From: "John Kilpatrick"
Subject: Re: [CB] [CB Digest]
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 12:45:33 +0100
> So on to my question: Besides "tempered" (think
Bach's "Wohltempiert
> Klavier"), what are the other intonation systems used in
music -- I'm thinking
> primarily Western music -- and what are the characteristics
of them? For
> example, "raise the leading tone", etc.
> Eric in
> MN
In early music circles non-equal temperaments are much favoured.
The simplest is meantone (try a google for "meantone temperament"), in
which, typically, the central major thirds are perfect (frequency ratio
4:3, or 1.25 compared with equal temperament 1.259921) and the
fifths narrow (1.477721 v. 1.498307), and in which G# is flatter than
Ab - usually the note is tuned to G#. Play Louis Couperin's F#minor
Pavan in this, and the C# major chords sound very astringent, because
the keyboard F is much sharper than E# would be.
For a more commonly used temperament, search for "Werkmeister
temperament". Some people have devoted time to "proving" that Bach was
a mathematician - or, perhaps, a numerologist - and that temperaments
should have superstitions and exactitudes built into them, like 3 just
fifths (ratio1.5)
representing the Trinity. Personally, I believe that all those
early owners of instruments and their tuners (like the huge number of
people owning virginals as observed in the Fire of London by Pepys)
couldn't all have been mathematicians, were probably not obsessed with
magic numbers, may have found beats difficult to hear, and certainly
didn't own electronic tuners; they were more likely to narrow the
central 5ths (say F-C-G-D-A-E-B) a little by ear and widen the
others to make up for it, thereby getting nicer sounding 3rds in the
central keys.
As for "raise the leading tone", singers may tend to end flat on
a sequence G-B-C, or even C-B-C, and that dictum may help them avoid
doing so. To my mind, though, it's ridiculous, like tuning the top
notes of a piano sharp, or playing a fugue on a quint stop. Why not hit
every note in what sounds like the middle? even if there are problems
in the mathematical definition thereof. [For what it's worth, meantone
makes the central leading notes flat, not sharp.]
I'd be interested to know how many people think "well-tempered"
means "equal", and how many think it means something else.
Are any finger-hole wind instruments deliberately made to
non-equal temperament?
John Kilpatrick
---------------------------------------------------------
From: "Sarah Cordish"
Subject: [CB] Temperaments.
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 16:04:38 +0200
Hi, John,
The dulcian is tuned to 'mean tone'; and the 'f's and 'b'
naturals sound funny to someone used to modern temperament. But
the player can blow these up or down to fit into a modern pitch
ensemble.
I once talked a clarinettist into playing with me on dulcian
tuned to a=440 mean tone. When he heard the tuning of my dulcian
he first wanted to kill me; but we got it together after a while by my
playing high and low where necessary.
I thought it was great practice. The clarinet can 'bend'
its tuning a little bit, too.
Sarah
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Kilpatrick"
Sent: Monday, October 04, 2004 1:45 PM
Subject: Re: [CB] [CB Digest]
> Are any finger-hole wind instruments deliberately made to
non-equal
> temperament?
---------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [CB] temperaments - plain text version
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 09:26:22 -0600
From: "Bryan Bingham"
Recorders can be tuned by their makers to a non-equal
temperament. This is most often done on Renaissance-style instruments
made in consorts - the Moeck factory-made Renaissance consort series
can be ordered with a kind of meantone tuning - in fact for the largest
sizes (contra and great-bass) that is the only tuning you can get. The
big boys are not loud and the minute differences in pitch really don't
matter if you want to play them with equal-temperament instruments -
the player just blows a little harder or softer. But the perfect thirds
are wonderful. Handmade baroque reproduction instruments can also be
tuned anyway the player wants by the maker, but usually the player
simply adjusts to match whatever the harpsichord or
dulcian/basson/gamba is doing.
Roland makes digital harpsichords and organs that play at
various temperaments with the touch of a key. It's fun to hear the
difference the tuning can make. The free program Scala will let you
experiement with temperaments, check it out.
B2
---------------------------------------------------------
From: "Lelia Loban"
Subject: [CB] The real planet drum
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 11:58:42 -0400
According to a story in the Knight Ridder Tribune (as reported
in the "Science Notebook" on p. A9 of the October 4, 2004, issue of the
Washington Post), scientists in Japan and California have located the
source of "a mysterious hum that reverberates through Earth, too low
for human ears to hear. . . . The hum, they say, starts in the oceans,
when winter storms whip the waves into a frenzy. 'These waves
interact with each other to create longer waves that reach deep into
the ocean, all the way to the ocean floor,' said Barbara Romanowicz, a
seismologist at the University of California at Berkeley.
"It is the thumping of those waves on the bottom, like the
pounding of a drum, that sets Earth vibrating in a phenomenon known as
free oscillation, she said. . . . The hum . . . consists of long, slow
seismic waves that raise the ground by a fraction of an inch as they go
by. It takes five minutes for two of these waves to pass a given
point. . . . In musical terms, the sound would be about 16 octaves
below middle C."
Lelia Loban
America can do better: Kerry and Edwards in 2004!
---------------------------------------------------------
From: "S J P"
Subject: RE: [CB] The real planet drum
Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 12:38:31 -0500
Very interesting. I'm fascinated by that stuff. So
it actually raises the ground level?! Whoa.
SPencer
---------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 12:34:48 -0700
From: Craig
Subject: Re: [CB] [CB Digest]
I read somewhere that 'well temperament' was a precursor to
equal temperament, the difference being that well temperament is done
by judging the sound of various intervals rather than counting beats. I
once heard a piano tuner 'adjust' his otherwise equal temperament,
explaining that the more 'common' intervals would sound sweeter at the
expense of other intervals that were dissonant anyway. It seemed
to work as claimed, though I never heard the piano in question played
in all 24 keys...
By the way, the worst errors in equal temp (relative to just)
are the minor second and major 7th. Yes, the minor second is even worse
(three beats per second in the middle octave) than it has to be.
Shudder...
Fortunately, temperament is of little consequence in the
register we prefer. Any frequency error is going to produce a beat
interval of seconds to minutes or longer. The worst result would
probably be an unintentional 'hollow' sound as a result of partial
phase cancellation.
Regarding the temperament of woodwinds: I have a bass clarinet
that seems to be set to something other than A=440. Being wood, it can
be very temperamental.
Craig
---------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 13:00:08 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: RE: [CB] The real planet drum
From: Dave Richoux
About 25 years ago there was a worldwide project to play along
with the Earth-Hum that some scientists had discovered back then.
Something about the turning motion of the planet generating a low (very
low) Eb tone. As I recall the event it happened on the Summer Equinox
and went on for 24 hours (starting at 0000 GMT) and musicians gathered
in various cities to play synthizers and acoustic instruments of all
sorts. I had an Eb sousaphone and used that in the San Jose, CA
gathering. There were maybe 25 people there including the head of the
San Jose State Electronic Music Department (Dr. Allen Strange - he
might still be there)
I cannot remember the exact name or date for this event and have
not found anything on the Internet, but it DID happen!
Dave Richoux
> Very interesting. I'm fascinated by that stuff.
So it actually raises the
> ground level?! Whoa.
> SPencer
>>According to a story in the Knight Ridder Tribune (as reported
in the
>>"Science Notebook" on p. A9 of the October 4, 2004,
issue of the Washington
>>Post), scientists in Japan and California have located
the source of "a
>>mysterious hum that reverberates through Earth, too low
for human ears to
>>hear. . . . The hum, they say, starts in the oceans,
when winter storms
>>whip the waves into a frenzy. 'These waves
interact with each other to
>>create longer waves that reach deep into the ocean, all
the way to the
>>ocean floor,' said Barbara Romanowicz, a seismologist at
the University of
>>California at Berkeley.
---------------------------------------------------------
From: "Dan Kunz"
Subject: RE: [CB] The real planet drum
Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 17:06:38 -0400
hi all -- an interesting point. 14 octaves below middle c
is about .0078125. 7.83 is considered the resident frequency of
the earth (schumann resonance). it is the vibrational frequency
that emminates from super deep wells or bore holes. overly simply
put the schumann resonance is the harmonic frequency between "space"
and the surface of the earth. it is concievable that the
frequency is actually that of earth bouncing off the ionisphere.
7.83 has been used as a frequency in metaphysical sound healing since
it was "discovered". there has been debate that the schumann
frequency is changing (getting higher -- some say to nearly 10), but
little mathematical evidence has been forthcoming. further, the
myans and egyptians used 8 as their basic mathematical foundation --
interesting that they would get so close. many things to
ponder. dan kunz
---------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 17:39:13 -0400
From: John Arbo
Subject: Re: [CB] The real planet drum
I suppose the lowest pitch extant is the expansion/contraction
cycle of the universe - thoughthink the jury is out as to whether the
big bang theory has a point at which expansion stops, then contraction
starts and ends in another big bang, etc. If that's the case it's
one cycle per every 30 or 40 billion years.
***End of Contrabass Digest***