Back in August, Georgi wrote: "fiddlers like Paddy Canny, Paddy Fahy, and Tommy Peoples use slides, and many will deliberately fudge certain notes for effect (and it sounds great)!"
I recently got Star Above the Garter by Denis Murphy and Julia Clifford, and noticed that they play the title tune with a sliding note somewhere between C natural and C sharp--and it does sound great.
Are there other notable examples of this sort of "wrong" intonation out there--maybe with an explanation of it by the player?
I don't have any specific examples but I do know that this "in between note" is used quite often in American Old Time music. My friend is an old time fiddler and spent severel hours trying to explain to a violinist that there is a note in between a sharp and a natural.
I thought Schoenberg was strictly 12-tone? I studied him - many years ago - and I don't remember him doing anything that wasn't strictly well-tempered.
Padraig o'Keeffe, especially in airs, plays a lot of F-blunt notes; right on SAtG, listen to Tom Billy's jigs and C-blunt abounds. Or, listen to Caoimhin o'Raghallaigh's "Where the One-Eyed Man is King", and in the Old Waltz, tons of C-blunt moments show up.
The best explanation I've gotten for it was from Caoimhin himself; he remarks on it as a sean-nos singing technique, since the human voice really slides between pitches, it doesn't go directly from one note to the next. Reproducing that sound on the pipes means half-holing and sliding, and on the fiddle it means sliding and half-fingering notes. All the old players do it, especially in Donegal it seems, where the fiddle style, it's said, was made to specifically mimick the voice.
Yep, exactly. Later 20th century composers found his restricting himself to 12 tones limiting. He quickly became regarded - in some quarters - as a very 'old-fashioned' composer, stuck in a bygone era, although, of course, what he did opened the way in many ways for the more radical paths taken by his successors.
I once saw an arabic bouzouki player playing a fretless bouzouki , quarter tones and the works. Some people descibe an arabic influence ( berber ? ) on Irish music that lives on today . Rather than getting such ideas from elietist classical infulences.
Ah, quarter tones... I just found out there was such a thing the other day while looking up some info about Arabic music... made my head want to explode... "Eh...but...a note.... in...between...24 notes...aahhhh..." Somebody has proposed the idea of an 88-tone scale too...
Re: "RIGHT!" intonation ~ It 'sounds' right because it is!
It isn't so much about between notes as the 'right note' ~ not the damned piano's take on things ~ not that tempered scale or any other version of tempering, or tampering, but the scale for the mode being played. It 'sounds right' because it is ~ and there are many examples of playing it 'right', as at times between F# & G, E & F, etc. etc., etc... An example of more information on this can be found by doing an Internet search for "Just Intonation"...
Singers tend to do in naturally, unless there's a damned keyboard forcing them into the straight jacket that makes of music...designed so that all keys can be played, or fudged imperfectly...
Pete Cooper, in the accompanying book to his CD “Irish Fiddle Solos”, posted here as http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/1575, points out that some of the tunes are intended to be played with quarter-tones. He uses an up-arrow over the appropriate note in the printed dots to indicate this. A tune from the book, The Pullet And The Cock (and known by many other names) is posted here (http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/1148), where I have discussed the quarter tones in the B-part.
Some modern classical composers, such as the Czech composer Alois Haba, have explored quarter-tone (and even smaller intervals) in their compositions, and a quarter-tone pianos were made - must be the devil to play – fingering on the standard piano keyboard can be difficult enough as it is
I've listened to some of Haba's quarter-tone (and 1/6 tone) string quartets. The idiom sounds strange at first, but the ear adapts very quickly, and it's not long before it becomes quite acceptable.
I'd suggest two points if you want to use quarter-tones in sessions: a) make sure that it sounds like you're deliberately doing it and not just playing out of tune – so you've got to be consistent, and b) don't do it if there are fixed tuning instruments playing (boxes and fretted instruments) – they just won't be able to cope! Some people might also reasonably suggest a third point – just DON'T!
Thanks for all that, lazyhound. I have tried imitating those blunt notes (thanks, chadmills) in SAtG at home, without success. It is a tricky thing to do correctly. That's why I went looking for more info on it.
If I ever do master it--hey, anything is possible, right?--I promise to use my new power for Good, and not for Evil. ;>}
The idea of quarter-tones in “classical” music - as distinct from folk music - is by no means new. The great 16/17th century scholar Francis Bacon, in his work “New Atlantis” - unfinished at his death in 1626 - a prophetic Utopian fantasy and surely the model for some of the writings of H G Wells and others centuries later – describes how he visits that imaginary remote island and talks to its inhabitants, a colony of philosophers and scientists. There, one of the scientists tells him “We also have sound-houses, where we practise and demonstrate all sounds and their generation. We have harmonies, which you have not, of quarter-sounds, and lesser slides of sounds.” No more on this topic is revealed (a patent attorney today wouldn't therefore consider it an enabling disclosure), but it shows that micro-tones were being thought and probably talked about during the Renaissance.
"Singers tend to do in naturally, unless there's a damned keyboard forcing them into the straight jacket that makes of music...designed so that all keys can be played, or fudged imperfectly..."
Yes and perhaps fiddlers do it out of habit after years of playing with slightly out of tune and untunable instruments like the concertina. Eventually those quarter tones just sound "right."
Just a guess,. I certainly wouldn't to spoil the Schoenberg analysis
I know someone who has the unfortunate habit of searching the fingerboard. He thinks its wonderful all those slides and all that movement, he has not yet learnt the art of hitting the note on the fingerboard first time every time. If he stopped moving all over the fingerboard like a stampeding greased hog he might learn to do so.
I have no problem with slides, blunt notes, position work etc. I do have a problem with people putting flash and dash on to hide a lack of playing skill or ability.
From Breandán Breathnach in his preface in "Ceol Rince na hÉireann Vol. 1"
"The two notes C and F are also exceptional in another way: they are somewhat sharper than the corresponding notes on the piano. It's said that directly halfway between B and D on that instrument lies the C natural of traditional music, i.e., pipers and fiddlers would play C a quarter note higher than on the piano" It might explain that indeterminate major /minor thing going on in some tunes. No special skills required to excecute this on the fiddle - second finger is simply placed halfway between the first and third fingers - instead of the usual 'high' or 'low' positions required to play 'proper notes'. I'm still trying to get more proper notes. Ben - sorry but I think most of those quater -(and eighth) notes were mostly coming from me -and unfortunately not intentional.
Quarter tones are also playable in fretted instruments, at least in a few of them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOXYrjxBYLU
The minor third in blues guitar is often bended to get a note between the minor third and the major third.
Hiya Ben. That was me. Only been fiddling a couple of years -so still lots to learn. And maybe if I started practicing it would help a bit! Just seen some of your 'discussion' posts on music theory. PHEW ! Must remember to avoid this topic with you (or Dow !)
Yes I'd avoid discussing it with Ben. He'll fill your head full of half-remembered "facts" from theory lessons he had decades ago, but which have no basis in reality!
And Dow - get back over on the other thread with your half-formed ideas cobbled from jazz, blues and Lord knows what else tied together with phrases from classical music theory given new and arbitrary definitions so as to prop up your shaky theories which fly in the face of centuries of musical tradition.
I read about a musicologist who was collecting tunes from fiddlers in Shetland.
He noticed that they all played a "neutral" G on the E string- a note about halfway between G natural and G sharp.
The musicologist played piano himself, and had a piano in the room where he was notating tunes down from the fiddlers.
He found it interesting that although the fiddlers were playing a neutral G in all their tunes, when the musicologist played the tunes back on the piano the fiddlers had a definite opinion as to whether the note should be played on the piano as a G natural or a G sharp. They could say, the G in this phrase should be like this, the G in that phrase should be like that. The various fiddlers seemed to be in agreement as well.
I wonder if the musicologist was interpreting all the fiddler's G's as being exactly neutral, when in fact they might have been actually shaded a bit up and a bit down.
Also if you listen to early recordings of the Highland bagpipes their "high G" is a neutral 7th.
Also in the old days the 4th (D) on the Highland pipes was tuned rather sharp (not sharp enough to qualify as a neutral 4th).
Nowadays the high G on the Highland pipes is tuned 31 cents flat of G natural, to the interval of the 7th harmonic of the harmonic series, and the D is tuned to a perfect 4th.
On the uilleann pipes you'll often hear a note between F and F sharp. For example I begin "Banish Misfortune" on that note.
There was a reason why early fretted instruments had 'moveable frets' ~ so they could play properly in the key / mode chosen, and often that was for singing. Frets are fixed now, but they didn't start that way...
The 'quarter-tone' piano was also an experiment in being able to play more keys / modes in their true form, not just for the sake of quarter tones. If you actually matched up all the scales with the intention of producing all the keys necessary for them to be 'just', well, quarter tones wouldn't cover it...
Why is this mad man, me, ranting again? I have heard early music, dance and song, produced within the true key, with intervals and chords to die for ~ beautiful, amazing. Listen to those wind chimes knockin' about, made from metal tubes, etc. Those lovely intervals are there becuase it doesn't have to fudge playing anything else but the scale it is made for, more usually pentatonic. 'Fudge' meaning ~ out of tune... Just intonation is the music of the gods...
It is also worth repeating that early collectors were collecting for the piano, not for the sake of the music or musician or the harp or other instrument being played... If it didn't fit this economic motivation, they 'fudged' it to make it meet the expectations of their customers... Edward Bunting is one example ~ "arranged for (the equal termperament) piano"!
Does anybody know of a web page with sound clips of tempered scale versus non-tempered scale versions of some simple melodies?
Or maybe one of you geeks (said with true affection--it takes one to know one) could produce some sound files like that. You could use Audacity to tweak the pitches of something you already have on your computer. That would be worth a thousand words, as the saying goes. Might also be worth some academic credit, for a music student... (he said, hopefully).
Here's a huge page full of words and arcane (to me) mathematics about it--but no sound files! It's all just gobbledygook, to a math-challenged, by-ear fiddler like me. But I suspect I could hear the differences, in audio samples.
One other aside is that a good modern synthesizer allows for the intervals on the keyboard to be shifted. This allows for non-standard tunings to be played on a piano keyboard, and the electronic nature of it allows the musician to change tunings from tune to tune easily.
Audacity does indeed have the facility to generate a tone of any desired frequency (in the top menu go to Generate/Sound), and it doesn't seem to be difficult.. You prepare your set of frequencies by whatever appropriate means - your own maths or published tables - and string them together to form sound files of scales or modes in the various temperaments. Good for ear training, if nothing else
The most comprehensive publication of frequencies I've come across is Helmholtz's "On the Sensations of Tone". The English translation is available from Dover Publications. It's not easy reading (however, if you've got your PhD ready, honed and polished ...), but everything's in it somewhere.
Thanks, Laitch, that's perfect. (Note: You don't have to install the widget, you can just right-click and Save As for the midi files).
Right away I can hear a distinctly different pitch for one note (the third note of the scale, I think it is) in the "filles" sound files. That "just" intonation does sound more medieval--or renaissance, or whatever.
Here wait, let me get my whistlemaker in here. He loves all this "just temperature" business with the notes. I didn't even know notes had a temperature. Some tunes make me feel sorta hot and bothered, I guess that's due to the "just temperature" you guys keep talking about. [/sarcasm]
Hey, me too, Mr Floridian--that's why I asked for sound files instead of all that algebra or physics (or whatever it is). I don't aspire to expertise in all this advanced academic stuff, just nosing around in it a bit so I can better appreciate The Good Stuff.
For example, I once heard Alasdair Fraser do an uncanny imitation of uillean pipes on his fiddle. I think part of the trick was knowing which notes to consistently play at a slightly different pitch than usual. Now, when I listen to some good piping, I will pay attention to those "different" notes. Something useful might sink into my thick skull, eventually.
Some synthesizers also allow, for example for harpsichord, clavichord, early piano, for different tunings, and to make it worse for you ~ there are also different 'equal temperament' tunings...
Hey, just to niggle you further, as I'm not about to do sound files of my 'just intonation' concertina (a pipe dream?) ~ here's another book to boggle your senses:
"Musical Acoustics" by Donald E. Hall
Brooks/Cole Publishing (Wadsworth) ~ for some of the 'basics'
But seriously ~ here's a great little introduction, and to the man's work ~
Folks, these are NOT quarter-tones! Quarter-tones have only appeared very, very recently in European music, since the Avant-garde movement. Quarter-tones have never been part of European music. Typically in Irish music the non-equal temperament scale notes tend towards the natural scale, or are used for discordant effect. (In the case of Tommy Peoples, sadly I think he’s actually sliding around to find the right note!)
To restate what I said here in another context:
Many classical string players (as well as traditional players) play leading notes slightly sharp on purpose. Nordic fiddle music and especially their vocal music adheres mostly to the natural scale, and cannot be played adequately on equal temperament instruments. Often notes are played deliberately ‘off’ for effect, either in order to approximate the natural scale, or because discordant notes sound rather interesting, because they add something to the music, etc. (though these are NOT true quarter-tones, which never occur in European music).
There's some "apples and oranges" going on here it seems.
There are two topics under discussion:
1) quarter-tones used in ITM
2) equal temperament vs just intonation
Somebody asked if there was a place where they could listen to sound bites of tunes played in equal temperament vs tunes played in just intonation. Well for tunes played in just intonation (the system where the pitch of each note of the scale is set to its Pythagorean ideal spot, based on the harmonic series/ the laws of acoustics) all you need to do is listen to any recent recording of any good Highland piper or pipe band or solo uilleann piper.
For equal temperament (the system which mechanistically divides the octave into twelve equal semi-tones regardless of how out of tune they sound) all you have to do is listen to any guitar or piano. (Yes I know that pianos deviate a bit from strict equal temperament but they're close enough to have the sharp 3rds and 6ths).
Quarter tones are foreign to both Equal Temerament and Just Intonation but are used in ITM by uilleann pipers and fiddlers at least.
Part of the effect of quarter tones on the fiddle is because they don't resonate well with the normal resonances of the instrument, within the audible range, at any rate. This is also why an instrument can sound "dead" if one of the strings slips slightly out of tune - the resonances change. Good players will notice this while playing, even if the string at fault isn't being played on. Hence, tuning a fiddle accurately in perfect 5ths, playing in tune, and good resonant tone all fit together.
With reference to lazyhound's suggestion yesterday using Audacity. I have tried that as ear training and to get tones as intonation references. Had limited success, I think because they are pure tones, just the fundamental, so a lot of what we hear when notes are played in sequence or together is missing. Playing steady notes on whistle or whatever, recording them, and then using Audacity to shift the pitch a little to where it was wanted seemed more useful. Tedious to do though. I wonder if there is a 'just' ABC to MIDI converter.
'neddiescotus' ~ yes, well put, basically along the lines of what I was ranting about... 'quarter-tones' doesn't wind me up, because while the fascination and name tagging might be more 'recent', depending on ones view, they can still represent loosely the tones that lie between an equal temperament scale... I'm pretty sure I've seen it used that way in literature on the subject, realizing that 'quarter' doesn't necessarily mean a given note divided by 4 equal steps...
My 'old' tuner has several temperaments on it and will read and play back the individual notes... For a little clarity, the Pythagorean (mathematically based) and Just Intonation are treated as distinct from one another, but I'm not going any further with that...
Re: Not "wrong" intonation; not "quarter-tones", rather "discordant notes"
I've seen it creep into the literature too, but I think that's a pitty. I think it's important not to confuse the deliberately mistuned or discordant notes with actual quarter-tones, which do occur in some non-European music and have been used by the Avant-garde. I think it's sloppy to use the term as applied to slightly flattened Bs, F#s, C#s etc., given that they are not the actual quarter-tones. The musicians 'de-tune' the note, they do not try to play the actual quarter-tone! Our music is simply not constructed of quarter-tones.
It's you again ~ yes! ~ for clarity it would be good to make distinctions between modern concepts of 'quarter-tones' and what predates that usage, in concept and practice...
Some of the division keyboards, where extra tones were introduced, were concieved as well to try to represent those tones between the equal temperament scale. An early division was as you might expect, halving and quartering, for simplicity's sake. I've seen one that was mad, and I was glad it was sealed up in a plexiglass box for posterity... I would have been tempted...
I've just discovered that 'Timidity', a software synthesizer, can play a midi file in just intonation. I've exported 'Saddle the Pony' (MK 3, in the comments section) to ogg and uploaded them so that those who are interested could hear the differences:
I played on a number of occasions withJulia Clifford,when she was playing with my concertina,she had no problem playing Cnatural and c# correctly.
a good fiddler can adjust and play c c#or c in between when appropriate,that is the whole point of the fiddle [adjustment]adjustment to equal temperament when required,or adjustment to something else should it be desired.
"wrong" intonation
"wrong" intonation
Back in August, Georgi wrote: "fiddlers like Paddy Canny, Paddy Fahy, and Tommy Peoples use slides, and many will deliberately fudge certain notes for effect (and it sounds great)!"
I recently got Star Above the Garter by Denis Murphy and Julia Clifford, and noticed that they play the title tune with a sliding note somewhere between C natural and C sharp--and it does sound great.
Are there other notable examples of this sort of "wrong" intonation out there--maybe with an explanation of it by the player?
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by John Galt
Re: "wrong" intonation
I don't have any specific examples but I do know that this "in between note" is used quite often in American Old Time music. My friend is an old time fiddler and spent severel hours trying to explain to a violinist that there is a note in between a sharp and a natural.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by Aodh Rúadh
Re: "wrong" intonation
huh--I guess that violinist never heard of Schoenberg (sorry about the spelling. What is the ascii combination for an umlaut, anyway?)
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by John Galt
Re: "wrong" intonation
Alt +916 = ö
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by davydd
Re: "wrong" intonation
There are great players who may play some notes out of tune.
Playing some notes out of tunes doesn't make a great player.
Between a sharp and a natural - sometimes called "blunt" notes.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by TomB-R
Re: "wrong" intonation
I thought Schoenberg was strictly 12-tone? I studied him - many years ago - and I don't remember him doing anything that wasn't strictly well-tempered.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by ethical blend
Re: "wrong" intonation
Padraig o'Keeffe, especially in airs, plays a lot of F-blunt notes; right on SAtG, listen to Tom Billy's jigs and C-blunt abounds. Or, listen to Caoimhin o'Raghallaigh's "Where the One-Eyed Man is King", and in the Old Waltz, tons of C-blunt moments show up.
The best explanation I've gotten for it was from Caoimhin himself; he remarks on it as a sean-nos singing technique, since the human voice really slides between pitches, it doesn't go directly from one note to the next. Reproducing that sound on the pipes means half-holing and sliding, and on the fiddle it means sliding and half-fingering notes. All the old players do it, especially in Donegal it seems, where the fiddle style, it's said, was made to specifically mimick the voice.
--DtM
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by Dan the Man
Re: "wrong" intonation
Oh... okay, benhall.1, I think I understand--the usual notes, just unfamiliar intervals, right? Nothing you couldn't play on a regular piano.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by John Galt
Re: "wrong" intonation
Yep, exactly. Later 20th century composers found his restricting himself to 12 tones limiting. He quickly became regarded - in some quarters - as a very 'old-fashioned' composer, stuck in a bygone era, although, of course, what he did opened the way in many ways for the more radical paths taken by his successors.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by ethical blend
Re: "wrong" intonation
I once saw an arabic bouzouki player playing a fretless bouzouki , quarter tones and the works. Some people descibe an arabic influence ( berber ? ) on Irish music that lives on today . Rather than getting such ideas from elietist classical infulences.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by bazouki dave
Re: "wrong" intonation
Ah, quarter tones... I just found out there was such a thing the other day while looking up some info about Arabic music... made my head want to explode... "Eh...but...a note.... in...between...24 notes...aahhhh..." Somebody has proposed the idea of an 88-tone scale too...
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by JosephC
Re: "wrong" intonation
Hehe, C-blunt, the fiddler's key!
Cheers,
Armand
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by armandale
Re: "RIGHT!" intonation ~ It 'sounds' right because it is!
It isn't so much about between notes as the 'right note' ~ not the damned piano's take on things ~ not that tempered scale or any other version of tempering, or tampering, but the scale for the mode being played. It 'sounds right' because it is ~ and there are many examples of playing it 'right', as at times between F# & G, E & F, etc. etc., etc... An example of more information on this can be found by doing an Internet search for "Just Intonation"...
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by ceolachan
Singers tend to do in naturally, unless there's a damned keyboard forcing them into the straight jacket that makes of music...designed so that all keys can be played, or fudged imperfectly...
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: "wrong" intonation
Pete Cooper, in the accompanying book to his CD “Irish Fiddle Solos”, posted here as http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/1575, points out that some of the tunes are intended to be played with quarter-tones. He uses an up-arrow over the appropriate note in the printed dots to indicate this. A tune from the book, The Pullet And The Cock (and known by many other names) is posted here (http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/1148), where I have discussed the quarter tones in the B-part.
Some modern classical composers, such as the Czech composer Alois Haba, have explored quarter-tone (and even smaller intervals) in their compositions, and a quarter-tone pianos were made - must be the devil to play – fingering on the standard piano keyboard can be difficult enough as it is
I've listened to some of Haba's quarter-tone (and 1/6 tone) string quartets. The idiom sounds strange at first, but the ear adapts very quickly, and it's not long before it becomes quite acceptable.
I'd suggest two points if you want to use quarter-tones in sessions: a) make sure that it sounds like you're deliberately doing it and not just playing out of tune – so you've got to be consistent, and b) don't do it if there are fixed tuning instruments playing (boxes and fretted instruments) – they just won't be able to cope! Some people might also reasonably suggest a third point – just DON'T!
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by Trevor Jennings
Re: "wrong" intonation
Thanks for all that, lazyhound. I have tried imitating those blunt notes (thanks, chadmills) in SAtG at home, without success. It is a tricky thing to do correctly. That's why I went looking for more info on it.
If I ever do master it--hey, anything is possible, right?--I promise to use my new power for Good, and not for Evil. ;>}
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by John Galt
Re: "wrong" intonation
The idea of quarter-tones in “classical” music - as distinct from folk music - is by no means new. The great 16/17th century scholar Francis Bacon, in his work “New Atlantis” - unfinished at his death in 1626 - a prophetic Utopian fantasy and surely the model for some of the writings of H G Wells and others centuries later – describes how he visits that imaginary remote island and talks to its inhabitants, a colony of philosophers and scientists. There, one of the scientists tells him “We also have sound-houses, where we practise and demonstrate all sounds and their generation. We have harmonies, which you have not, of quarter-sounds, and lesser slides of sounds.” No more on this topic is revealed (a patent attorney today wouldn't therefore consider it an enabling disclosure), but it shows that micro-tones were being thought and probably talked about during the Renaissance.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by Trevor Jennings
Re: "wrong" intonation
"Singers tend to do in naturally, unless there's a damned keyboard forcing them into the straight jacket that makes of music...designed so that all keys can be played, or fudged imperfectly..."
Yes and perhaps fiddlers do it out of habit after years of playing with slightly out of tune and untunable instruments like the concertina. Eventually those quarter tones just sound "right."
Just a guess,. I certainly wouldn't to spoil the Schoenberg analysis
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by GDub
Re: "wrong" intonation
I know someone who has the unfortunate habit of searching the fingerboard. He thinks its wonderful all those slides and all that movement, he has not yet learnt the art of hitting the note on the fingerboard first time every time. If he stopped moving all over the fingerboard like a stampeding greased hog he might learn to do so.
I have no problem with slides, blunt notes, position work etc. I do have a problem with people putting flash and dash on to hide a lack of playing skill or ability.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by Joze
Re: "wrong" intonation
There are many pitches in between C and C sharp. Ask any piano tuner.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: "wrong" intonation
How were those quarter tones for you the other night at the session, Trevor?
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by ethical blend
Re: "wrong" intonation
From Breandán Breathnach in his preface in "Ceol Rince na hÉireann Vol. 1"
"The two notes C and F are also exceptional in another way: they are somewhat sharper than the corresponding notes on the piano. It's said that directly halfway between B and D on that instrument lies the C natural of traditional music, i.e., pipers and fiddlers would play C a quarter note higher than on the piano" It might explain that indeterminate major /minor thing going on in some tunes. No special skills required to excecute this on the fiddle - second finger is simply placed halfway between the first and third fingers - instead of the usual 'high' or 'low' positions required to play 'proper notes'. I'm still trying to get more proper notes. Ben - sorry but I think most of those quater -(and eighth) notes were mostly coming from me -and unfortunately not intentional.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by Col Arco
Re: "wrong" intonation
Quarter tones are also playable in fretted instruments, at least in a few of them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOXYrjxBYLU
The minor third in blues guitar is often bended to get a note between the minor third and the major third.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by Ramiro
Re: "wrong" intonation
Hello, Col. Who were you then? Were you sitting directly opposite me?
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by ethical blend
Re: "wrong" intonation
Maybe, as ceolachan said, bluesmen do that because the minor 3rd is 15 cents flat in equal temperament...
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by Ramiro
Re: "wrong" intonation
Ramiro, the fifth and even the second, are also quite often flattened in blues playing/singing.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by ethical blend
Re: "wrong" intonation
Hiya Ben. That was me. Only been fiddling a couple of years -so still lots to learn. And maybe if I started practicing it would help a bit! Just seen some of your 'discussion' posts on music theory. PHEW ! Must remember to avoid this topic with you (or Dow !)
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by Col Arco
Re: "wrong" intonation
Yes I'd avoid discussing it with Ben. He'll fill your head full of half-remembered "facts" from theory lessons he had decades ago, but which have no basis in reality!
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by Dr. Dow
Re: "wrong" intonation
Oh no ! Didn't want to start a fight.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by Col Arco
Re: "wrong" intonation
Too late, Col.
And Dow - get back over on the other thread with your half-formed ideas cobbled from jazz, blues and Lord knows what else tied together with phrases from classical music theory given new and arbitrary definitions so as to prop up your shaky theories which fly in the face of centuries of musical tradition.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by ethical blend
Re: "wrong" intonation
eugh, centuries of musical tradition (said in whingey classical voice) eeeugh!
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by Dr. Dow
Re: "wrong" intonation
Who sais anything about centuries of 'classical' musical tradition?
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by ethical blend
Re: "wrong" intonation
"said"
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by ethical blend
Re: "wrong" intonation
Ben, those quarter tones at Friday's session glittered like those bejeweled fruits in the fabled gardens of the dawn.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by Trevor Jennings
Re: "wrong" intonation
Some jazz pianists can give the impression of quarter tones and slides on the piano by thoughtful use of ornaments.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by Trevor Jennings
Re: "wrong" intonation
Aw, Trevor. Talk about damning with faint praise!
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by ethical blend
Re: "wrong" intonation
I read about a musicologist who was collecting tunes from fiddlers in Shetland.
He noticed that they all played a "neutral" G on the E string- a note about halfway between G natural and G sharp.
The musicologist played piano himself, and had a piano in the room where he was notating tunes down from the fiddlers.
He found it interesting that although the fiddlers were playing a neutral G in all their tunes, when the musicologist played the tunes back on the piano the fiddlers had a definite opinion as to whether the note should be played on the piano as a G natural or a G sharp. They could say, the G in this phrase should be like this, the G in that phrase should be like that. The various fiddlers seemed to be in agreement as well.
I wonder if the musicologist was interpreting all the fiddler's G's as being exactly neutral, when in fact they might have been actually shaded a bit up and a bit down.
Also if you listen to early recordings of the Highland bagpipes their "high G" is a neutral 7th.
Also in the old days the 4th (D) on the Highland pipes was tuned rather sharp (not sharp enough to qualify as a neutral 4th).
Nowadays the high G on the Highland pipes is tuned 31 cents flat of G natural, to the interval of the 7th harmonic of the harmonic series, and the D is tuned to a perfect 4th.
On the uilleann pipes you'll often hear a note between F and F sharp. For example I begin "Banish Misfortune" on that note.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by Richard D Cook
Re: "wrong" intonation
There was a reason why early fretted instruments had 'moveable frets' ~ so they could play properly in the key / mode chosen, and often that was for singing. Frets are fixed now, but they didn't start that way...
The 'quarter-tone' piano was also an experiment in being able to play more keys / modes in their true form, not just for the sake of quarter tones. If you actually matched up all the scales with the intention of producing all the keys necessary for them to be 'just', well, quarter tones wouldn't cover it...
Why is this mad man, me, ranting again? I have heard early music, dance and song, produced within the true key, with intervals and chords to die for ~ beautiful, amazing. Listen to those wind chimes knockin' about, made from metal tubes, etc. Those lovely intervals are there becuase it doesn't have to fudge playing anything else but the scale it is made for, more usually pentatonic. 'Fudge' meaning ~ out of tune... Just intonation is the music of the gods...
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: "wrong" intonation
I notice that Mr James Hendrix a guitarist of the USA plays alot of these bent notes.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by bazouki dave
Re: "wrong" intonation
It is also worth repeating that early collectors were collecting for the piano, not for the sake of the music or musician or the harp or other instrument being played... If it didn't fit this economic motivation, they 'fudged' it to make it meet the expectations of their customers... Edward Bunting is one example ~ "arranged for (the equal termperament) piano"!
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: "wrong" intonation
Does anybody know of a web page with sound clips of tempered scale versus non-tempered scale versions of some simple melodies?
Or maybe one of you geeks (said with true affection--it takes one to know one) could produce some sound files like that. You could use Audacity to tweak the pitches of something you already have on your computer. That would be worth a thousand words, as the saying goes. Might also be worth some academic credit, for a music student... (he said, hopefully).
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by John Galt
Re: "wrong" intonation
p.s. on tempered vs. non-tempered sound clips:
Here's a huge page full of words and arcane (to me) mathematics about it--but no sound files! It's all just gobbledygook, to a math-challenged, by-ear fiddler like me. But I suspect I could hear the differences, in audio samples.
http://www.ericweisstein.com/encyclopedias/music/EqualTemperament.html
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by John Galt
Re: "wrong" intonation
One other aside is that a good modern synthesizer allows for the intervals on the keyboard to be shifted. This allows for non-standard tunings to be played on a piano keyboard, and the electronic nature of it allows the musician to change tunings from tune to tune easily.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by Dave Weinstein
Re: "wrong" intonation
Hey mickray
Regarding scale sound clips:
Would this page be useful to you?
http://pages.globetrotter.net/roule/demos.htm
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by ʎɹoʇısuɐɹʇ
Re: "wrong" intonation
Audacity does indeed have the facility to generate a tone of any desired frequency (in the top menu go to Generate/Sound), and it doesn't seem to be difficult.. You prepare your set of frequencies by whatever appropriate means - your own maths or published tables - and string them together to form sound files of scales or modes in the various temperaments. Good for ear training, if nothing else
The most comprehensive publication of frequencies I've come across is Helmholtz's "On the Sensations of Tone". The English translation is available from Dover Publications. It's not easy reading (however, if you've got your PhD ready, honed and polished ...), but everything's in it somewhere.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by Trevor Jennings
Re: "wrong" intonation
Thanks, Laitch, that's perfect. (Note: You don't have to install the widget, you can just right-click and Save As for the midi files).
Right away I can hear a distinctly different pitch for one note (the third note of the scale, I think it is) in the "filles" sound files. That "just" intonation does sound more medieval--or renaissance, or whatever.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by John Galt
Re: "wrong" intonation
Here wait, let me get my whistlemaker in here. He loves all this "just temperature" business with the notes. I didn't even know notes had a temperature. Some tunes make me feel sorta hot and bothered, I guess that's due to the "just temperature" you guys keep talking about. [/sarcasm]
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: "wrong" intonation
Hey, me too, Mr Floridian--that's why I asked for sound files instead of all that algebra or physics (or whatever it is). I don't aspire to expertise in all this advanced academic stuff, just nosing around in it a bit so I can better appreciate The Good Stuff.
For example, I once heard Alasdair Fraser do an uncanny imitation of uillean pipes on his fiddle. I think part of the trick was knowing which notes to consistently play at a slightly different pitch than usual. Now, when I listen to some good piping, I will pay attention to those "different" notes. Something useful might sink into my thick skull, eventually.
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by John Galt
Re: "wrong" intonation
The wikipedia page for just intonation has three samples of scales and chords:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_intonation
This site worths a visit, too:
http://users.rcn.com/dante.interport/justguitar.html
# Posted on February 4th 2008 by Ramiro
Re: "wrong" intonation
Some synthesizers also allow, for example for harpsichord, clavichord, early piano, for different tunings, and to make it worse for you ~ there are also different 'equal temperament' tunings...
Hey, just to niggle you further, as I'm not about to do sound files of my 'just intonation' concertina (a pipe dream?) ~ here's another book to boggle your senses:
"Musical Acoustics" by Donald E. Hall
Brooks/Cole Publishing (Wadsworth) ~ for some of the 'basics'
But seriously ~ here's a great little introduction, and to the man's work ~
"Horns, Strings & Harmony" ~ Arthur H. Benade
# Posted on February 5th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: "wrong" intonation
Folks, these are NOT quarter-tones! Quarter-tones have only appeared very, very recently in European music, since the Avant-garde movement. Quarter-tones have never been part of European music. Typically in Irish music the non-equal temperament scale notes tend towards the natural scale, or are used for discordant effect. (In the case of Tommy Peoples, sadly I think he’s actually sliding around to find the right note!)
To restate what I said here in another context:
Many classical string players (as well as traditional players) play leading notes slightly sharp on purpose. Nordic fiddle music and especially their vocal music adheres mostly to the natural scale, and cannot be played adequately on equal temperament instruments. Often notes are played deliberately ‘off’ for effect, either in order to approximate the natural scale, or because discordant notes sound rather interesting, because they add something to the music, etc. (though these are NOT true quarter-tones, which never occur in European music).
# Posted on February 5th 2008 by dsndfkjasf
Re: "wrong" intonation
There's some "apples and oranges" going on here it seems.
There are two topics under discussion:
1) quarter-tones used in ITM
2) equal temperament vs just intonation
Somebody asked if there was a place where they could listen to sound bites of tunes played in equal temperament vs tunes played in just intonation. Well for tunes played in just intonation (the system where the pitch of each note of the scale is set to its Pythagorean ideal spot, based on the harmonic series/ the laws of acoustics) all you need to do is listen to any recent recording of any good Highland piper or pipe band or solo uilleann piper.
For equal temperament (the system which mechanistically divides the octave into twelve equal semi-tones regardless of how out of tune they sound) all you have to do is listen to any guitar or piano. (Yes I know that pianos deviate a bit from strict equal temperament but they're close enough to have the sharp 3rds and 6ths).
Quarter tones are foreign to both Equal Temerament and Just Intonation but are used in ITM by uilleann pipers and fiddlers at least.
# Posted on February 5th 2008 by Richard D Cook
Re: "wrong" intonation
Part of the effect of quarter tones on the fiddle is because they don't resonate well with the normal resonances of the instrument, within the audible range, at any rate. This is also why an instrument can sound "dead" if one of the strings slips slightly out of tune - the resonances change. Good players will notice this while playing, even if the string at fault isn't being played on. Hence, tuning a fiddle accurately in perfect 5ths, playing in tune, and good resonant tone all fit together.
# Posted on February 5th 2008 by Trevor Jennings
Re: "wrong" intonation
With reference to lazyhound's suggestion yesterday using Audacity. I have tried that as ear training and to get tones as intonation references. Had limited success, I think because they are pure tones, just the fundamental, so a lot of what we hear when notes are played in sequence or together is missing. Playing steady notes on whistle or whatever, recording them, and then using Audacity to shift the pitch a little to where it was wanted seemed more useful. Tedious to do though. I wonder if there is a 'just' ABC to MIDI converter.
# Posted on February 5th 2008 by David50
Re: "wrong" intonation
'neddiescotus' ~ yes, well put, basically along the lines of what I was ranting about... 'quarter-tones' doesn't wind me up, because while the fascination and name tagging might be more 'recent', depending on ones view, they can still represent loosely the tones that lie between an equal temperament scale... I'm pretty sure I've seen it used that way in literature on the subject, realizing that 'quarter' doesn't necessarily mean a given note divided by 4 equal steps...
My 'old' tuner has several temperaments on it and will read and play back the individual notes... For a little clarity, the Pythagorean (mathematically based) and Just Intonation are treated as distinct from one another, but I'm not going any further with that...
# Posted on February 5th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Not "wrong" intonation; not "quarter-tones", rather "discordant notes"
I've seen it creep into the literature too, but I think that's a pitty. I think it's important not to confuse the deliberately mistuned or discordant notes with actual quarter-tones, which do occur in some non-European music and have been used by the Avant-garde. I think it's sloppy to use the term as applied to slightly flattened Bs, F#s, C#s etc., given that they are not the actual quarter-tones. The musicians 'de-tune' the note, they do not try to play the actual quarter-tone! Our music is simply not constructed of quarter-tones.
# Posted on February 5th 2008 by dsndfkjasf
Re: "wrong" intonation
It's you again ~ yes! ~ for clarity it would be good to make distinctions between modern concepts of 'quarter-tones' and what predates that usage, in concept and practice...
Some of the division keyboards, where extra tones were introduced, were concieved as well to try to represent those tones between the equal temperament scale. An early division was as you might expect, halving and quartering, for simplicity's sake. I've seen one that was mad, and I was glad it was sealed up in a plexiglass box for posterity... I would have been tempted...
# Posted on February 5th 2008 by ceolachan
It is also possible, that these experiments are where the terminology began, later being taken up by modern composers?
# Posted on February 5th 2008 by ceolachan
But, I am in agreement that 'quarter-tone' does not do these 'notes' justice...
# Posted on February 5th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: "wrong" intonation
I've just discovered that 'Timidity', a software synthesizer, can play a midi file in just intonation. I've exported 'Saddle the Pony' (MK 3, in the comments section) to ogg and uploaded them so that those who are interested could hear the differences:
http://www.telefonica.net/web2/deb/STP_equal_temperament.ogg
http://www.telefonica.net/web2/deb/STP_just_intonation.ogg
To do this, the synth must know the key, of course. As an experiment, I exported a third file setting the key to F:
http://www.telefonica.net/web2/deb/STP_Fmaj_WRONG.ogg
Listen and judge yourself
# Posted on February 5th 2008 by Ramiro
Re: "wrong" intonation
Thanks, Ramiro! My education continues.
# Posted on February 5th 2008 by John Galt
Re: "wrong" intonation
I played on a number of occasions withJulia Clifford,when she was playing with my concertina,she had no problem playing Cnatural and c# correctly.
a good fiddler can adjust and play c c#or c in between when appropriate,that is the whole point of the fiddle [adjustment]adjustment to equal temperament when required,or adjustment to something else should it be desired.
# Posted on February 5th 2008 by Dick Miles
Re: "wrong" intonation
I did not doubt for a moment that Denis and Julia could play "in tune" (by any definition).
Although I am not so sure that being able to make adjustments to the pitch of a note is "the whole point" of the fiddle! ;>}
# Posted on February 5th 2008 by John Galt
Re: "wrong" intonation
No its not the 'whole point'
but a good point.
# Posted on February 6th 2008 by piobagusfidil