Tuners: for you scientifically gifted people :-)

[smurphius]

I have a question.

I have just recently moved up in the world from my Korg CA-30 digital tuner to a Boss TU-12H analog tuner. Both of these tuners have digital processing hardware. What is strange, is that today, while doing my daily warm-up, I pulled out the tuner to tune some long tones. A couple of notes seemed to be picking up on my new tuner as a 5th above the note I was trying to play. I am going to assume that the tuner is just picking up overtones. My dinky one didn't do this. *shrug*

My question is then, if I am picking up an overtone of the pitch I'm physically playing, by tuning that pitch being picked up on the tuner, will the note I'm actually playing also then fall in tune??

Thanks, and Happy New Year to all!

[Rick Denney]

My question is then, if I am picking up an overtone of the pitch I'm physically playing, by tuning that pitch being picked up on the tuner, will the note I'm actually playing also then fall in tune??

It depends on how well in tune that overtone is on the instrument. I wouldn't depend on it.

It may also be a resonance in the room causing the effect. I wouldn't depend on the intonation of that, either.

Instead, I would play against a drone and tune to that. An electronic keyboard that can make a clean tone on pitch or an octave above it works well, and it trains your ears in the process. If you are in tune with the drone, but the tuner doesn't agree, then ignore the tuner on that note. Playing in tune means lining up with the ensemble, not lining up the needle on a tuner.

Rick "who distrusts electronic tuners even though he has several of them" Denney

[Scott Sutherland]

Hate to break it to you, but moving from the Korg was not stepping up in my opinion. The Korg CA-30 is a great tuner, and one of the best on the market (the CA-20, if you can find it, is even better, and only around $20). The only tuner I have found significantly better was a 12 window chromatic strobe tuner (about $3000-4000).

I completely agree with Rick about tuning to a drone. You'll hear many pros advocating this. Masterclasses I've participated in with Alan Baer, Gene Pokorny and Joe Alessi have all pushed drone practice for intonation improvement. Recently, I've started to use the Tune-up Systems by Steve Colley (tuneupsystems.com) together with my daily routine and it has definitely helped me in this area. Having the tonic drones going while playing through the Bill Bell Scales really keeps you honest, and is much more efficient than looking down at a tuner once in a while. Good luck!

[smurphius]

Hmm... Very great advice. I appreciate it!!

[MartyNeilan]

Using a clip on mic (or pickup) may also help, if the room reflecting overtones is part of the problem. I have found it useful in some situations when I kept getting overtones instead of a fundamental showing up on the tuner, or where there is noise or I want to sound a pitch while playing.
Some of it may even have to do with the tuba - I have noticed that my "colorful" sounding Martin and Cerveny F tend to display overtones on the tuner more often than my "strong fundamental" MW2145, which almost always shows up as the given note.
Here is a cheap solution you can try:

http://www.wwbw.com/Korg-CM100-i58252.music

[Chuck(G)]

Some of the very early Korg tuners would also register on harmonics, just like some of the strobo tuners. Not altogether a bad thing--it's a great ear-training aid that will let you know when you've got the right idea of a pure fifth.

[Dan Schultz]

Not 'zactly about your Korg question... but I bought a CenterPitch Tuner a couple of weeks ago and I really like it. I had to make a gizmo to stick in the lyre holder to attached the CenterPitch where I could see it but it's one heck of a rehearsal tool. I can now see exactly what my horn is doing without regard to what else is going on in the room. It seems very accurate. The response is very quick. Here's the link:

http://www.tuners.com/cp2.asp

[ThomasP]

In rehearsals often the conductor regularly drills into our heads that we shouldn't tune to a tone generator or pitch generator, like one found on a large metronome, or some tuners BECAUSE it has no overtones.

[Rick Denney]

In rehearsals often the conductor regularly drills into our heads that we shouldn't tune to a tone generator or pitch generator, like one found on a large metronome, or some tuners BECAUSE it has no overtones.

Well, if it's like the tone generator on the tuners I've owned, all it has are overtones. Those waveforms do not sound very clean, but perhaps it's the little piezo speaker that is at fault. The main problem is tuning a 110-Hz A to a 440-Hz A, especially when the 440-Hz fundamental is not strong.

Tuning to clean pitches produced by an electronic keyboard voice, on the other hand, or to a recorded drone on a CD, is no different than tuning to the trumpet player sitting in front of you, or the horn player on the other side of the room. When I tune to the horn, I'm not tuning to their overtones, but rather to whatever I can hear of their pitch fundamental pitch. The advanced form of this skill is learning how to adjust my pitch so that the note I'm playing in the chord is both true to the chord and to the other players who are playing other notes in that chord. That requires disagreement with a tuner (or with a keyboard), but agreement with one's well-trained ears.

Rick "who learns nothing from watching a needle" Denney

[ThomasP]

Classes start back next monday, 1-10, I'll ask him or one of the other directors who know him and his teachings well, why he say's its bad to tune to a tone generator, and more of a reason than because it contains no overtones....there has to be some reason, because the man is very well recognized in his field, and I'm sure either did the research or is receiving the information from someone who has, let me ask him and I'll see what I uncover.

[Art Hovey]

To answer your original question, yes. If your tone is clean and steady all of its overtones will be reliable for tuning in that they will be exact integer multiples of the fundamental frequency.
If that were not the case you would hear the harmonics wandering, and the tone would not be "steady". If one or more of the upper slots (partials) on your tuba is out of tune then that overtone will be weaker but will not be out of tune with the fundamental.
Obviously no electronic tuner can take the place of listening skills, but tuners are still useful tools.

[smurphius]

To answer your original question, yes. If your tone is clean and steady all of its overtones will be reliable for tuning in that they will be exact integer multiples of the fundamental frequency.
If that were not the case you would hear the harmonics wandering, and the tone would not be "steady". If one or more of the upper slots (partials) on your tuba is out of tune then that overtone will be weaker but will not be out of tune with the fundamental.
Obviously no electronic tuner can take the place of listening skills, but tuners are still useful tools.

thanks! i thought that i could tune the overtone and know that the pitch is in tune.

the main reason that i am using the tuner at all is that i have had a problem in the past of playing with the main tuning slide hanging very low. to combat that, i've had to work on sitting down with my horn, the slide pushed in considerably more than i was used to, and working to adjust my air speed to put the horn in tune. the visual concept of seeing the needle on the tuner was a very useful aid in that.

for that reason, i only have the tuner on for probably 10 minutes out of the 3 or 4 hours a day i practice. if i'm going to tune anything else beyond that, i will generally tune against a drone pitch.

for me it has helped substantially to use both ear training as well as have something visual. after all, we musicians have to use both the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere of our brains simultaneously to create music. the visual and aural variance acts as one more way to allow me to improve my musicianship.