Re: OT: high-precision tuner app

[Michael Hendry]

> On 27 May 2016, at 00:53, Wols Lists <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> On 26/05/16 10:43, Olivier Biot wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On Thursday, 26 May 2016, Michael Hendry <address@hidden
>> <mailto:address@hidden>> wrote:
>> 
>>    I seem to have struck an interesting chord, here!
>> 
>> 
>> Definitely!
>> 
>> 
>>    Another phenomenon about which I have doubts involves people who
>>    claim that when they hear music in “sharp” keys (e.g. G, D, A, E)
>>    their experience is of brightness, while the flat keys make for a
>>    more sombre sound. I’ve even heard in a radio interview that this
>>    applies to F# and Gb (the one bright, the other dull).
>> 
>> 
>> I experience the same from a string player's perspective. But in my
>> humble opinion it is a combination of 2 factors. One depends on
>> harmonics induced in the instrument played, the other is a more
>> subjective element: often 'sharper' keys tend to play music at a higher
>> pitch too, which results to brightening of the music played. Maybe
>> because a lot of written music wanders around the natural scale of the
>> clef, which goes up 1 full tone per 2 extra sharps (circle of fifths).
> 
> Don't forget, G# and Fb are NOT the same note.

This is where my lack of formal musical education shows me up - I’m a 
self-taught amateur guitarist. F# and Gb look and sound the same on the guitar 
(and on the piano), but it seems that this is because these instruments have 
been constructed to sound equally bad in all keys. Other instruments are 
constructed and tuned so as to sound good in certain keys and not so good in 
others, so it’s feasible that an orchestra could sound better playing in sharp 
keys.

Other mysteries (to me!) may also be explained in a similar way:

Why aren’t trumpets and clarinets made a bit shorter, so that they don’t have 
to have transposed parts?

Why is the G string on my guitar the one I most commonly check because although 
it sounds perfectly in tune in the context of a G major chord, it can sound out 
of tune in other contexts?

Michael

> And once you move away
> from percussion instruments (yes, the piano IS a percussion instrument)
> most instruments can tweak their pitch. Okay, instruments like the
> orchestral strings and the trombone can play an infinitely variable
> pitch, but - in the hands of a good player - pretty any much instrument
> can vary the pitch to some extent. I've heard of brass players who could
> "bend" the pitch by over a tone!
> 
> So any orchestra or band will tend NOT to play "well tempered", and that
> could explain the brightness or dullness.
> 
> Cheers,
> Wol
> 
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