How to Sight-Read

[GabrielRice]

Everyone in tomingoode's problem ensemble is already "trusting their ear".

How's that working out for them?

That's not what I get from his description at all.

[timothy42b]

An equal-temperament piano is rigorously imperfect but if you are going to play with one you need to match it instead of trying to teach it a lesson.

Bob, does anyone actually make an equal tempered piano at this point? I was under the impression, perhaps mistakenly, virtually all pianos were tuned to the tempered scale now.

As I understand it, tuners attempt to have the piano sound like ET, with varying degrees of skill (and some problems with individual pianos.)

There is a respected tuner in the midwest who believes a lot of tuners actually tune to Reverse Well by mistake. He tunes to a non-ET by preference if the owner likes it, something like EVBT, an acronym I don't recall.

Here's a link to 6 pages of discussion on a Piano Technician forum: https://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads ... 183/1.html

[Tomingoode]

Bob,

It's Robert

does anyone actually make an equal tempered piano at this point? I was under the impression, perhaps mistakenly, virtually all pianos were tuned to the tempered scale now.

"Tempered" can mean a lot of things. There are numerous varieties of tempered tunings, meaning they depart from pure "just" tuning,.

Consider this partial list of options in "Chromatia Tuner"

Temps.jpg


BTW, the Intonation Repair Tool teaches just tuning for its easy-to-hear simple pitch ratios.

Just tuning is impossible to maintain beyond one tonality on a keyboard instrument, however.

So... 12-tone equal-temperament, where the frequency of each half-step increments by the 12th root of 2, is the modern standard compromise tuning for fixed-pitch keyboard instruments. It would be rare to encounter a piano today that its tuner had not aspired to create 12-tone equal temperament.

There is something called "stretch" that piano tuners do that departs from exact equal temperament, perhaps that is what you meant.

My apologies Robert...I did ask what you preferred in a previous post and either didn't see your answer or didn't get one to my question. Now I know. No disrespect intended. And on the variations in tempering, I was aware there were a few choices for how the scales were tempered but had no clue there were as many as your posting indicates. I read with amusement your comment about most piano tuners aspiring to create 12 tone even temperment. In this area, there are only a couple of people who are competent to my knowledge. This information is second hand from my voice teacher who also teaches piano. She is blessed or cursed, depending on your view, with perfect pitch, so her opinion I take to be valid at least in regard to the piano tuning talent locally.

can you explain this concept of 'stretch'?

[Tomingoode]

Everyone in tomingoode's problem ensemble is already "trusting their ear".

How's that working out for them?

That's not what I get from his description at all.

I think what is happening is they aren't listening hard enough either during tune up or as things warm up during the session they arent compensating for the slight shifts that occur to the state of tune as the temperature/humidity change. I don't have a feel for how much of a shift temperature and humidity have on woodwinds but I suspect on brass instruments its quite measurable. I know string instruments are very sensitive to those changes from personal experience. Or maybe they just arent listening at all? I know its pretty easy to pull pitch one way or the other on a trombone without ever changing slide position but I cant speak for other wind instruments since I don't have any experience with them. So the trombone section can compensate or fail to compensate depending on your view...for pitch inaccuracy by people playing other instruments. How much pitch bend can you get say on a saxophone or clarinet? My gut tells me that it isnt much, but my gut has been way wrong before. Anybody got an idea?

[Doug Elliott]

Piano pitch stretch refers to the fact that it sounds better if the top end is a little sharp and the bottom end is a little flat. It's partly an idiosyncrasy of metal string vibration characteristics and the need to tune partly to harmonics, not only fundamentals.

You can often hear exactly the same thing within a saxophone section, or even within a whole band, where there is a slight discrepancy in pitch between the lowest instruments and the highest, but it sounds good, and correct, that way.

This has strayed a long way from the "sightreading" topic.

[GabrielRice]

This has strayed a long way from the "sightreading" topic.

In my professional world it's a problem if somebody can't sight read in tune.

[Doug Elliott]

My horns were all tuned at the factory

[ithinknot]

Piano pitch stretch refers to the fact that it sounds better if the top end is a little sharp and the bottom end is a little flat. It's partly an idiosyncrasy of metal string vibration characteristics and the need to tune partly to harmonics, not only fundamentals.

Not helping with the straying here, I realize, but FWIW:
Inharmonicity in piano strings is super high - high stiffness, overwinding, etc. But the same techniques work well on harpsichords where technically there isn't anything like the same inharmonicity issue. In the bass I mostly tune for a beatless internal major third (i.e. 5th and 10th partials). It's a tone color thing - I was doing it long before I knew that was what I was doing. I only thought about it because I couldn't work out why I disliked the sound of some other people's otherwise competent tunings (often they're comparing 5ths - 12th vs 6th partials), and why tuning fundamentals to a machine dial gave particularly ugly results.

[robcat2075]

Stretch...

There is a study out there which tested capable musicians on how much stretch sharpening and flattening was needed to sound "right" to them. They were all over the map on that. A few outliers seemed to not want any. I had previously thought the stretch was something that could be objectively prescribed and agreed on ("overtones" and all that) but, no, it is very subject to the whims and fancies of the listener.

From a piano forum, piano technician asserts this (possibly true? ) "well-known" fact...

It is a well known fact from numerous studies that as we age, higher pitched tones are percieved as flatter in comparison to what they were thought to be earlier on in life. Along with this, we also lose the ability to hear frequencies in the upper range (15-20 kHz) comparatively to earlier on in life.

I have had the tendancy as of late to go a good 5 cents or more sharp (aurally) than what my ETD (RCT 4 setting in stretch) would suggest for the highest octave. I tend to lean towards the ETD setting in most cases since I might be hearing these notes a bit flat compared to what I used to hear them as when I was younger. Part of this also has to do with "taste" in artificial stretch.

Other commenters in that thread offer variations on the hypothesis.

I would be curious to see a survey of what the stretch is in various classic recordings. Has the practice changed over time?

[Doug Elliott]

A piano tuner is working with an individual piano and its own idiosyncrasies of inharmicity in the strings. And the tuner's own ears.

Another piano may very well need a different amount of stretch to resolve its own idiosyncrasies. And as heard by another set of ears.

Stretch needed "to sound right" in other situations or combinations of instruments is probably at least somewhhat different.

[robcat2075]

That's not what I get from his description at all.

I think what is happening is they aren't listening hard enough either during tune up or as things warm up during the session...

But they don't know they aren't listening hard enough. They are trusting their ear. For better or for worse they are trusting their ear and until they hear something they can identify as not-good-enough they will stay with what they hear as being good enough.

I doubt any of them think his or her own intonation is a problem. They can hear themselves and they are satisfied with it. They are... trusting their ear.

So the trombone section can compensate or fail to compensate depending on your view...for pitch inaccuracy by people playing other instruments. How much pitch bend can you get say on a saxophone or clarinet? My gut tells me that it isnt much, but my gut has been way wrong before. Anybody got an idea?

Flutes have a fairly wide latitude. Oboes, so wide that it takes great skill to land the right pitch at all. Oboe players who can play in tune are rare creatures. There was much gnashing of teeth at my college when the one decent oboe player decided she was putting it aside to concentrate on her pre-vet major.

Saxes have wide latitude. Their typical jaw vibrato is probably wider than any pitch adjustment that might be needed in an ensemble.

With the same form factor for the mouthpiece, clarinets should be as free but... the window of what the embouchure can do and still produce a proper classical clarinet sound is quite narrow. Clarinet intonation is the downfall of most school and community bands. Most casual clarinet players have lazy embouchures so they are hopelessly flat. No amount of "pushing in" will save them.

However, those instruments can be played in tune in normal concert conditions.

But if those players are like me, no one has ever coached them on it beyond reciting a slogan... "You must learn to use your ear!"

[robcat2075]

And on the variations in tempering, I was aware there were a few choices for how the scales were tempered but had no clue there were as many as your posting indicates.

Most of those are just curiosities today, but occasionally someone will do a Historically Informed recording of Bach keyboard works and use a special temperament. I'm not sure we know how Bach expected the "Well-Tempered Clavier" to be done although we know it wasn't equal temperament.

But everything on that list has some reason behind it, some problem they were deeming to be solved by it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werckmeister_temperament

[Tomingoode]

Robert, you offer interesting insights into the various instruments and the latitude they have with pitch on any given note. I remember being surprised at how much pitch bending could be done on the trombone even when playing notes in first position where the instrument supposedly was truly in tune and not depending on the player to fine tune a position to get the correct pitch. It may be my exposure to having to listen to for pitch accuracy as a young boy, especially in any position other than first that helped me have the reasonably well developed sense of pitch I have today. Not to say it cant be improved. I am reminded of a practice session a couple of months ago where I was using an electronic tuner to try to nail down normal concert Bb to play along with a recording I liked. And it was sooo easy to pull the note away from center of pitch the tuner would almost switch over to the next half step up or down before the horn moved far enough off to actually change to the next note in the series. I didn't expect to see such a graphic display of how far off center its possible to go. I'd guess that the higher up you go the lattitude as far as pitch bending is much less because the notes are so much closer together. I have not tried measuring those upper register notes to see how much bending is possible.
You were speaking of casual clarinet players as being hopelessly flat (paraphrase). What do they do to adjust their instrument for concert tuning? Is it reed adjustment? or do they have a means to lengthen or shorten the 'tube' that is their instrument? Never tried to play a clarinet, never wanted to, and so am totally ignorant of the mechanics involved.

[BGuttman]

...
You were speaking of casual clarinet players as being hopelessly flat (paraphrase). What do they do to adjust their instrument for concert tuning? Is it reed adjustment? or do they have a means to lengthen or shorten the 'tube' that is their instrument? Never tried to play a clarinet, never wanted to, and so am totally ignorant of the mechanics involved.

There are two ways to adjust pitch on a clarinet (that I know of). The classic method of tuning is by adjusting the fitting between the barrel and first joint. A very small adjustment makes a big difference. Much like saxophone players move the mouthpiece on the neck cork.

The other way is to adjust the "bite" on the reed. This is a small adjustment and is sometimes used as a means to vibrato. We would call this "jaw vibrato". This is probably how the clarinet player adjust his pitch to the ensemble "on the fly".

I suppose increasing or decreasing the pressure on the air column would also cause a clarinet pitch to adjust.