source file: mills2.txt Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 23:06:54 +0200 Subject: Temperaments/tyros/neophytes and pros From: "Collins, Gordon" Joe Downing wrote: >Those instruments which are tuned AS they are played will >always search for beatless intervals (or as close as time and skill >allow.) .. >I don't know of any choir that could conscientiously sing in >'werckmeister III' or 'Vallotti.' One thing you don't hear in performance (good ones, at least!) is musicians wandering around frequency space searching for the right intervals. That's because a significant fraction of practice and rehearsal time is spent on intonation. Musicians learn what it *feels* like to produce a certain note so they can do so in performance, coming in on the right pitch. In the practice room, the pitch standard is an electronic tuner or a piano. In rehearsal, the standard is each other. A choir that rehearses with, say, an organ will adjust its intonation to whatever is the temperament of the organ. You may not want to say that the choir members are deliberately choosing a temperament, but they definitely are adjusting the set of pitches they produce to match a predefined set. >They simply listen to each other, and >find as beatless a sound as they can get. I don't see how choir members can listen for beats at all, unless they are all singing long notes with absolutely no vibrato. Whether or not the ear hears the top or bottom or something else as "the" pitch, vibrato prevents beats from forming by continuously varying the pitch and/or amplitude. If any could form, the vibrato would drown them out with its own beats. Most of the time, the notes go by too fast to listen for beats anyway. The only way to judge intervals under those conditions is by the absolute pitch difference, which is, I believe, how singers really sing. >String players tune to PERFECT fifths, rather than tempered fifths, with >one exception: some cellists (and fewer violists) will tune to tempered >fifths in chamber music featuring a piano. .. which doesn't seem to make all that much difference, as they then proceed to avoid open strings because a) the tone quality is considered to be less desirable and b) they can't use vibrato on them. The actual intonation is determined by finger placement. Changing the pitch of a whole string reduces the amount of adjustment a cellist must make in hand and finger position, but the end result for all the strings players in the ensemble is the same: adjusting the set of pitches they produce to match a predefined set. Singers and instrumentalists adjust their intonation in rehearsal, and (attempt to!) reproduce it in performance. For those performing with a tempered keyboard instrument, the result will be a performance in that temperament. Gordon Collins Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Thu, 26 Jun 1997 23:21 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA28011; Thu, 26 Jun 1997 23:21:24 +0200 Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 23:21:24 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA28015 Received: (qmail 26764 invoked from network); 26 Jun 1997 21:20:58 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 26 Jun 1997 21:20:58 -0000 Message-Id: <009B660F866DF4C7.F04E@vbv40.ezh.nl> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu