tuneupsystems

[Tubazen]

Has anyone out there had problems getting the tuneup systems discs as recommended in a masterclass I attended by Gene Pokorny.I have paid up but after the initial e-mail conversation by e-mail with steve at tuneupsystems all correspondence has remained unanswered and no discs have arrived

[ThomasP]

It was slow getting to me when I ordered mine a year ago.

[anonymous4]

Where can I purchase this that you speak of??

Thanks!

[corbasse]

I tried ordering it last year, but gave up after a complete lack of reaction to my emails....

[chhite]

Steve got back with me very quickly and I had my copy within a week. His website is www.tuneupsystems.com. His email is info@tuneupsystems.com. Good luck with it.

[MaryAnn]

I'm not sure about its being just as effective. What Steve's system does is teach you just intonation rather than tempered intonation. There is a WORLD of difference. With just intonation, there are no beats in the chords, and you can get sympathetic resonances. There is nothing more beautiful than perfectly-in-tune just intonation chords. If you use a tuner to set up your CDs, you have entirely missed the point and are teaching yourself the wrong thing.

I agree Steve is inconsistent. But his product is one of a kind.

MA

[MaryAnn]

And what is Pythagorian tuning? something that has to do with squaring a, b, and c?

MA

[Tubazen]

Thanks for the feedback,it's given me lots of food for thought.I will pursue my order and look at the alternatives on offer(any links welcome).
Mike I'll give you a call.

[MaryAnn]

Thanks for the treatise. I'll start saying Pythagorean instead of Just, from now on. Where I run into a problem is playing in, for example, my brass quintet, in which two of the members believe they are playing in tune when in fact the beats make the chandelier rattle. One of them will pull out a tuner and clip it to the bell....and when I, every once in a while, can take it no longer and stop them and make them build a chord from the root "up" (as tuba I generally have the root) they act like I'm on some Napoleon trip and they apparently either can't hear the difference, or more likely, can hear the difference but it doesn't mean anything to them, that is, it doesn't "sound" any "better" in tune than it did before, just different.

How do you deal with that? These people are in their 50's and 60's. This kind of thing is a constant in the groups I play in, which are of necessity amateur groups.

MA

[ThomasDodd]

How do you deal with that? These people are in their 50's and 60's. This kind of thing is a constant in the groups I play in, which are of necessity amateur groups.

You'll need to find somone they restect and admire, probably in his 80's, that agrees with you. They were taught incorrectly, and are not likely to listen to you. Old dog and new tricks.

Or try one at a time. It'll take work but you can probably get there.

You need a way to get them to hear the difference first, then once you convince there is a difference and which is better, you can show them the tuner is not always right.

Tuning a guitar chord by ear, then checking each note with a tuner is a good demonstration. You can easily change chords. You'll have fixed intonation. And you can demonstrate each part of the chord easily. It's harder to do when they have to listen and generate the notes, it's also hard to get them to play the same pitch alone and in the chord.

[MaryAnn]

I did the guitar thing many years ago in a bluegrass band I was in....I woudl retune the guitar when I played it so that the chords were as in-tune as you could get them (fretted instrument; can't get it perfect) ... and the owner of the instrument would get very angry at me and re-tune it back to its previously horribly beating state, because that was what he thought it was supposed to sound like. I had to give up on that one. What was weird was that he sang in tune, so there wasn't anything "wrong" with his ear, just his concept.

Old timey fiddle players always play on the bottom of the pitch, too; I had to learn to do that in order to sound "authentic."

MA

[ThomasDodd]

I did the guitar thing many years ago in a bluegrass band I was in....I woudl retune the guitar when I played it so that the chords were as in-tune as you could get them (fretted instrument; can't get it perfect) What was weird was that he sang in tune, so there wasn't anything "wrong" with his ear, just his concept.

You'd have to retune for each chord to get it "right".

But, yeah, most people are used to the wrong sounds. Find a "tuned" piano. Blay all the major triads. They don't all sound as good. I think the minor triads are even worse, on the whole.

But a guitar is esy to tune, and illustrate the differences in a good sounding 3rd and 5th, compared to what the tuner says is in tune.

Wether they care or not, is more difficult to effect.

[Chuck(G)]

Here's something else from the Harry Partch website:

Just Intonation is the system of tuning pitches to the simplest (and most beautiful) possible intervals. This simplicity may be both appreciated aurally, since the just-intoned intervals are strikingly clear and consonant; and understood conceptually since the intervals can be defined in terms of simple arithmetical relationships.

Perhaps, for some readers, a bit of basic acoustics would be useful at this point. All pitch relationships (intervals) may be described by a comparison of the relative speeds of vibration of the individual pitches. Imagine any two voices or instruments. One plays a pitch that vibrates 770 cycles per second and the other plays a pitch that vibrates 392 cycles per second. The relationship between the two pitches is 770 to 392 which is reducible to 55 to 28---a fairly dissonant interval that sounds like a very large major seventh. Now magine the same two instruments playing 800 and 400 cycles per second respectively.

800 to 400 or 800/400 is reducible to 2/1 which is alled the octave, a very consonant interval. All intervals, from the octave to the most dissonant, may be defined by such fractional relationships. Generally, it may be said that the simplest fractional relationships sound the most consonant, and the most complex relationships sound the most dissonant. In Just Intonation, the perfect fifth is 3/2, the perfect fourth is 4/3, the major third is 5/4, the minor third is 6/5, etc.

Just Intonation is not the system used to tune instruments in current Western culture. These small-number-ratio intervals do not exist on the piano or other Western fixed-pitch instruments, as well as in virtually all Western music of the last couple centuries. In the current Western tuning system of 12-tone Equal Temperament, the octave is divided into twelve equal intervals which must be at least slightly out of tune in order to accomplish the desired equality.

The reason that equality necessitates "out of tuneness" may be understood by further examination of the multiplicative, not additive, nature of pitch relationships. As music theory is commonly taught, one adds and subtracts pitches to and from one another: i.e. a major third plus a minor third equals a perfect fifth. This language of common music theory is cleverly designed to obscure (in the name of simplicity) the actual multiplicative relationships of intervals by having the musician add exponential values without necessarily
understanding that one is even dealing with exponents. In 12-tone Equal Temperament, the smallest interval (minor second) must be of a size that will produce an octave (2/1) when multiplied by itself 12 times. The equal-tempered minor second is the twelfth root of 2 or 21/12, the major second equals 21/6, the minor third equals 21/4, the major third equals 21/3, etc. The musician who thinks an equal-tempered major third plus a minor third equals a perfect fifth is actually expressing: 21/3 X 21/4 = 21/3+1/4 = 23/12+4/12 = 27/12. And thus musicians, many of whose mathematical abilities stop at counting, can innocently practice logarithms.

In Just Intonation, on the other hand, the math is much simpler. One multiplies a major third by a minor third to obtain a perfect fifth: 5/4 X 6/5 = 3/2 (perfect fifth). One divides a perfect fourth by a major third to obtain a minor second: 4/3 ÷ 5/4 = 16/15. Compared to 3/2 and 16/15, 27/12 and 21/12 sound unfocused. For anyone who has the opportunity to make an aural comparison, the just-intoned intervals will be clearer and more consonant than the equal-tempered. This doesn't mean that all just-intoned music will be consonant. Unlike 12-tone Equal Temperament, Just Intonation is an open system to which any number of tones may be added.

If you're at all familiar with Partch's work, you can appreciate the idea of the "open" system.