Hey Makers, What's your tuning?

Lorenzo · Post by **Lorenzo** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 8:45 pm

The stretch is the distance a longer string will sway back and forth in the air, thereby losing it's correctness, producing an inaccurate pitch. Also, the octave stretch is called the progressive stretch up and down the keyboard...bringing (stretching) the strings and their octaves into accordance with the human ear.

Take a look at the two charts on this link...
http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/scales.html
It also talks about the choral vs. the piano thing.

You'll see the differences are not all the same. In fact, in the first chart it says "Fourth 4/3 = 1.3333 1.33483" Think how close that is. For all practical purposes, both are 1.33.

Lorenzo · Post by **Lorenzo** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 8:48 pm

ErikT wrote:The name sounds familiar, but I'm not sure that I know her. Was she from Anchorage or Fairbanks? Was she with Acoustic Adventures or Celtic Confussion?

I don't know her too well yet, here's her web page that tells all.
http://community-2.webtv.net/LauraLeaHa ... sPersonal/

ErikT · Post by **ErikT** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 9:08 pm

For those of you following Lorenzo's link, note that the Tuning shift Wav file is not a comparison between Just and ET. It is a comparison of a Chord played in the wrong temperament... in this case, the errors compound. The difference between any one note are not so pronounced. Rather, the slight waver heard on the 3rd note and 6th note of the second sample are more akin to this discussion.

p.s. (I don't think that Laura is the person I was thinking - we've likely never met)

Jerry Freeman · Post by **Jerry Freeman** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 9:11 pm

That's a great link, Lorenzo.

If anyone can come up with a similar chart that shows the differences between the notes of just intonation and equal tempered scales in cents, rather than in Hz, I would be most appreciative.

In the last MIDI file, if you listen carefully while the two scales are playing simultaneously, you can hear beats on the third and sixth, but not on the other notes (at least that's what I hear).

I was taught to practice matching pitches singing by getting something that will create a fairly pure tone (I used the "clarinet" setting on my toy keyboard) and sing right against the speaker as it sounds the note. You can both hear and feel the beats when you're a little off pitch, and you can feel the two sounds merge when you're spot on.

As you get familiar with what that sounds/feels like, you get to where you can do the same thing in a chorus with the other voices. When everyone in the chorus is doing that, the sound and feeling of singing together turns magical.

Best wishes,
Jerry

Edited to add: It looks like Erik and I were typing simultaneously and heard the same things.

ErikT · Post by **ErikT** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 9:17 pm

I've got that here somewhere, Jerry.

Until I find it, here's another great site to chew on... I don't think that Thomas posted this one: http://www.rdrop.com/~tblackb/music/temperament/
http://www.rdrop.com/users/tblackb/musi ... stoess.htm
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hb ... percn.html
http://www.justintonation.net/
http://sunsite.univie.ac.at/musicfun/tunexamples/

I could have sworn that I've got the cents difference around here somewhere... haven't found it yet but I suspect that it's in the rdrop site.

Erik

Brian Lee · Post by **Brian Lee** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 9:21 pm

This thread has taken an interesting turn, but I'm afraid it's been taken WAY further than I was looking for. I was simply curious to know what the active makers on this board use to tune their whistles as it was mentioned on the other board that they were tuned to Just temperment instead of equal. I thought they were all equal, and it sounds like at least one of our makers uses equal and not just as was stated on the uilleann board...

ErikT · Post by **ErikT** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 9:27 pm

Ah! Here it is in cents, Jerry: http://www.rdrop.com/users/tblackb/musi ... t_Just.htm

Use the bottom graph and remember that the whistle only uses 7 notes. (For those that don't understand the graph: use only these points: 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12 for comparing to a diatonic instrument, ie. the whistle).

It looks like you're right Jerry; the largest deviation appears to be around 13 on the 3rd and 6th. (as opposed to the 11 that I proposed earlier).

Sorry to swerve your thread, Brian. There are many makers that use equal temperament, but of the makers of which I'm aware only Renaldo offers it standard.

Brian Lee · Post by **Brian Lee** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 9:31 pm

No appologies needed Erik. I'm just trying to sort the mysteries of the universe here...

Lorenzo · Post by **Lorenzo** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 9:40 pm

That second link was a good one Erik, esp in the middle and towards the end.

Brian, I think it's important for everyone who is either tuning, making, or playing whistles to understand all this. It's all inseperable. You'd be surprised at how many I've run into who assume that some notes in the two scales are off by as much as a quarter step. Amazing!

I'd hate to play in a band if a whistle was tuned to "just" unless the players had a whistle for every key and could switch smoothly while in sets of 3 going from C to D then A.

Whoops...gotta run, late for a gig. I'll read your latest later.

Jerry Freeman · Post by **Jerry Freeman** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 9:46 pm

http://www.justintonation.net/sound/sequence_II.mp3

Lorenzo, here's a clip that demonstrates that a piano can be tuned to just intonation. This particular just intonation (there can be virtually unlimited variations based on which fractional values you want to use for the intervals) is more exotic than the one we're talking about, but you can certainly hear the effect.

http://www.newmusicbox.com/32/audio/harrison1.ram
(takes awhile to load) and

http://www.newmusicbox.com/32/audio/harrison2.ram

Here's a page with info about the pianist:
http://www.michaelharrison.com/recordings.html

Jerry Freeman · Post by **Jerry Freeman** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 11:56 pm

Here's the chromatic equal temperament scale in cents (second column) and the "errors compared to just intonation" (third column). The number in the third column is the number of cents the equal temperament note is higher or lower than the just intonation note.

C.......0.......0
C#...100...-12
D.....200....-4
Eb....300...-16
E......400..+14
F......500...+2
F#....600..+10
G......700...-2
Ab....800...-14
A......900..+16
Bb...1000..+4
B.....1100.+12
c.....1200.....0

So it looks like the third, sixth and seventh are significantly different. That would explain the fact that I've been finding a lot of whistles that a tuner shows flat on the sixth and seventh notes, but sound fine to my ear.

Best wishes,
Jerry

Zubivka · Post by **Zubivka** » Sun Feb 08, 2004 1:50 am

I did some calculations myself. My findings differ (by a couple cents) from the values posted above, because I assumed some reference like a pitch fork was needed. Hence the A was set at 440 Hz whatever the tuning.

Anyway, what appears clearly is:

1) If you tune a whistle to equal temperament, the F# will be systematically too sharp compared to the just tuned D scale, but also just-tuned G scale and just-tuned A scale.
The E will be even wronger (sharp), but this only compared to a just-tuned G scale.

2) If you tune a whistle to a just D scale, then only one tone gets wrong for G and A scales : the E gets sharp for G scale (but not significantly more than it would be on an equal-tempered whistle), and the B gets quite flat in A scale.

3) It would seem that the just-tuned D-scale whistle would not behave worse in G and A scales than the equal-tempered one.

For the details of these calculations, and the values retained, see my old post: http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=12517

Edited to ad the following, after more tinkering with my calculations.

The just-tuning conspiration
What they always covered up about how just is just and you just never had the guts to investigate

Legitimate question: with a standard (D) whistle, we do not play only in D, but also in G an A--and this, to limit the debates to the Major modes (considering minors B, E are relative to Major D, G).

So, should the standard whistle be tuned "just" for D, G, or A diatonic scales?
D tuning: the G scale gets a noticeably sharp E (+ ca. 20 cents); the A scale is flat (by the exact same twentyish cents absolute value) on B...
G tuning: quite logically, the D scale reverses the mistake on the E, which gets flat by 20 cents; now the A scale gets flat by same 20 cents on both E and B.
A tuning: just the mirror of G tuning. The D scale is sharp on E, while the G scale gets sharp on both E and B.

Conclusion? Since I can bend up only flat notes...
The only "just tuned" whistle suitable for ITM (and not only D tunes) should be tuned to optimize the G scale, not the D scale.

Or (WhOA with you!) one should have THREE just-tempered whistles per bell tone. At least three, of course: there are many minor A tunes, which is relative to C-Major

Meta-conclusion: just-tuning was invented by whistlesmiths to sell you more whistles, now that you thought yourself all-set with a a full range covering every 12 tones.

It's alright, Ma', I'm only whoaing...

Brian Lee · Post by **Brian Lee** » Sun Feb 08, 2004 9:19 am

This thread is fascinating - and as Tony pointed out, important to know. But so far I've only heard from one maker I think (Bill right?) who answered my original question. Simply put, when you set out to make, tune and voice a new whistle (of any key) and send it off to someone for purchase, what scale are you using to tune to?

Equal?

Just?

Or something else entirely??

B~

Reyburnwhistles · Post by **Reyburnwhistles** » Sun Feb 08, 2004 1:16 pm

Brian,
I always tune in "Equal Temperament" unless specifically asked to tune in Just. Which by the way is my favorite. The tune on my home page, which is played by Tony Higgins on a Low D, is in Just. Jerry thats a very nice conversion chart you offered, but an easier way is to use a Korg multi-temperament tuner, which is what I use. It offers 5 different temperaments and you can also program in your own.

Ronaldo

Jerry Freeman · Post by **Jerry Freeman** » Sun Feb 08, 2004 1:27 pm

Hi, Ronaldo.

I have an older version (2.46) of the Tuner_e Japanese tuner freeware that provides both equal and just displays side by side. For some reason, the newest version (2.50) of that software doesn't have the just intonation feature.

The older version (2.46), including the just intonation feature, can be downloaded here:

http://musiced.net/westlake/Downloads/tuner.html

The homepage for Tuner_e and related freeware is here:

http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~tuner/tuner_e.html

Best wishes,
Jerry