troll / trigger (topic: tuning...again)

[windshieldbug]

2. Still use "just" tuning. The differences between it and the piano are smaller than the stretch and piano-tuned errors.
Plus: "no beats within sections. if the piano is playing, typically one plays underneath it."

[arpthark]

Oh man. I am so very tempted to use those warning words at the bottom of your post, bloke. The mathematics of tuning and temperament are so fascinating to me and I've done a lot of research on the subject. I view tuning/temperament as perhaps the most overtly applicable instance of practical music theory that musicians utilize, often without even really realizing it.

Not an answer, but a question: how much of what we hear on the radio are pianos (etc.) that are not tuned by hand, but are instead entirely electronic? Is there a discernible difference between intonation on a really finely-tuned piano and an electronic one?

In short, probably yes.

[Rick Denney]

Again,
If there is a piano concerto being performed, the piano and four woodwinds are playing this chord together, and the woodwinds tune the chord to "eliminate all the beats", who wins?

The woodwinds. The piano is a percussion instrument. The sense of its pitch after the key is struck fades quickly in listener's ears, particularly with orchestral accompaniment, even if the piano player doesn't lift his fingers. The beats on a piano are not so easy to hear, but the beats from those three woodwind players will be a lot more obvious. They would be more obvious still if they were brass players accompanying the piano.

Also, piano overtones in any given chord--even a major triad--are so thick that it gives a section effect: 15 violin players all using vibrato can cover up intonation problems because the beats will be buried. A piano playing three notes will usually have 9 strings in effect, each providing the complex overtone structure of the soundboard. But three clarinet or (especially) trumpet or trombone players--the beats will be extremely apparent.

Whether the flutes and tubas are in tune with each other when both are tuning to the piano (and within their sections), is another matter, and that's where the stretch comes into effect, it seems to me.

Rick "there's a problem in there somewhere" Denney

[Michael Bush]

If the brass section plays a free-of-beats D-minor chord in 2nd inversion (A in the bass), and - at the instant of their release - the woodwinds come in softly with this resonance of stacked fifths, do the woodwind players - that play the same pitches as the brass had played (the F, D, and A...particularly, the D and A) - match the pitches of the brass, or do the woodwinds (entering out-of-tune with the brass) stretch the 5th's to avoid the beats?

Not as off topic as the relative merits of 60 year old Chevys, but maybe a little: Do groups of musicians in the ensembles you play in get together and make decisions about this kind of thing? Or do they focus more or less individually on making the entrance sound as good as possible and work out the intonation as best they can as quickly as possible based on what comes out and what they hear around them? (...like my amateur hack self and most of the people I play with.)

(This is a perfectly sincere and straightforward question, by the way. I have exactly zero experience in quality professional ensembles. I don't know what the creatures who inhabit them might do. It wouldn't surprise me either way. Just wondering.)

[windshieldbug]

...but where does the rubber REALLY meet the road...??

In your ears, and most of the rest of this is an attempt to explain why what sounds best doesn't match what electronic tuners read out... regardless of the TYPE of intonation it's set to.

Tuning is never static. Strings and tuned percussion are almost always tuned sharp for PROJECTION.
Us back row denizen just have to hold on and make it sound as best we can...

[imperialbari]

Random remarks.

Lee Konitz was blamed for tuning sharp in the Kenton Orchestra. He countered that this was the only way to make his lead alto line heard among the dense lows (2 baritone saxes, bassbone, tuba).

I like the idea of slightly stretched octaves. So when I 2 years ago got a quite good digital piano (Kawai CA-97), I set the tuning parameters to stretched. And ran into severe problems with my ears. Fifths and octaves were fine. but major thirds were shudderingly horrible with strong beatings. So I set the parameters to Normal, which is still stretched in the outer ranges, but the thirds became very much kinder.

bloke has talked about the guitar being a nightmare when it comes to tuning. At a much less ambitious level I also have taken up plucked strings despite arthritic hands. I have reduced 6 strings to 4 by mostly playing varying sizes of ukuleles with my own shapes of jazz chords. Never pure triads but for tuning controls. Never plain dominant 7th chords, always the 9th or the 13th in the mix. Especially one of my ukes is pretty good, and tuning it with the Peterson Strobotuner on my phone, did not give very good results. Tuning strings to the 5th fret by means of the strobotuner worked better, but still not really good. Guitarists work with sweetened tunings, where strings are tuned a few cents off at purpose. Not intuitive enough for me. So when one of the main problems was about the fifths between 3rds and major 7ths being funny, I took a different road. Tuning the 3rd string at its 5th fret by means of the strobotuner gives a good reference. And then I tune the other strings by means of selected fifths, so that they have no beatings. The result does not match the strobotuner’s perception of perfect, but it works pretty good in all keys around the circle of fifths.

On brasses I prefer playing in all keys for reasons of intonation, of smoothness and evenness between notes, and of sightreading.

To make sure I can play in tune in all keys, I play a certain hymn by Carl Nielsen in chromatic increments up and down through my full range. It is the theme of the 3rd movement of his wind quintet. Very revealing. That listening exercise also makes it easier playing in tune in a section.

I have played in two good brass bands. One was always well in tune, but was a bit more conservative in repertory. The other strived to be on the front edge in selection of modern repertory, but was not well in tune despite the members speaking of their own good ears. Then that band played Elgar Howarth’s arrangement of Byrd’s The Earl of Oxford’s March, and everything suddenly was in tune. Ears were good, only band members weren’t sufficiently trained in what to listen for in modern music.

Klaus

[imperialbari]

Many years ago I came in early music circles. For baroque music they claimed the soloist’s vibrato had to dive from the pitch center and down, never above. To me it sounded like the melody was played flat. Still does.

Klaus

[MaryAnn]

Since I now play only in community groups, there is basically nothing to tune "to," and I sit back and have a good time exercising my chops. But back when I played violin with piano accompaniment, I played with the piano's pitches. Back when I played in half decent string quartets, we definitely were using the closest we could get to just intonation. I have yet to play in an amateur brass quintet that has a clue. Even now, if there happen to be just two pitches going on on in brass band and I am one of them, I will make the fifth a true perfect fifth; when I was 2nd horn and playing in harmony with 1st horn, I played as closely as I could get to no beats. Luckily that particular 1st horn played quite well in tune. So that didn't answer your question but whatever.

[TheGoyWonder]

Piano can get away with a fair bit because it plays in a more trebly, percussive, plinky sonic space than band instruments. With violins it must get harder.

If piano benefits from stretch tuning (has a harmonic that corresponds to an octave and is sharp), what other instruments suffer from this malady?