This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment Susan: When called for bad intonation, a certain type of string student would start furiously tuning the open strings. My teacher would say, "That's only four notes ..." I think you are missing the point . . . it is a valid anecdote though. > I was told to "check it with the open string" when I was 10. By the time I was 20, I was able to play in tune when the strings were a little off, with effort. By the time I was 25 I would play in tune when the strings were a little off without effort. Well, it sounds like to me you should have continued to listen to your open strings. How do you know you are in-tune if you never listen to your other strings (I do not mean physically play them)? I am really interested, it seems like you know something that the rest of the string world has missed out on. > This theory of open-string resonance dictating interval size -- sorry, I don't see it this way. How about the key of B major, for instance? Open strings do not dictate interval size . . . that was dictated a very long time ago by math and physics. Open strings help in note placement. We have already talked about how G-B can either be placed against the G-string or the E-string, but not both. A major 3rd is a major 3rd regardless of the other open strings. You are confusing interval size and strings' natural variation in key color. Well temperaments on the piano have color changes in different key areas. A similar thing happens with strings, but it is based on degrees of resonance rather that degrees of tempered intervals: D-Major is a very resonant key on violin . . . D flat-Major is not. But musicians have known about this for hundreds of years, so this is nothing new. One of Paganini's concertos calls for the orchestra to play in Dflat, the soloist plays in D with the violin tuned down a half step. The result is that the solo part is much more brilliant than the subdued orchestra part. > And who may these string players be, pray? Students, perhaps? I certainly have said that many string players do not temper anything, melodically or otherwise -- but all of them? I beg leave to differ! No Susan, we have not been talking about students. But maybe that is part of the problem: I am talking about a professional standard. That would certainly explain some of the confusion. Between my wife and myself, we have studied or had master classes with almost all of the top quartets. From these experiences I have learned that [just] intonation is a very important issue; they seem to have absolutely no tolerance for beating intervals. Maybe you could listen to a few recordings? > Bradley, do you really like playing skimpy little beatless major thirds? And wide flabby beatless minor thirds? Really? In a dominant chord, you like the leading tone way low, do you? YES Susan, I have always been encouraged to play in-tune. Adding beats is an additional tool that I have learned to use to expand my musical expression: especially the shading of harmonic vocabulary. But it is not the standard from which we begin. I do apologize, but I completely disagree with you, and apparently so do most professionals. But please don't take it the wrong way, it took a long time for EQT to be accepted in the piano community. Who knows, maybe in a hundred years string players will be playing exactly how you have suggested. Until then, Bradley M. Snook ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/3f/3b/e6/08/attachment.htm ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC