OFF (*was: neurology)

[Don]

Hi Bradley,

There are as you mention more than one school of thought. I do remember the
Orford String Quartet almost murdering each other over the size of a +3rd,
until they finally agreed that there was really no set size ever. They most
certainly did NOT play just thirds. 

If you know the repertoire you will know the unison trill that slows down
in the Beethoven Spring Sonata. For most students--if they can not hear the
piano then they are trilling exactly together and at the same pitch as the
piano.

I never have seen a recommendation to not use vibrato on double
stops--which begs the whole issue of whether the interval is just or not.
That is unless you have two fingers that vary in size so that the vibrato
will always vary the pitch identically on both notes no matter where on the
fiddle they are being played.

I do think we are splitting hairs here.  

At 02:41 PM 4/25/02 -0700, you wrote:
>I agree with Ed. Strings generally aim for just sounding intervals. As Ed
>pointed out, strings have the advantage of using interval size to color
>dissonant tension. The comment about everything changing when piano and
>string quartet merge is absolutely correct (I have so many horror stories of
>piano-string rehearsals). But this really depends on the quartet because
>there are two "schools of thought" on resolving piano-string issues with
>intonation.
>
>Susan, string players do not melodically temper intervallic movement. You
>may feel that way for a completely different reason than you think.
>Sufficient psychoacoustical research has been conducted to show that
>musicians do not have sufficient ability to melodically place a succession
>of notes. String players generally place notes based on open-string
>sympathetic vibration: intervals are tempered in such a way to make the
>other three strings sympathetically vibrate. This makes the instrument
>"ring" and have an "open" sound. I'm sure that at some point in your cello
>career someone told you to "check it with the open string?"
>
>Don, the goal of chords and double stops are ALWAYS to be as just as
>possible (unless they are being colored for a specific purpose). Your
>example is a very good one, but the B is not checked against the open-E in
>this situation; the B is positioned against the fingered G to form a just
>3rd. Checking the B against the open-E will make the first finger very high.
>HOWEVER . . . the chord E(open-E), B (A-string) and G (D-string) is
>completely different! The B is tuned against the open-E, and the G is tuned
>against the B (NOT the open-G string, which is normally the case).
>Sympathetically vibrating open-strings are a very good thing, but the notes
>that are actually sounding must be in tune first!
>
>Just so everyone understands where I am coming from, my current degrees are
>in violin performance. And believe me, I deal with these issues way too
>much.
>
>Bradley M. Snook
>
>
>
>
>

Regards,
Don Rose, B.Mus., A.M.U.S., A.MUS., R.M.T., R.P.T.

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