Following the Spotted Dog discussion below and listening to the Comhaltas post of a couple of very nice reels, it quickly became clear that they were playing in D sharp, or at least the recording came across in D sharp.
I have also encountered this several other places, and my question is, do the artists really tune up a half step(if so, why?) or is the pitch changed after it is recorded (and if so, why?).
Paddy Cronin did it - I even have a recording of him playing crosstuned AND a half-step up, meaning his G and D were a stepandahalf higher than normal...gut, for sure. The sound is really vibrant and lively; in general, you can say:
Eb - ringing, crisp, bright, happy
D - kind of meh
C# - ringing, smooth, mellow, full-bodied
C - ringing, rich, pipes-y, layered
Bb - thick, rich, dense, mellow
It's called "playing in E-flat". People have been doing it for decades.
They either tune up (in the case of the fiddle) or own a separate instrument that's tuned a half-pitch higher (like Louise and Mick Mulcahy in the video). I'd say nearly half the recordings out there are tuned up. Dervish, Lunasa, DeDanann, Molloy/Brady/Peoples, John Carty, Jesse Smith, all recorded in E-flat.
Everything sounds crisper, cleaner, louder, zingy-er. It's also easier to play faster, if that's your thing. Sessions will sometimes do it as well, partly to sound better, and partly to exclude people who are unfamiliar with the schtick, or who don't have the commitment and/or forethought to own and carry an E-flat instrument. Take it or leave it, that's what it is.
On the Mary Custy Album 'Wtih A Lot of Help From My Friends' she seems to have tuned down a step down on some tracks, and Martin Hayes does the same thing on his new album.
Eb, and other flat tunings, love it. However, 'recordings', were not usually of instruments tuned up, sometimes sounding a full step higher. It was in the technology, speeding up, sometimes to fit it all on a medium that offered less time than the original... This was common with the old 78s and not uncommon with later media, like 60 minute cassettes... Nowadays we can do it and you wouldn't know it, as we can preserve the original key and speed up the final production, or slow it down if we choose. Ah the tools of digital alchemy...
ceolachan
Your right ,,I remember in the old days {wait till I get my walking
stick} Fiddlers use do do this even at Fleadhs - Eb - But it
was so Flutes accoridions and some other fixed instruments
Could Not play along with - Talk about Clanny..
jim,,
I doubt that Mary Custy and Martin Hayes tuned their instruments down. It's more likely that they are just playing the tunes a step down, which is quite common in Clare.
As ceolachan says many old recordings were actually recorded in the normal keys but were speeded up so that they actually sounded a semi tone sharper. The main reason for this was tightening up the recording. Before modern recording techniques most folkies had a few days in the studio and it was 'get it right or it will be wrong for good'. When recording on tape it was a common trick to record things slighlty slower and then speeding the recording up, which tightens it. In trad that meant Eb based recordings.
"I doubt that Mary Custy and Martin Hayes tuned their instruments down. It's more likely that they are just playing the tunes a step down, which is quite common in Clare."
The sleeve notes on the new Martin Hayes album says "The fiddle is tuned down a full step on tracks 1,2,3 ...etc".
What does playing a step down mean? Is this different from tuning a step down?
“I doubt that Mary Custy and Martin Hayes tuned their instruments down. It's more likely that they are just playing the tunes a step down, which is quite common in Clare.”
Dunno about Mary, but Martin says in the album notes that he tuned down a step for a bunch of tracks.
'Sharp' was also how some old instruments, meaning reeds, were often tuned. I have one here that is there. You'd need to be in at least Eb to play along with it. I just decided I wasn't going to tune this one up to A = 440... Knowing me, if you did, you'd know it had nothing to do with tuning other people out.
If you've never sessioned in Eb, you should try it sometime (unless you're playing with a bunch of fixed-pitch instruments). A flute playing friend bought an Eb flute and had us all tune up to it. It was weird at first because my fingers wanted to go to the wrong places on occasion, even though I was putting them in the same places that I would playing in D. I had no clue that my brain actually had some notion of the actual pitch of D. But you get a wonderfully bright, happy sound, and it's fun!
For John Carty, he once told me that he and Alec tuned up on "I Will if I Can" primarily because G string on his Paragon sounds too "floppy" in recordings, and tuning it up gives it the crisp, punchy sound that he likes for the great double-stops that he often plays on the low strings.
For those of you that want to learn tunes from Eb recordings, but have a fixed tuning instrument, you can always just open the file in Audacity, select the whole file, and then select Effect->Change Pitch. You can tell it to tune it from Eb down to D (or just select -1 Semitone)
Yes, it might be safer on an old instrument to use low tension strings - the required increase in tension for low tension stringa should be well within the instrument's design capabilities. By low tension I mean gut strings or low tension synthetic core.
I have a 3/4 size fiddle I keep tuned up a semitone;FBbEbAb. Due to its size its perfect. Makes a great change to my normal fiddle. [a 15.5" 5 string viola]
Its allways tuned this way, so it has settled well.
# As to your Q.
A capo is the easiest. but I also have a guitar permanently tuned up a semi -tone also.
it takes a while for an instrument to settle in to a different tuning...
Most fiddles tune up a semi tone no bother at all. Here in Scotland lots of GHB players play Bb pipes and normal whistles. Fiddlers who play with pipers tune up and down al night - but often just the A and E strings to play with the pipes. But obviously better not risk it on an old or valuable instruments.
Are you sure about that bogman? Surely the D string would have to be raised also gor the G nat, or do they just finger a G#?
Personally I have found that it takes a while for a fiddle and guitar to settle and become stable after a shift like that. let alone up and down all night!
Jig , I play in a band with a fiddler who tunes up and down all night and for most tunes he will only tune A and E. He is a top player and has no trouble with his tuning. It's pretty common here as I'm sure you can imagine with the Bb thing.
Speaking as someone who usually accompanies the other musicians at a jam session on either a genuine imitation piano (a Roland EP-90 Digital Piano) or an acoustic bass fiddle, most of the time I seem to be playing either in D major or G major or A major or C major and/or one of their relative minors such as b minor or e minor or f-sharp minor or "a" minor.
On the rare occasions when I have had the opportunity to accompany a bagpiper (or "octopus strangler" as one piper jokingly said) with my genuine imitation piano, playing in B-flat major seemed to be the best key for me to play in.
A few years ago, at a jam session in St. Louis (Missouri), I had the opportunity to play my genuine imitation piano with five uillean pipers and one concertina player and they all seemed to be in D major.
However, when I am playing my bass fiddle, I prefer to play in D major or A major or G major due to the way the strings are tuned. I have been known to jokingly threaten to charge extra to accompany musicians who insist on playing in flat keys.
When I am
Be careful of your strings when tuning a fiddle up a half step (to Eb). Depending on what type of stirngs you use, it makes them sound very dull and metallic when tuned back down. Something about stretching them out too much, I think. I have an extra (not as nice) fiddle that I keep tuned to Eb so that I don't risk damaging my good fiddle. Also, tuning up is similar to putting on new strings--it takes a while for the strings to settle in, and you'll have to keep retuning for a while until they get stretched out a bit.
I'm not really getting this discussion. What do you do - tune all strings one half-tone up? Then put your fingers in the same place as before?
If you only tune the A and E up, you'd have to change the fingering on the D and G string?
I can't see any problem in changing the tuning of a fiddle - scandinavian fiddlers do that all the time as well - the only trouble would be everybody waiting for you to be ready again.
jig, I'm excited to hear you play "normally" on a 5-string viola - I got one of these, too. Is yours acoustig or semi-acoustic or electric?
Greez
Mina
Mina,
Yes.
Yes, then everything sounds a half-tone higher.
Yes. Technically it's called "scordatura" - a very old technique dating back to the Baroque.
Only Jig can answer the last question.
I have three 5 string violas actually, a 16''electric, a 15.5 nice acoustic, a 15'' cheapy, plus my strauss electric violin, my old German and a 3/4 size ! talk about Instrument aquisition syndrome! and thats just my fiddles
@lazyhound
thanks. Since I was at summerschool in Sweden last summer I use scordatura sometimes. but of course you have to change the fingering if you learned a tune in another tuning first and want to play it in the same mode/with other people. I was just getting confused because of the discussion about old records. The scandinavians do a funny thing: tuning up the G string to A even if it's not really used in a tune, just for the sound of it (Try it, its great).
@jig: Do you use the acoustic viola to play irish tunes frequently? Is it otherwise "normal" ? Mine is "thicker" (higher?) than a normal instrument. I love the sound of it but find it hard to play fast enough for irish fiddle music since I have to use a heavier bow. I use my great-grandfathers old 3/4 -bow for this (and yes I've got his old 3/4 fiddle as well plus my normal violin ). It's cool to call a viola a fiddle
Sorry if my english is weird
>What does playing a step down mean? Is this different from tuning a step down?
Tuning a step down means retuning the strings (e.g. from GDAE to FCGD - a whole step down) and then play as usual (in which case a tune in D SOUNDS as if played in C), while playing a step down means keeping the tuning but changing the fingering, e.g. transposing a tune from D to C.
Tuning up a half-step for recordings
Tuning up a half-step for recordings
Following the Spotted Dog discussion below and listening to the Comhaltas post of a couple of very nice reels, it quickly became clear that they were playing in D sharp, or at least the recording came across in D sharp.
http://comhaltas.ie/music/detail/comhaltaslive_248_1_mulcahy_family/
I have also encountered this several other places, and my question is, do the artists really tune up a half step(if so, why?) or is the pitch changed after it is recorded (and if so, why?).
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by ayedbl
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
To make the tune sound fresher, maybe?
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by Whiddler
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
Paddy Cronin did it - I even have a recording of him playing crosstuned AND a half-step up, meaning his G and D were a stepandahalf higher than normal...gut, for sure. The sound is really vibrant and lively; in general, you can say:
Eb - ringing, crisp, bright, happy
D - kind of meh
C# - ringing, smooth, mellow, full-bodied
C - ringing, rich, pipes-y, layered
Bb - thick, rich, dense, mellow
--DtM
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by Dan the Man
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
I hate when they do that
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
It's called "playing in E-flat". People have been doing it for decades.
They either tune up (in the case of the fiddle) or own a separate instrument that's tuned a half-pitch higher (like Louise and Mick Mulcahy in the video). I'd say nearly half the recordings out there are tuned up. Dervish, Lunasa, DeDanann, Molloy/Brady/Peoples, John Carty, Jesse Smith, all recorded in E-flat.
Everything sounds crisper, cleaner, louder, zingy-er. It's also easier to play faster, if that's your thing. Sessions will sometimes do it as well, partly to sound better, and partly to exclude people who are unfamiliar with the schtick, or who don't have the commitment and/or forethought to own and carry an E-flat instrument. Take it or leave it, that's what it is.
Everybody's got their opinions about it.
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by Georgi
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
Instruments are tuned down a step too.
On the Mary Custy Album 'Wtih A Lot of Help From My Friends' she seems to have tuned down a step down on some tracks, and Martin Hayes does the same thing on his new album.
Where should I stick my capo?*
*careful . . .
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by Sugarfoot Jack
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
There's no easy answer to that ...
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by jamascc
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
Eb, and other flat tunings, love it. However, 'recordings', were not usually of instruments tuned up, sometimes sounding a full step higher. It was in the technology, speeding up, sometimes to fit it all on a medium that offered less time than the original... This was common with the old 78s and not uncommon with later media, like 60 minute cassettes... Nowadays we can do it and you wouldn't know it, as we can preserve the original key and speed up the final production, or slow it down if we choose. Ah the tools of digital alchemy...
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by ceolachan
Playing things sharpened isn't new or limited to this tradition...
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
ceolachan
Your right ,,I remember in the old days {wait till I get my walking
stick} Fiddlers use do do this even at Fleadhs - Eb - But it
was so Flutes accoridions and some other fixed instruments
Could Not play along with - Talk about Clanny..
jim,,
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by FIDDLE4
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
I doubt that Mary Custy and Martin Hayes tuned their instruments down. It's more likely that they are just playing the tunes a step down, which is quite common in Clare.
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by GaryAMartin
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
I have been told a few years back it was a fiddlers Tradition
in Co,Clare to Tune the fiddle down a step..Maybe its true,,
jim,,,
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by FIDDLE4
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
As ceolachan says many old recordings were actually recorded in the normal keys but were speeded up so that they actually sounded a semi tone sharper. The main reason for this was tightening up the recording. Before modern recording techniques most folkies had a few days in the studio and it was 'get it right or it will be wrong for good'. When recording on tape it was a common trick to record things slighlty slower and then speeding the recording up, which tightens it. In trad that meant Eb based recordings.
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by bogman
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
About 6% slower, which, if you're close to your limit can make all the difference between "crisp" and "muddy".
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by lazyhound
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
"I doubt that Mary Custy and Martin Hayes tuned their instruments down. It's more likely that they are just playing the tunes a step down, which is quite common in Clare."
The sleeve notes on the new Martin Hayes album says "The fiddle is tuned down a full step on tracks 1,2,3 ...etc".
What does playing a step down mean? Is this different from tuning a step down?
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by Sugarfoot Jack
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
“I doubt that Mary Custy and Martin Hayes tuned their instruments down. It's more likely that they are just playing the tunes a step down, which is quite common in Clare.”
Dunno about Mary, but Martin says in the album notes that he tuned down a step for a bunch of tracks.
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by Bob himself
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
Oooh, ya beat me to it, Jack.
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by Bob himself
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
'Sharp' was also how some old instruments, meaning reeds, were often tuned. I have one here that is there. You'd need to be in at least Eb to play along with it. I just decided I wasn't going to tune this one up to A = 440... Knowing me, if you did, you'd know it had nothing to do with tuning other people out.
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
If you've never sessioned in Eb, you should try it sometime (unless you're playing with a bunch of fixed-pitch instruments). A flute playing friend bought an Eb flute and had us all tune up to it. It was weird at first because my fingers wanted to go to the wrong places on occasion, even though I was putting them in the same places that I would playing in D. I had no clue that my brain actually had some notion of the actual pitch of D. But you get a wonderfully bright, happy sound, and it's fun!
For John Carty, he once told me that he and Alec tuned up on "I Will if I Can" primarily because G string on his Paragon sounds too "floppy" in recordings, and tuning it up gives it the crisp, punchy sound that he likes for the great double-stops that he often plays on the low strings.
For those of you that want to learn tunes from Eb recordings, but have a fixed tuning instrument, you can always just open the file in Audacity, select the whole file, and then select Effect->Change Pitch. You can tell it to tune it from Eb down to D (or just select -1 Semitone)
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by Reverend
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
Caution: If you have an old fiddle you could do some real damage cranking up to higher keys.
Q. What do guitarists do for Eb? Crank up a 1/2 step and play in D is my guess?
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by saltcast
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
Yes, it might be safer on an old instrument to use low tension strings - the required increase in tension for low tension stringa should be well within the instrument's design capabilities. By low tension I mean gut strings or low tension synthetic core.
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by lazyhound
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
I have a 3/4 size fiddle I keep tuned up a semitone;FBbEbAb. Due to its size its perfect. Makes a great change to my normal fiddle. [a 15.5" 5 string viola]
Its allways tuned this way, so it has settled well.
# As to your Q.
A capo is the easiest. but I also have a guitar permanently tuned up a semi -tone also.
it takes a while for an instrument to settle in to a different tuning...
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by jig
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
Most fiddles tune up a semi tone no bother at all. Here in Scotland lots of GHB players play Bb pipes and normal whistles. Fiddlers who play with pipers tune up and down al night - but often just the A and E strings to play with the pipes. But obviously better not risk it on an old or valuable instruments.
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by bogman
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
Are you sure about that bogman? Surely the D string would have to be raised also gor the G nat, or do they just finger a G#?
Personally I have found that it takes a while for a fiddle and guitar to settle and become stable after a shift like that. let alone up and down all night!
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by jig
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
I'm told sometimes that after the tracks have been laid down, the engineers will speed up the recording and intentionally raise the tone 1/2 step.
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by daddae
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
Jig , I play in a band with a fiddler who tunes up and down all night and for most tunes he will only tune A and E. He is a top player and has no trouble with his tuning. It's pretty common here as I'm sure you can imagine with the Bb thing.
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by bogman
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
He must just play the G# then.... interesting.
But rather him than me
# Posted on March 28th 2008 by jig
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
Speaking as someone who usually accompanies the other musicians at a jam session on either a genuine imitation piano (a Roland EP-90 Digital Piano) or an acoustic bass fiddle, most of the time I seem to be playing either in D major or G major or A major or C major and/or one of their relative minors such as b minor or e minor or f-sharp minor or "a" minor.
On the rare occasions when I have had the opportunity to accompany a bagpiper (or "octopus strangler" as one piper jokingly said) with my genuine imitation piano, playing in B-flat major seemed to be the best key for me to play in.
A few years ago, at a jam session in St. Louis (Missouri), I had the opportunity to play my genuine imitation piano with five uillean pipers and one concertina player and they all seemed to be in D major.
However, when I am playing my bass fiddle, I prefer to play in D major or A major or G major due to the way the strings are tuned. I have been known to jokingly threaten to charge extra to accompany musicians who insist on playing in flat keys.
When I am
# Posted on March 29th 2008 by fauxcelt
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
Be careful of your strings when tuning a fiddle up a half step (to Eb). Depending on what type of stirngs you use, it makes them sound very dull and metallic when tuned back down. Something about stretching them out too much, I think. I have an extra (not as nice) fiddle that I keep tuned to Eb so that I don't risk damaging my good fiddle. Also, tuning up is similar to putting on new strings--it takes a while for the strings to settle in, and you'll have to keep retuning for a while until they get stretched out a bit.
# Posted on March 29th 2008 by FidDLe01
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
Dull and metallic? My strings always sound great after an Eb romp, especially when I go from Eb to C#...feels old, in that good way.
--DtM
# Posted on March 29th 2008 by Dan the Man
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
I'm not really getting this discussion. What do you do - tune all strings one half-tone up? Then put your fingers in the same place as before?
If you only tune the A and E up, you'd have to change the fingering on the D and G string?
I can't see any problem in changing the tuning of a fiddle - scandinavian fiddlers do that all the time as well - the only trouble would be everybody waiting for you to be ready again.
jig, I'm excited to hear you play "normally" on a 5-string viola - I got one of these, too. Is yours acoustig or semi-acoustic or electric?
Greez
Mina
# Posted on March 31st 2008 by Mina the Fiddler
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
Mina,
Yes.
Yes, then everything sounds a half-tone higher.
Yes. Technically it's called "scordatura" - a very old technique dating back to the Baroque.
Only Jig can answer the last question.
# Posted on March 31st 2008 by lazyhound
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
I have three 5 string violas actually, a 16''electric, a 15.5 nice acoustic, a 15'' cheapy, plus my strauss electric violin, my old German and a 3/4 size ! talk about Instrument aquisition syndrome! and thats just my fiddles
# Posted on March 31st 2008 by jig
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
@lazyhound
? Mine is "thicker" (higher?) than a normal instrument. I love the sound of it but find it hard to play fast enough for irish fiddle music since I have to use a heavier bow. I use my great-grandfathers old 3/4 -bow for this (and yes I've got his old 3/4 fiddle as well plus my normal violin 
). It's cool to call a viola a fiddle 
thanks. Since I was at summerschool in Sweden last summer I use scordatura sometimes. but of course you have to change the fingering if you learned a tune in another tuning first and want to play it in the same mode/with other people. I was just getting confused because of the discussion about old records. The scandinavians do a funny thing: tuning up the G string to A even if it's not really used in a tune, just for the sound of it (Try it, its great).
@jig: Do you use the acoustic viola to play irish tunes frequently? Is it otherwise "normal"
Sorry if my english is weird
# Posted on April 1st 2008 by Mina the Fiddler
Re: Tuning up a half-step for recordings
Sugarfoot Jack asked:
>What does playing a step down mean? Is this different from tuning a step down?
Tuning a step down means retuning the strings (e.g. from GDAE to FCGD - a whole step down) and then play as usual (in which case a tune in D SOUNDS as if played in C), while playing a step down means keeping the tuning but changing the fingering, e.g. transposing a tune from D to C.
Hope that helps.
Jeff Lindqvist
# Posted on April 2nd 2008 by jeff_lindqvist