IMHO

Don

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Dec 04 - 08:23 AM

The important thing is that the performer be in tune with two things: himself and the tune/song.

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: Marje
Date: 15 Dec 04 - 02:03 PM

When I say "perfect pitch" I mean an absolute memory for pitch. Someone who has perfect pitch can remember the pitch of a note and recognise it or reproduce again without reference to any other sound.

No one is suggesting that some people are born with an innate ability to say "Ah, that's B flat!" withoutever having heard one before. I know that what we now call A is relative, not absolute; but this doesn't alter the fact that some people can place or remember a note or a key quite precisely, in a way that most people can't. People who have refined this ability do notice if a piece is played in "early music pitch" rather than the slightly higher "concert pitch". They'd notice if a tune was played in a fractionally lower key in another country than the tuning they were used to. They'd definitely notice if "O come All Ye Faithful" was sung in F instead of in G if they'd normally heard it in G, even if it had been the previous Christmas. If you sang a Beatles song in a different key from the original, they'd spot it straight away.

Being able to compare two notes and know which is higher or lower is another thing altogether, and that's a matter of degree. If you can't do this at all, you're possibly "tone deaf" (although this is pretty rare). If you're good at it, you can hear micro-tones and can easily tune a guitar or fiddle by ear. But it's not the same as having perfect pitch.


Marje

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: GUEST,BIG ANDY
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 01:36 PM

1 in 10000 have it. It anoyed the conductor as South Heanly brass band. Mind you he couldn't hear if you were playing a lawn mower in the bass section

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: Pauline L
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 06:16 PM

The way I learned it, there are two kinds of pitch perception, relative and absolute. Relative pitch means that, given one note, you can discriminate other notes in relationship to it. Absolute pitch means that you can recognize the pitch of any note all by itself.

I'm a fiddler and I once tested myself for pitch with an audio oscillator. If I listened to a 440 A and then tried to reproduce the sound, I did it quite well, to somewhere within the error of measurement of the equipment. When I tried to produce a 440 A with no audible clues, I was not as good, but not bad, coming within 1 or 2 Hz of 440. These two tests would correspond to relative and absolute pitch, as I learned the terms, respectively. I learned to do both and I believe that I could improve my skill with practice.

I know someone who knows someone with a remarkable sense of pitch. You can place each of your 10 fingers on a piano key and play all the notes simultaneously, and she can tell you what each of the 10 notes is. Sometimes she's not sure which octave a note is in, but she's always sure of the note. She says that each note is associated witha particular color in her mind.

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 05:15 AM

While I have a mild sense of colour association with musical notes - rainbowing from red with bass to blue with higher (although that is probably mainly from association with 'colour organ light shows' from the 1970s!), I have a stronger association of smells and flavours with colours, especially when they are combined in a cooked dish.

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: Marje
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 11:59 AM

There was some research recently that claimed to have found that newborn babies often had perfect pitch (i.e. they could recognise the same note played on different occasions) but that they tended to lose the ability as they grew older.

This backs up my hunch that a lot of people could develop this skill if they needed it.

A young boy I know of was found to have this ability - someone was showing him a violin and played a note, saying "This is a B" (or possibly an E, anyway a named note) and he said "I know". When asked how he knew, he said, "I've got one on my trumpet." He was from a musical family and has no doubt retained the ability, as he has kept on with his musical activities.

marje

Subject: RE: Is he in tune?
From: Pauline L
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 12:27 PM

Pitch recognition is a complex subject discussed in many technical publications. With the risk of being labeled a dilettante, I'll share something I learned several years ago. I went to a talk given at the Kennedy Center as part of a Mozart festival. The speaker was a researcher in the area of pitch recognition and her findings were very interesting. Using the the audience as test subjects, she   played first a reference note, then a series of notes, and then asked the audience to select the note from the series which was the same as the reference note. We did it easily. She repeated the experiment but added a series of intervening notes after the reference note. At first, this had little or no effect on our ability to recognize the reference note, but, as she added more and more intervening notes, our success rate decreased radically.    She also presented some of her studies on pitch and genetics. She studied pitch perception in families and found a small but statistically significant correlation between left handedness and pitch recognition. She also studied people who had trouble distinguishing between right and left, as expressed verbally, but not as expressed nonverbally, i.e., pointing with the fingers. She found a small but statistically significant correlation between this trait and pitch perception. I know two sisters with this trait who are also quite musical. The friend who was with me at this talk said that his ex-wife had the same problem with right-left perception and they had once traced it back through several generations in her family. However, he had not studied pitch perception in these people. I wonder whether these findings are indicative of a right brain/left brain phenomenon. Any comments?