| Author |
Comment |
CelloBass
Registered User
Posts: 88
(9/7/01 12:06:14 pm)
Reply
|
Interesting
Tuner
Hi,
we just had a discussion about the pros and cons of
electronic tuners. I have found a tuner that has an interesting
feature. It is the Korg Orchestral Tuner OT-12. It is a needle
tuner, the reaction of the needle can be set to slow, medium and
fast, and of course it can play drone notes. But the most
interesting feature is the so called 'sound back mode'. The tuner
comes with a clip microphone that can be attached to any vibrating
part of your instrument. On stringed instruments it works fine
attached to the tailpiece or the bridge. Set to 'sound back', the
tuner recognizes the note that is played and puts it out through its
speaker - at correct pitch. You don't see only a needle pointing to
the right or to the left. You hear how far away your pitch is,
because you hear the beat note between the tuner and your cello. The
tuner accompanies you unisono at correct pitch and follows your
play. It takes about 0.5s until the tuner follows a new note. You
can take time to correct each single note, or you play a slow scale
just to find out which note has been played out of tune - and how
much out of tune. When you play exactly in tune, the tuner seems to
disappear, you don't hear it anymore. It is like a teacher who sits
at the piano and plays each note that you play. The clip microphone
is very sensitive, so you can play pianissimo, each note and its
octave is detected correctly. Of course you can use the inbuild
microphone and the needle only, without sound output. Not bad
because a needle gives you only a number, it does not demonstrate
how it would sound if you played together with someone how plays in
tune. With the sound output you hear whether your intonation causes
only a slow beat note, or whether it really sounds dissonant. The
tuner is not disturbed by a vibrato, the needle seems to show the
center frequency. I have now practised for about an hour with this
tuner, and it is interesting to see that I still play lead notes at
upgoing major scales to high, though I have been working at this
problem for years. Victor is right, halftone steps are the most
critical ones.
Horst
|
Bobbie
Registered User
Posts: 644
(9/7/01 1:03:06 pm)
Reply
|
Re: Interesting
Tuner
It does sound interesting, but I don't see how it could tell you
how high a leading tone should be. Isn't it just going to tell you
the pitch if the tone were not a leading tone?
|
CelloBass
Registered User
Posts: 89
(9/7/01 6:00:28 pm)
Reply
|
Re: Interesting
Tuner and Tunings...
Bobbie,
I play a c major scale and play the b before the
last c too high. The tuner plays the b in tune, so I hear how the
correct pitch is supposed to sound. Actually there are two reasons
for incorrect intonation. First, unreliable finger placement. You
hear that it is out of tune and you correct it. You correct it that
way that the pitch meets your idea, your imagination of the correct
pitch. If it is then still out of tune, you have to go through a
learning process in which you have to learn how the leading tone has
to sound in that context, i.e. a-b-c. The tuner helps because just
for the leading tone it is difficult to find any clear references
like octaves, fifths, empty strings etc.
Would the correct
pitch be a different one if it were not a leading tone? Yes and no.
If you play according tempered tuning, the leading b has to be the
same b as any other b in any other context. I know that string
players often try to explain differences in intonation by the usage
of different tunings, tempered or not tempered/pythagorean. But if
you have a closer look, you will find that the differences between
those tunings are much smaller than expected. They don't explain why
there are sometimes intonation problems when you play together with
a piano. The differences between the tunings are in the range of
0.5-2 Hz and cause a slow, often unaudible beat note. What really
sounds bad is the so called "expressive intonation", i.e. playing
the leading tone not a half but a third step lower than the
dominant. This sounds dissonant, if you are accompanied by a piano.
I had a tough discussion about this subject with my former bass
teacher, who was a pianist as well. He convinced me that those
discussions about different tunings are invalid. If you play a
stringed instrument, you will have to play together with pianos,
organs, harpsicords, woodwinds and many other instruments that have
fixed pitches according tempered tuning. So the only acceptable
intonation for stringed instruments is the tempered one. No string
player is able to intonate that precisely that he can distinguish
between different tunings, i.e. leading note or not leading note.
There is only right or wrong intonation. Hm... I didn't want to
sound harsh, I only wanted to say what he told me, and he sounded
harsh at that moment... 
You
tune your cello that way that you don't hear any beat notes anymore,
in fifths. However, the only interval in tempered tuning that has no
beat notes is the octave. Therefore, a correctly tuned piano
produces beat notes when fifths are played. There will be a
difference between your cello tuning and the piano tuning, if you
don't tune each string according the piano. But those differences
are in the range of 0.5-2Hz, and as soon as you start your vibrato,
they are vibrated out When
professional string players mention different tunings to explain why
something sounds bad, they are making excuses. The OT-12 tuner has
many inbuild tunings, pythagorean as well. But I won't use it
Horst
|
Bobbie
Registered User
Posts: 647
(9/7/01 7:04:43 pm)
Reply
|
Re: Interesting
Tuner and Tunings...
I think you are bringing up something that was used as an argument
against tuners in the first discussion. A B is not the same whether
it is a leading tone or not. If you are playing it with a piano
playing exactly the same note at the same time, then, yes, it needs
to be in tune with the piano. And as a first approximation, its good
to be able to find the B that is the same as the piano's B and the
tuner's B. But when you are playing a scale you'd do better to play
against a single tonic note and tune the rest of the notes to that
tonic.
I think as a student the first goal has to be getting
notes in tune, according to the tuner or piano. But then you have to
be able to hear when they sound best with other stringed
instruments, and fine-tune. And in the latter case the B is not the
same if it is a leading tone.
| |
Internet Cello Society
Forums
Email
This To a Friend
Topic Commands (Moderator only)