Fred:
Don't sell the violinists short on pitch perception. The Concert Master of the Dallas Symphony did 3 days of recording in our recital hall over winter break. He was telling me that as he gets older and his pitch perception gets even better he gets very frustrated with his own playing. He did finish his session in the 3 days, but he had reserved 6 days because he wanted it perfect.
He sat down at the piano before he started the first day and noticed how the speed of the beats of an F4-A4 M3rd changed as the notes faded away. That small pitch change of the die-away was noticeable to him.
He called me at home to thank me for the nice piano when he finished. It was the Nossaman D+ that we had done last summer. It really is awesome.
dp
David M. Porritt, RPT
dporritt at smu.edu<mailto:dporritt at smu.edu>
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Fred Sturm
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 2:00 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] temperament for Schubert
On Jan 23, 2009, at 10:37 AM, A440A at aol.com<mailto:A440A at aol.com> wrote:
The highest standard of unison tuning is by
no means common, and it is quite possible that your tuning would stand
out in the experience of the violinist in this regard. ,snip>
umm, I dont' think I'm that good. This particular violinist plays all over the world, his accompanyist is head of the piano dept. at the Royal Academy of Scotland, and I am going to assume they have experience with the best tuners there are, out there. I think it was something else.
Don't sell yourself short. Anyone who cut his teeth in recording studios and stayed there has learned the art of the clean, stable unison. The obsession needed to meet the demands there is above and beyond what is typically required in the concert hall, even the most prestigious. And, of course, there is the widespread prejudice against use of ETDs, which has the effect of making the task that much more difficult (particularly that of honing in on every single last unison, no matter what).
>> Now as to how precisely musicians match pitch (particularly to a
harpsichord), that is another question, and it may be that the level
of precision is low enough that it doesn't really matter. I suspect
this is the case. But in any event, one fixed pitch is the same as
another in being an artificial fixed target from the point of view of
the flexible pitch instrument. None will match what the flexible pitch
instrument would do in other contexts. ET has the benefit of being
very predictable and familiar, whatever its other sins <G>
I have a idea that what the violinist was actually referring to comes from the Coleman tuning providing a tonal center, and once his ear recognized the landscape,(harmonoscape?), the distances and widths of intevals became his landmarks.
Well, I won't say this is out of the question. But I am very skeptical. My talks with players of unfretted strings, particularly our violin prof, together with reading pedagogical material about intonation for strings, leads me to believe that this is a very nebulous field. The development of the ear and concomitant finger placement is a BIG focus of string players and teachers, for obvious reasons. There are several problems that must be addressed simultaneously. Briefly, there are the strings themselves (tuned at fifths apart, usually just but in any case a fixed point). Any G on any string must reference the G string and same for the other fixed pitches; There is a tendency toward melodic leading, where sharps used as leading tones are raised a bit, flats lowered a bit (especially in Neapolitan 6th chord where it leads downward); there is a use of just intervals when playing double stops, but with reference to the strings' tunings; there is a blending with other players in ensemble. All of this without reference to a fixed pitch instrument like the piano.
When the piano enters the picture, we have a completely new problem, or so my informants tell me. It is one that is spoken of with a grimace. Nothing works, regardless. One can match pitch of a unison when that occurs, but it will be "out of tune" in other contexts. If one plays a just third to a tonic, it will be out of tune with the third of the piano. Essentially, one simply "does one's best and calls it good enough," as a simple way of summing up what I have been told. I don't see how either a mild or a pungent WT would significantly change the situation. When I have asked, I have been told no.
All that said, I don't dismiss out of hand the notion of an intuitive response to a sonic landscape. I just don't think that the mechanics and details corroborate the notion that it is easier to play in tune with a piano at WT instead of ET, whatever that actually means (playing in tune with a piano).
I am going to continue with this via the string faculty here, but I do know that it is very easy to scare them with talk of technically measuring intonation. They often don't really know why they play non-just intervals when the score increases tension,(and often dynamic level), but they usually know exactly why they strive for Just intonation in ensemble playing of music that is calm and serene.
I would be very interested in hearing what they have to say. The calm and serene thing, I think has to do with time. Sustained intervals give enough time to get them aligned justly. And it is very noticeable if they are not. Do you actually have evidence of "non-just intervals when the score increases tension"?
I have nothing to be dogmatic about with any of this, just investigating what happens when I manage to get the barriers of status quo lowered a little bit. Universities are supposed to be places to explore, it is a shame that so many members of academia get fossilized in place, rigid in outlook, and reduced to protecting their history, even if it means turning a deaf ear to new concepts. Shucks, life is short, I don't wanna do the same thing over and over and over, at least 'til I have tried as much new stuff as possible.
No argument here. Likewise. My one quibble is in wanting us as cauts to be in sync with musicological scholarship. Owen Jorgensen contributed a lot to our profession, but several of his conclusions and methodologies are very questionable, as confirmed by Claudio di Veroli in his recent post (forwarded by Kent). If we are posing as experts on historical tuning, we need to have a solid basis for our opinions, and know where they fit in the spectrum of current scholarly thought. Unfortunately, it is difficult to come by this knowledge.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm at unm.edu<mailto:fssturm at unm.edu>
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