Shakespeare on Tuning
Perhaps cheque is a better spelling than check. Is that why we insist on test? This is Shakespeare on Homer, how to take down a city, and tuning all in one soliloquy, though Nestor also mentions tuning previously in the scene.
Strangely enough, the dialogue is interrupted by a trumpet, which at that time, likely did not have valves, and only played notes in the partial sequence. Coincidence?
Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down,
And the great Hector's sword had lack'd a master,
But for these instances.
The specialty of rule hath been neglected:
And, look, how many Grecian tents do stand
Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.
When that the general is not like the hive
To whom the foragers shall all repair,
What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,
The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.
The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre
Observe degree, priority and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office and custom, in all line of order;
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthroned and sphered
Amidst the other; whose medicinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,
And posts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans cheque to good and bad: but when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents! what mutiny!
What raging of the sea! shaking of earth!
Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
Then enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores
And make a sop of all this solid globe:
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead:
Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong,
Between whose endless jar justice resides,
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;
And appetite, an universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,
This chaos, when degree is suffocate,
Follows the choking.
And this neglection of degree it is
That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose
It hath to climb. The general's disdain'd
By him one step below, he by the next,
That next by him beneath; so every step,
Exampled by the first pace that is sick
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless emulation:
And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,
Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length,
Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.
Italics mine http://shakespeare.mit.edu/troilus_cressida/troilus_cressida.1.3.html
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Sloane, Benjamin (sloaneba)
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2009 2:45 PM
To: 'caut at ptg.org'
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Temperment check inquiry
Reverting to 4th and 5th checks helps at that point. The 8:4 test, the octave and 4th above the fundamental, when the m6 above the fundamental check gets too fast helps me. I didn't mean to ignore those. Pushing up the 4:2 beyond audible bps in the M3 below the fundamental, I need the 4th above fundamental check. Sometimes I wonder if the sostenuto was designed for the piano player.
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Fred Sturm
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2009 1:19 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Temperment check inquiry
On Mar 23, 2009, at 10:42 AM, Sloane, Benjamin (sloaneba) wrote:
"Would the bps of all four at some location in the keyboard equally tempered coincide? The greatest specificity for my question is eliminated when I am forced to use certain notes to explain my question. I use a minor 6th above the fundamental to check both the 8:4 octave and the 8:6 fourth
Practically speaking, I think these tests of coincidences of partials above the 6th partial are of little use. First of all, the partials tend to be weak (the 8th tends to be one of the weakest), so they are hard to hear. But more importantly, issues of inharmonicity come to the fore, especially in the midrange area, where the lower tenor notes (lowest plain strings) are highest in inharmonicity, and there tends not to be a good match of partial ladders (the low tenor, high inharmonicity notes have ladders that rapidly ascend, compared to the highest wound strings and the higher plain strings). In my experience, 3:2 5ths are far more useful than 6:4, and 4:3 4ths more than 8:6. For example, often you find that a 6:4 5th in the temperament octave that is "appropriately narrow" will mean a widened 3:2 5th (thinking of Acrosonics, Kimballs, and Wurlitzers as common examples).
Where it is useful to listen to higher coincidences is in knowing why that 5th sounds the way it does, where those strange beats are located and why they are there. If you are "listening to the whole sound" of a 5th, you can become hopelessly confused. (On larger, more evenly scaled instruments, this is not so much of an issue).
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm at unm.edu<mailto:fssturm at unm.edu>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut_ptg.org/attachments/20090326/9e98a096/attachment.html>
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC