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Unless your tuning slide was all the way in (and everyone else's), your theory makes no sense. A simple push of that slide raises your pitch, regardless of weather conditions or temperature.

How you play in band can't "lower your tuning pitch." You should always check your open partial pitch against the piano before you begin.

How do you tune in band, and what is that you think your band director is doing to "lower your tuning pitch"???

I'm confused...people throughout the day were complaining they were flat but unable to do anything about it?

I think I get what he's saying. Do you mean that playing flat in band has affected how you hear tuning? So now you hear flat as in tune? That is a bit interesting.

But that's no excuse if you can't hear if you're in tune with the piano.

These don't lie...find out where your pitch is "pushed all the way in."

tubashaman wrote:

My roommate has perfect pitch, and is real good at tuning.

It seems to me that someone with "perfect pitch" and "real good tuning" would not have been flat during their jury, regardless of what your band director has done during rehearsals. It seems unlikely to me that any director would actually tune their ensemble to A=435. Who gives your tuning note before each rehearsal? Do they not use a tuner? If they do use one, has your director instructed them to set it to A=435?

-Brett

I forgot to mention in my first post...

I frequently use a tuner while I'm practicing. I use it so that I can learn where each note slots on my horn. That way, while I'm playing with an ensemble, I know wether I'm wrong, or someone else is wrong. I'll pretty much always lip it up or down/pull or push a slide to make intonation fit in with the ensemble, but at least I know wether or not it's my fault. That way, when I'm playing solo literature, I can rest assured that I know how to slot every note on my horn exactly in tune (not that I can actually do that, but it's always my goal to try). I've found that if I never use a tuner, and only use my ears while I'm playing in an ensemble, I pick up very bad habits (because I'll pretty much always change the pitch of my note, instead of just hanging out waiting for everyone else to tune to me.
Perhaps it's just my bad luck that most of the groups I've had the pleasure of playing with are not precisely in tune?

-Brett

Why don't you buy one of those things you can clip to your bell, and plug it into a tuner during band class? If it really is as bad as you say it is, have your director come and watch where you have to play to make it sound in tune. I would absolutely make sure that it is really happening before bringing it up to him, BUT if it really is happening, I would not hesitate at all to share my thoughts with him.

On a side note, I have played in brass quintets where the trumpets get really tired at the end, and start pushing the pitch sharp to compensate for their tired chops. So I go sharp with them. I have also played in some freelance groups that really don't have a pitch center, so you do the best you can with those closest to you. Bottom line is you have to be "in tune" no matter what. If the band plays flat, so should you. if the piano "feels" sharp, then sharp you go. Stay flexible!

If you practice as much as you should (and say you do), then it should far outweigh the amount of time you spend in rehearsals for band. Make sure you keep spot-checking yourself with pitch in your practices, and it shouldn't affect you. If anything, if you play in-tune in your practicing, and band plays flat, just pull out the slide and don't sweat it.

I find it interesting that you say the reason the band would be playing flat is because you're told to lower the thirds. The thirds are to be lowered a bit; 14 cents for a "perfect" major third, but that's as long as the root stays where it is, and the fifth goes up just a hair (two cents). The only way to accomplish this is to be listening the whole time. So, some people pull down, some bring it up, and some leave the note where it is.

Most of the bands I have played in bring the pitch down or up some way. I stay with the band, knowing that the pitch is off. When I'm playing with a piano, I go with the piano. If the pitch goes too far off, I might point it out, but I'd better be right. Even if I am, I sometimes don't, because some of the band directors I played under just won't listen to a "lowly student." As musicians, we need to be able to roll with the punches and handle whatever's thrown at us.

Nick

BopEuph wrote: The thirds are to be lowered a bit; 14 cents for a "perfect" major third, but that's as long as the root stays where it is, and the fifth goes up just a hair (two cents).

I've heard this a lot, and I was wondering if anyone had any idea where the basis is for the two-cent-wider fifth? I'm not arguing about the third, which obviously needs to be lowered, but, mathematically, aren't fifths going to be in tune with each right in tune with equal-temperament tuning? I've taken two tuners had one play a C and the other a G, and there's no beats at 440 for both, but when I move the tuner generating the G up two cents, it beats. Does anyone know anything about this subject?

Many band directors don't "sharpen" the fifths, but others do just a bit. If you can hear beats by adding only two cents, you have a good ear for this...you might want to get into piano tuning sometime.

There was an excellent seminar about ensemble tuning at the 2006 Midwest Band Clinic...you can find a pdf of it at http://midwestclinic.com/clinicianmater ... _south.pdf.

I believe the fundamental source of the discrepancy is the dichotomy of tuning that exists between the concept of chords as they exist in equal temperament versus their position in just intonation. In simpler terms, the sound of the chord where there are "no beats" would be the position in just intonation (pure) and the sound of a chord with the beats adjusts to equal temperament (adjusted). This is at the crux of all tuning issues, as the ear likes to go to the "pure"/no beats sound, yet we've not structured harmony in a manner that coexists, i.e., 12 equal steps to the octave. Just intonation octaves are smaller (flatter, if you will) than the equal temperament octaves. This is best displayed by tuning a piano (if you have access to one with which you can mess around). Start with a low C, then go up tuning each consecutive c to the just intonation/pure octave. Get about 5 octaves up and play that c with the low C. They won't be close.

Sorry, but one of the differences I've encountered between band conductors and orchestra conductors is the tendency of the band conductors to micromanage. Let's tune this note of this chord...you, now you, okay, add you...spending 15 minutes on a chord the audience won't hear for more than 3 seconds. Ridiculous.

Sound is flexible, and I've yet to get my hands on any instrument, tube or otherwise, that is permanently unsusceptible to variation. You've got to be flexible. It's a far greater skill to be able to sit with other people and be able to play in tune WITH THEM than the tuner.

As I mentioned, just octaves on a piano don't work. So let's take that image, and apply it to the orchestra. Strings tune their open strings closer to just fifths than equal fifths (if not entirely to just fifths). The natural harmonic tendency of brass instruments is just. How often do we honestly believe that the 5th row outside chair violin's open g is going to be at all in tune with a C trumpet's g? Too many variables. Have you ever heard an orchestra's strings take an A, then tune all their other strings, then play all their open strings in unison? It's usually pretty bad. The A sounds okay. Go to the D, oy. Go to the G, oy vey. The E's? Fuhgedaboudit.

It is far more important that you be able to blend and tune as you go. As a conductor, I'd rather have a tubist who can play WITH the trombones than sit back, play out of tune, and say, "Well, I'm sorry, but my tuner says my g's right on. It must be them."

Pitch and intonation is constantly fluid in an ensemble setting. Go with the flow.

Mitch, your contention about octaves on a piano not being the same all the way up and down the keyboard runs exactly opposite from my (albeit limited) piano tuning experience.

I was trained to set a temperment octave (A-A in my case, but it can vary) and then tune perfect octaves (no beats) up and down from the 12 chromatic notes in that octave.

Totally agree with you on being able to play with an ensemble and not just the tuner, however. My suggestion of the Korg to Mr. Green was merely an answer to his "theory."

tubashaman wrote:the piano was intune...

BTW, forget the rest, NO piano is "in tune"... equal tempered, maybe, "stretch"-tuned, maybe, but there are MANY different kinds of temprement, and probably MORE kinds of keyboard tuning.

Learn to use your ears, and not just your eyes.

Todd,

What you're saying makes perfect sense, but I'm talking about Just octaves versus Equal octaves. You're referring to tuning 12 notes to equal temperament, then tuning octaves from there. I'm referring to doing the octave all Just. In my haste, I realize I omitted that part, as well as failed to clarify something else.

Equal Temperament works because of the "equal part." It allows each pitch to function at an acceptible level of disintonation depending on scale degree/chord function. An F in a Just Intonation (centered on C) octave sounds way out in a Bb chord, but much further out in a Db chord. In Equal Temperament, it can function as a 1 in an F chord, a 5 in a Bb chord, and a 3 in a Db chord with some degree of tolerance.

That some directors have gotten a bee in their bonnet about trying to effect Just Intonation in an Equal Temperament system does disservice especially when it comes time to accompany a piano soloist. I also think that trying to effect Just Intonation in chords can make a group sound further out of tune, actually, as pitches must fluctuate constantly if you're using Just Intonation, for the reason mentioned above. An F would be changing pitch every time someone played it, depending on chord function. It also assumes, for one thing, that each member of the ensemble is consistently, unerringly aware of the chord function of each note they play. Not to mention the presence of passing tones...how will they tune those? It's the tool of the micromanager to waste rehearsal time on tuning chords. It's the proverbial, "Give them a note, and they're in tune for a day. Teach them to tune, and they're musicians."

Mitch wrote:Sorry, but one of the differences I've encountered between band conductors and orchestra conductors is the tendency of the band conductors to micromanage. Let's tune this note of this chord...you, now you, okay, add you...spending 15 minutes on a chord the audience won't hear for more than 3 seconds. Ridiculous.

Hear, hear!

I'm playing in a group (not my usual group) where the conductor does this. As he did so, I thought "band clinician", not "maestro".

He did something else that falls into the same category: He becomes a human metronome (snapping fingers, baton on the stand, etc.) constantly. If I can hear his beat, then I guess I don't need to watch him. If he's being clear with his stick, then he should insist that we watch him rather than giving us a crutch. I hope he uses the same tempi at the gig, because if he doesn't, I fear nobody will be looking. And then there's using florid descriptions of what he wants, spewed so fast that nobody can follow it. Even conductors who can't carry a tune in a bucket know how to make their point by singing it.

Surely tuning is a matter of context. And how can one tune a passing chord outside its context? Further, tuning by telling one person to sharpen or flatten fixes it in that moment, but does nothing to promote better tuning the next time around.

Grrrr!

It seems to me that one should tune for sound, not for fulfilling some theoretical description of proper tuning. If it sounds right, it's right. Usually (not always), chords sound right when they are played with just intonation, but one can achieve the sound without having ever heard of just intonation. I wonder if people are so used to playing the equal temperament needed to please their tuners that they don't know what just intonation sounds like. Teaching that sound is always useful, in my view.

But large ensembles are poorly suited to such training. The best place to learn that is in chamber music.

Joke: What is the definition of two flutes to a part?

Answer: A quarter tone.

But when there are three, things mix and you get a section sound rather than an individual sound, and hearing those relationships becomes more difficult (and less annoying when they are wrong).

Rick "who learned much more about intonation in brass quintet than in band" Denney

Rick Denney wrote:But large ensembles are poorly suited to such training. The best place to learn that is in chamber music.

Hear, hear! And yet, there should be no difference! I've been fortunate to play/sing in some really great sections within some really good groups. For those of you still in school, is your teacher/prof encouraging, if not mandating, that you play in tuba ensembles? Because when you do that well, you'll play as a section well. It's a great experience to play in a section where on a regular basis the section sounds like one player. The sections I played in at Illinois (Mickey Moore/Fritz Kaenzig) and Michigan (Fritz Kaenzig) were hardly ever, if EVER, told that we needed to fix our tuning. I think on occasion the director might've said something just to check in, given that it'd been weeks since he said anything to the section. Or maybe give us the hand...

When the instruction happens on the individual level, the ensemble rehearsals don't have to hang up on the minutiae. I happen to believe that every instrumentalist needs to spend significant time learning a keyboard instrument. I believe a great deal is to be learned from performing "all parts" simultaneously, versus a minimal awareness based on a single part only. The ability to blend, including timbre and pitch, cannot merely arise from the wishing. It must be based on the ability to hear vertically and horizontally simultaneously, a skill not taught most places, including some of the best schools. (I refer to the kind of vert. and horiz. listening that allows for, say, dication of all four parts of a Bach chorale of no less than 16 measures in a single hearing with complete accuracy.)

Sad to say (and I know some of you will disagree with me on this, but, so be it) many, if not most, musicians never achieve a true level of literacy, i.e., being able to hear in your head, accurately, without need for "getting a note" from a piano, everything you see on a page. When you open a book, do you need to have someone help you? Do you find yourself saying, "Hey...what sound does this thing make? A? Is that an A?" Do you find yourself sounding out h-u-r-d-l-e because you tripped over it when you read it the first time? Of course not. But a lot of people accept rhythmic inaccuracy when the answer's right on the page. A lot of people accept splats and chiffs as part of the beast. The way most of us were taught to read music was wrong. Essentially, we were taught to read c-a-t instead of "cat." Most of us were taught to spot-identify notes (i.e., third space is E, first line is G), which does nothing for the acquisition of pitch (hearing the pitch in your head every time, but not perfect pitch). If you've made the same mistake 3 times, it's not the horn, the mouthpiece or anything else, it's the READING of it.

So it's no wonder that some micromanage because THEY weren't taught the right way. They have nothing else to offer to change the situation. It's all the tail of the dog. Wait until it comes out, then try to correct it. Has it ever struck anyone else how backward this is? By the time it comes out, it's the end of the process. Everything else that makes the sound is over. So if the outcome is wrong, it's not the outcome that has to be changed, but the process. Yet most are about constantly working on the outcome, changing nothing of the process. I don't know if it's that large ensembles are poorly suited for the training, or that those in front of the large ensembles have been poorly trained.

There are a lot of "Harold Hill"s out there.

Charlie Goodman wrote:I've heard this a lot, and I was wondering if anyone had any idea where the basis is for the two-cent-wider fifth? I'm not arguing about the third, which obviously needs to be lowered, but, mathematically, aren't fifths going to be in tune with each right in tune with equal-temperament tuning? I've taken two tuners had one play a C and the other a G, and there's no beats at 440 for both, but when I move the tuner generating the G up two cents, it beats. Does anyone know anything about this subject?

Let's see if I can explain this without going too far into it:

Intervals were explained by the Pythagoreans in relation to a string's harmonic series, starting with octaves (1/2 is an octave, 1/4 is two octaves, and so on). Nowadays, we use frequency ratios to explain these notes. If the span of an octave is 2 (doubling the frequency of the root, or 1), a perfect fifth is 3/2. On a side note, this is how they came up with twelve notes in western harmony--the idea of the circle of fifths was how we came up with twelve tones (twelve perfect fifths spanning seven octaves, which is also why pianos span just over seven octaves).

So a perfect fifth is exactly 3/2 of the frequency of the root note.

In equal temperament, the frequency ratios were evened out exactly using 12√2. So, a chromatic scale looks like:

12√2^1 12√2^2 12√2^3 12√2^4 12√2^5 12√2^6
12√2^7 12√2^8 12√2^9 12√2^10 12√2^11 12√2^12

Since this was pretty confusing to look at, we have since developed the cents system, whereas in equal temperament, each semitone is exactly 100 cents apart, starting at 0 and the octave is at 1200.

Pythagorean tuning was based on the key being built on perfect fifths. With the need for more thirds and sixths, just intonation was based on perfect fifths as well, but also included "perfect" (major) thirds and sixths. With baroque theory and lots of chromatic needs, equal temperament was developed; it was the same distance to each semitone, which meant the perfect intervals of the fourth and fifth had to be adjusted as well.

Looking at a matrix of these three temperaments over a C major scale, you can see the difference of each. I had to use dots to make everything line up:

..................C........D........E........F........G........A........B........ C
Equal............0.......200......400.....500......700.....900.....1100.....1200
Pythagorean....0.......204......408.....498......702.....906.....1110.....1200
Just..............0.......204......386.....498......702.....884.....1088.....1200

Now, with all this said, unless you have trained your ear with lots of ear training, the untrained human ear can't hear a difference of about 4 cents. So, the two cents thing will only be heard by people with the best pitch.

There's a great book by Leon Harkleroad called "The Math Behind the Music."

http://www.amazon.com/Math-Behind-Music ... 0521009359" target="_blank"

It's very simply explained, and there's lots of good information on the connection of math and music.

How's that for a history lesson on pitch?

Sorry it's so brief; I'm not much of a lecturer.

Nick

[Image of Korg tuner/metronome]
These don't lie...find out where your pitch is "pushed all the way in."

Hmm . . . I once had a Korg CA-30 that had to be set to 439 to get the same reading that other CA-30's got at 440. I didn't think it was possible, but it performed consistently 1 Hz off in side-by-side tests.

GC wrote:I once had a Korg CA-30 that had to be set to 439 to get the same reading that other CA-30's got at 440. I didn't think it was possible, but it performed consistently 1 Hz off in side-by-side tests.

BopEuph, in the previous post, wrote:unless you have trained your ear with lots of ear training, the untrained human ear can't hear a difference of about 4 cents. So, the two cents thing will only be heard by people with the best pitch.

Sounds like a wash to me. Remember, a difference which makes no difference IS no difference.

GC wrote:

[Image of Korg tuner/metronome]
These don't lie...find out where your pitch is "pushed all the way in."

Hmm . . . I once had a Korg CA-30 that had to be set to 439 to get the same reading that other CA-30's got at 440. I didn't think it was possible, but it performed consistently 1 Hz off in side-by-side tests.

One of my students a few years ago had one, and I'm pretty sure it was the same model, that had to be set at something like 425 to get the right pitch. The store she got it from had no problem exchanging it for one that worked right. Methinks Korg is getting sloppy.

Nick

Todd S. Malicoate wrote:

GC wrote:I once had a Korg CA-30 that had to be set to 439 to get the same reading that other CA-30's got at 440. I didn't think it was possible, but it performed consistently 1 Hz off in side-by-side tests.

BopEuph, in the previous post, wrote:unless you have trained your ear with lots of ear training, the untrained human ear can't hear a difference of about 4 cents. So, the two cents thing will only be heard by people with the best pitch.

Sounds like a wash to me. Remember, a difference which makes no difference IS no difference.

I think you misunderstood. He was saying that his Korg was off by 1Hz, and he had to set it to A=439 to get the right tuning. That's a faulty tuner.

The difference from 439 to 440Hz is just under 4 cents (I believe). While almost indiscernible by the untrained human ear, a tuner WILL pick it up. You ever messed around with the tuning note on your metronome and held it to your tuner? It will tell the difference. It's actually a fun way to kill time while giving your chops a break in the shed.

Nick