Re: OT: high-precision tuner app

[Michael Hendry]

> On 27 May 2016, at 09:59, Thomas Morley <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> 2016-05-27 8:16 GMT+02:00 Michael Hendry <address@hidden>:
>> 
>>> 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.
> 
> Well, if you play first string, second fret without any context,
> nobody can say whether it's a F# or Gb.
> Though, try out to play the attached.
> For me F# and Gb feels completely different, _because of the context_.
> I'd always name them as written, i.e. F# in the first Gb in the second
> example.

In that case, shouldn't you have alternative names for C natural, which is 
common to both G and Db major scales, but has different functions in your 
examples?

(I realise I’m getting dangerously close to 
how-many-angels-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin? territory in this thread 
deviant!)

Michael

> 
> In general, it's not only the actual tune of an instrument, but our
> brain _interprets_ what it gets, depending on the context, which
> includes the (musical) culture we're grown up/educated in.
> 
>> 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?
> 
> Well, if you tuned a perfect octave: G on 6th string, open 3rd string.
> It will be nice for g-major, but not in say e-major.
> Hence, I'm used to take slightly different tunings depending on the
> key of the piece I'm going to play. Ofcourse one has to say the range
> of keys used for classical guitar-music is very limited. des-major is
> a _very_ rare exception.
> 
> Additional the 3rd string of the guitar is problematic because of the
> used material in relation to its thickness.
> There are a lot of attempts to deal with it by the guitar-constructors.
> 
> Cheers,
>  Harm
> <atest-31.png>