In a message dated 2/29/00 6:16:58 PM Central Standard Time, PDtek@AOL.COM writes: << When a head like this is tightened it obviously gets brighter in tone but my contention is that the vibrations are too random and disorganized to actually produce a definable pitch. I can't count the times however that I have heard drummers or banjo players saying that they like to tune the head to A or Bb or whatever. Any opinions? >> Yes, there is a pitch which can be read by an Electronic Tuning Device (ETD). Very high inharmonicity is reason you can't really tell which pitch it is. It is somewhat like that for bells and chimes too. You hear a tone but the inharmonicity is so high that the upper partials confuse your ear as to which note of the scale you are hearing. Have you ever heard what a wound string that is completely wrong for the scale sounds like in a piano? It is the same phenomenon. It will have this "bell-like" sound that is unpleasant because the inharmonicity is much higher than it should be. Many years ago when I was the tuner for a downtown nightclub, I saw the famous drummer Buddy Rich's set up technician using a Korg tuner to tune the various drums. An orchestra timpani player must tune before the piece and sometimes during it. I have seen timpani players sound a tuning fork to give a reference. So the answer is yes, drums definitely have pitches and sometimes are required to be tuned to a specific pitch. Regards, Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin
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