The Logic Off Topic list

Hi All,
I think we ought to take the "tuning debate " to the OT list- very
interesting though it is.

So this:-

Xeno Said.......

"And, by the way: if ALL chords would sound perfectly in tune, do you have
an idea of how terribly boring and monotone that would be? Typical
"dissonant"
interval would become perfectly "consonant", thus making the whole balance
of the harmonic system fall apart ...

> The electronic tuner tells you 100% of what your ears would have
> told you anyway.

No, the electronic tuner does not necessarily tells you what your ear do:
ears react to "pure" intervals, the tuner to a mathematical formula, such
as the inverse 12th root of 2 in order to define a half tone interval
.. the tempered scale of the tuner is an artificial creation which destroys
the natural difference there would be between, say, a G# and a Ab ...
Of course, good violin players and singers know better than that.

Many years ago (more than 10) I got VERY involved with the tuning problem,
and
I ended up with this conclusion: either you manage to live with the "piano
tuning" compromise, or you have to go as far as using a 53 interval per
octave
system: this has been demonstrated as being the only one which can really
allow
you to play any of our commonly used interval with a 1-2 cent accuracy
(which
is the minimal theresold of a very good trained ear) and modulate in all
tonalities - only that the tonalities are in this case as many as 106 (53
Major
and 53 minor, without counting all other variants), there are 53 fifths
before
you come back to the starting tone, there are 53 keys in one octave (and a
typical 5 octave keyboard would therefore 265 keys) ... can you see where
this
is leading? Complete madness, you cannot really play such a keyboard anyway
..

So _MY_ suggestion is: just trust your ears, as did most of the great
musicians
before us, and not the tuner. And the tuning is "right" when it SOUNDS
right.
And there might be different tunings for different kind of music.
And most sampled sounds are sampled out of tune anyway :-)

Cheers - Love & Peace

-Xeno"

(same to you Xeno, and thanks for the info)

is why different keys sound different- ie have a different character- eg
take a song in the key of E major and transpose it into C (because your
singer cant reach the notes! :-)  )  and the song sounds different (for
example "Saw Her standing There"- by the Beatles, which IMHO does not sound
anywhere near as good in C as it does in E).

So, is this why (for example) music in the key of D minor or A minor sounds
"sadder" than B minor or E minor (which to my ears sound too darn happy to
be minor keys).

As Nigel Tuffnel famously said- "D-minor, I find, is the saddest of all
keys"

And this tuning thing must be why an experienced guitarist will bend almost
every note he can in a solo, to make it sound better?????

I dont have perfect pitch, but have noticed these things- and often wondered
why different major chords sound different- almost have their own "flavour".

so Xeno- what are your thoughts on using all this to musical effect?

Cheers

John

Groovey band website
http://www.grooveyband.co.uk/

mail to : chickenjohn@...