| Author |
Topic: tuning C6th "straight up" (440) |
J D Sauser
From:
Wellington, Florida
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Posted 22 Jul 2021 8:35 am |
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We've debated equal temperament vs. just intonation too many times over the past decades. So this one is NOT about "vs.", please!
Buddy Emmons was said and also briefly confirmed here 20 to 25 years ago, that he had migrated to tuning straight up to 440 and only slightly adjust his M3rds a little bit.
I can't hear that on any of his E9th playing and I remember Maurice Anderson just shaking his head in disbelieve when we discussed it. BUT, the more I listen to BE's playing, the more I don't seem to hear any pedal-lever-combination conflicts (stacked changes where previous M3rds tuned flat become other degrees which shouldn't be flat etc). I start to suspect that his tuning was pretty much "straight" up. I have only spoke to BE twice and only very briefly. I regret not having talked to him more, he was very friendly and approachable. But, I would think that others still on here had a more direct connection to him and may have some input on how he really tuned each neck (I am mainly interested in C6th).
Because I currently only play a fairly complex S12-C6th with 5P & 7K... I currently tune to "MeanTone"-tuning as suggested and explained by our "landlord", b0b here.
But coming from a practice of tuning standard guitars and steel guitars with the bar on at the 7th fret (to spread intonation issues) by EAR, I find tuning to a rather complex read with the bar on, tedious. I still battle some "compromises" which become more difficult when adding more changes. So, I am again toying with the idea to go 440 and MAYBE tune tone done some "edges" to ear ever so slightly.
My 10 year old son is learning jazz piano and we just acquired a nice 1956 Wurlitzer which blends in real nice against the C6th guitar... but that thing is tuned ALL the way straight... so, even more so, I am contemplating going straight too.
I'd like to hear from other's who have gone that way.
Thanks!... J-D.
_________________
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Was it JFK who said: Ask Not What TAB Can Do For You - Rather Ask Yourself "What Would B.B. King Do?"
A Little Mental Health Warning:
Tablature KILLS SKILLS.
The uses of Tablature is addictive and has been linked to reduced musical fertility.
Those who produce Tablature did never use it.
I say it humorously, but I mean it. |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 22 Jul 2021 4:06 pm
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With its diminished and augmented chords, the C6 lends itself to equal temperament much more readily than the E9. I play a universal and I like to tune in natural intervals, but I have to make compromises. There is no such thing as a JI dim or aug.
_________________
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Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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J D Sauser
From:
Wellington, Florida
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Posted 23 Jul 2021 11:03 am
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| Ian Rae wrote: |
| With its diminished and augmented chords, the C6 lends itself to equal temperament much more readily than the E9. I play a universal and I like to tune in natural intervals, but I have to make compromises. There is no such thing as a JI dim or aug. |
Yes, as stack of JI diminished 3rds will generate an octave that is sharp and a stack of augmenteds will land the octave 1/4 note flat.
But it's not just that. When you tune the 7th pedal and then use it with the 6th pedal you create an altogether different chord will all degrees moved, so the JI that worked against "open" now is totally wrong.
The C-to-C# raise struggles with various issues, being the M3rd raising from the Am7... it too is flat... then you want to drop the 5th pedal to drop the b7th to become a 6th and everything just has that mushy "flat" sound... then try to drop the A half and good nite "tuning"!
It's like the E-to-F change on E9th... creating a M3rd to the A-pedaled C# Chord... just that that A-pedal is tuned flat for creating the M3rd to the A6th chord with A&B down... so F being a M3 off a flattened Root, is now "double" flattened. Now imagine you add a change on top of that... could make the F a root... it'be messy.
Changing strings and swapping 2 changes among two levers yesterday. I tuned up straight. STRAIGHT-straight. NO tweaking. Now, evidently, intonation along the strings becomes a struggle... so I tuned all pulls in straight half and full tones and retuned with y bar at the 5th fret. It's VERY consistent now. I play big wide chord and single notes. Don't misunderstand me, I still listen to Byrd and Speedy and all that, but I play "JD".
To me it works and what most of all works now, is my setup. I can mix several levers and pedals and IF THAT makes a legit chord, it will SOUND RIGHT.
So, this is where I am at now.
I don't recommend it, because I was a fervent defensor of JI, and if I'd ever play E9th or non-pedal again, no question, I'd naturally go right back to JI.
But for C, B or Bb6th PEDAL... that's where I've landed... J-D.
_________________
__________________________________________________________
Was it JFK who said: Ask Not What TAB Can Do For You - Rather Ask Yourself "What Would B.B. King Do?"
A Little Mental Health Warning:
Tablature KILLS SKILLS.
The uses of Tablature is addictive and has been linked to reduced musical fertility.
Those who produce Tablature did never use it.
I say it humorously, but I mean it. |
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 23 Jul 2021 11:52 am
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| Quote: |
| Topic: tuning C6th "straight up" (440) |
As opposed to what? Tuning 438, or 442, or some other number?
Or...are you saying that you tune to whatever your tuner says, then have to "fudge" a few strings to make it sound good? |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 23 Jul 2021 3:39 pm
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I take "straight up" to mean equal temperament, unsweetened. Choice of frequency for A is a separate matter.
_________________
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Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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J D Sauser
From:
Wellington, Florida
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Posted 23 Jul 2021 5:02 pm
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| Ian Rae wrote: |
| I take "straight up" to mean equal temperament, unsweetened. Choice of frequency for A is a separate matter. |
YES, "straight up" like equal temperament, vs. JI ("Just Intonation").
I must say, we got pianos in the house. Two of them being Wurli's (which are tuned strictly ET, unlike a "real" piano which has some adjustments). And I played guitar for the last 20 years... so, my ear is more tolerant to ET than it was in my early steel guitar years.
I must say, this is the second day playing ET C6th and I rejoice at the clarity of all the pedal-lever combinations.
But as I said, would I ever play E9th again (which I have some doubts) or non-pedal, I would certainly go back JI.
... J-D.
_________________
__________________________________________________________
Was it JFK who said: Ask Not What TAB Can Do For You - Rather Ask Yourself "What Would B.B. King Do?"
A Little Mental Health Warning:
Tablature KILLS SKILLS.
The uses of Tablature is addictive and has been linked to reduced musical fertility.
Those who produce Tablature did never use it.
I say it humorously, but I mean it. |
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Jim Bates
From:
Alvin, Texas, USA
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Posted 23 Jul 2021 7:46 pm
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Curious as to what you by a 'real' piano? I tune real pianos
regularly several times month (and have for 50 yrs). The only thing I alter is doing the stretch, beginning with the C above middle C and ramping up per MY own formula and arrive at top C ~ 17 cents sharp.
I am always open to different ways people tune. (ET really 'stinks' to my ears for tuning a steel guitar. You do need your own sweetners for that.)
Thanx,
Jim
_________________
Jim Bates, Alvin, Texas
Emmons LeGrand,Sho-Bud Super Pro, SB ProII - E13th,C6th on all. Many Resonator guitars |
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 5:03 am
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| From my way of thinking, all ET variations (including "straight-up") have some degree of sweetening, that's what makes them ET. ET is nothing more than a set of compromises made to make certain note combinations sound better. Trying to select what's best is problematic, though, as the amount of sweetening will vary depending on the instrument, the tuning, the string gauges, and the player. In other words, there is no single ET tuning. A "straight-up" ET tuning on a piano, a guitar, and on each pedal steel would all be slightly different. And when theses differences come into play, it means the tuning can't be precisely quantified. There's simply no version that works for everybody, and that's why we all "tweak", and why most all of us tweak differently. |
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Earnest Bovine
From:
Los Angeles CA USA
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 6:00 am
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| Donny Hinson wrote: |
| In other words, there is no single ET tuning. |
If you use 12 notes per octave, there is only one ET tuning. Are you into 31-TET? |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 10:05 am
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E stands for Equal. If you sweeten things, fine, but you can no longer call it equal.
If I played a D10 I'd tune the E9 in JI and the C6 in ET, but I play a uni and keep my problems to myself! 
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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Jack Stoner
From:
Kansas City, MO
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 12:13 pm
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On a whim, with my Franklin, I tuned the high C and then tuned the rest using harmonics (ala Emmons). I went back and checked the tuning with the Newman program and they were the same.
_________________
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Cakewalk by Bandlab and Studio One V4.6 pro DAWs, MOTU Ultralite MK5 recording interface unit |
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J D Sauser
From:
Wellington, Florida
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 7:09 pm
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| Donny Hinson wrote: |
| From my way of thinking, all ET variations (including "straight-up") have some degree of sweetening, that's what makes them ET. ET is nothing more than a set of compromises made to make certain note combinations sound better. Trying to select what's best is problematic, though, as the amount of sweetening will vary depending on the instrument, the tuning, the string gauges, and the player. In other words, there is no single ET tuning. A "straight-up" ET tuning on a piano, a guitar, and on each pedal steel would all be slightly different. And when theses differences come into play, it means the tuning can't be precisely quantified. There's simply no version that works for everybody, and that's why we all "tweak", and why most all of us tweak differently. |
Not to beat a dead horse...
ET as others already stated, comes from Equal Temperament.
Temperament is any tuning alteration away from Just Intonation.
Your Fretboard is ET... its an equal increment algorithm. Besides string tension detuning, your notes along a string played exactly ON the frets would be ET.
Classic pianos are NOT tuned ET. There are various tuning methods based on the era, music style etc. Electric Pianos like the Wurlitzer and Rhodes were tuned strict ET because they had only ONE tone reed per key, whereas an acoustic piano has several strings per key and in most tuning methods, they are tuned slightly differently, which generates a "wider" sound and accommodates or masks temperament methods. Also Wurlitzer and Rhodes electric pianos were pitched to the Blues, Rock, R&B and Jazz crowd, which has a tendency to play in ANY key, including C#, F# or what ever odd key. So, they needed to sound constant in any key. Additionally, once guitar took over so much, they played a lot against fixed pitch instruments that are ET, whereas the classic piano played mostly against variable pitch instruments like violins, and horns (which can alter each note to sweeten harmonies). Typically, a classic piano will be tuned in an "arch" meaning that the far low and far high end is tuned slightly higher than the middle. Then scale keys like CMaj, Dminor, Eminor, FMaj, GMaj, Aminor are ever slightly sweetened. so they are playable without causing conflicts. But evidently it involves compromises. This is NOT "Equal Temperament"... it's ALTERED to some kind of compromise temperament.
In other words, there is only ONE ET and ONE JI... everything else are tuning methods and as soon as they are NOT JI, it's "Temperament".
ET always works the same and with all chord extensions and alterations.
JI will fail with certain chord extensions and alterations because the create intervals of both sides of the problematic note, which one will want to JI-sweet tune, but then create an issue with the other note on the opposite side. Additionally, it will spectacularly fail when stacking JI-sweetened intervals creating octave mismatches.
JI has it's roots in PHYSICS and this is how Pythagoras found out how to organize the 12 semi-tone scale.
Every string, reed or physically vibrating tone generator, generates over tones, those come from fractions of the length of each string. The fractional physical occurrence discovered and used to create all 12 tones does NOT match and Equal distance system... like our fret board which is a close but "equalized" version. When two dissonant notes (minor and major thirds and their 6th counter parts) ring, their OVERTONES are slightly off when the interval is tuned ET. So they clash (the wobble we perceive as undesirable). When we JI tune, we match the overtones of one string with the note of the other string. But if we do that like matching a stack of minor thirds (diminished) or a stack of major thirds (augmented) in JI... the resulting expected octaves (4th minor third stacked or 3rd Maj. third stacked) will be considerably off from the starting note. Physics has NO solution for this one. One could argue that Physics does not like music.
'nough of that. It's good to know, but it doesn't make us play faster.
As I said, IF I ever where to play E9th again, I would tune it JI, because it works and E9th playing is MAINLY about playing two note harmonies and single notes and fairly basic chords (evidently, the tuning allows for more complex chords too).
The same would hold true for most non-pedal tunings except maybe a Diatonic tuning or something like that.
But for a "Jazz"-tuning like a 6th tuning with pedals and levers which allow for multiple stacked changes combinations on top of each other, changing all degrees around several times over, I have come to the conclusion that either one takes "b0b's" Mean-Tone TEMPERAMENT approach (which too has stacking issues, he well describes) or ET. At the current time, I am happy with ET for my 6th tuning.
My intention was, to by-pass this whole dissertation (as we've had it decades ago) and rather re-visit the famed and ever controversial statement BE left us with, in which he suggested that he went ET with some minor adjustments.
Apparently there seems to be nobody left with direct knowledge of what BE did or didn't to to testify.
Thanks!... J-D.
_________________
__________________________________________________________
Was it JFK who said: Ask Not What TAB Can Do For You - Rather Ask Yourself "What Would B.B. King Do?"
A Little Mental Health Warning:
Tablature KILLS SKILLS.
The uses of Tablature is addictive and has been linked to reduced musical fertility.
Those who produce Tablature did never use it.
I say it humorously, but I mean it. |
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Lee Baucum
From:
McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 7:38 pm
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Tampered Tuning!
The first time I heard this term I thought it was great and have been using it ever since. For those of you who still have your copies of the old Steel Guitar World Magazine, go back to Issue #14, from April of 1994. On page 10 there is an article by Helmut Gragger, from Austria. In the section on tuning he talks about the merits of tuning ET or "straight to 440 on the tuner". He goes on to say, "Devotees of the 'plus minus so-and-so from 440 method' will have their hair raised in horror now. In misunderstanding (or, in fact, ignorance) of the theory they call their method "tempered', but, to have this crystal clear, it can be called 'tampered' at best. It is an inbetween mixture of both worlds that obeys to no other proven law than fiddling, getting away with blue murder."
I think "blue murder" is a bit harsh, but I do believe that "tampered" tuning is a great way to describe the method by which many of us tune our guitars. |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 25 Jul 2021 1:20 am
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I prefer "tinkered" on the grounds that if it sounds right, it is right, and you don't have to justify your results to anyone on scientific grounds.
JD's essay is good, and reminds us that it's harmonics we're dealing with, not just pure tones. I suppose we should include sum and difference tones as well, especially the latter which we hear as beats.
I don't know whether Pythagoras entertained all the 12 degrees we think in today - no treatises survive - but he certainly set the mathematical ball rolling.
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 25 Jul 2021 4:09 am
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| Reece Anderson wrote: |
| I have yet to see a well known steel player say they tune every string and every pedal and knee lever to ET... |
My only point in entering this discussion was that if someone says "I tune straight-up (ET), but I sweeten the 3rds", that means technically they're not tuning ET. So maybe I should have said that there is no "one ET" for pedal steelers? At any rate, they might say they tune ET, but they really use a compromised, or alternate temperament. (The Peterson tuner has more than a few of these.) ET "works" for instruments like marimbas, glockenspiels, vibes, and concert harps. But not, it seems, for much else. In the end, I'm just a hacker at this, but even the pros disagree occasionally - so I don't feel completely stupid. In the end, we all tune so it sounds good. |
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Jack Stoner
From:
Kansas City, MO
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Posted 25 Jul 2021 5:32 am
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When I first got a Tuner (an old Korg), I tuned everything straight up "0" and everyone kept telling me I was out of tune. I started tuning with the Newman chart (at 440) and no one ever told me I was out of tune after that.
When I first got a Peterson tuner with the built in Newman settings I tried the sweetened tunings and didn't like it and my guitar (D-10 Franklin) sounded terrible. I went back to the old Newman at 440 (with some modifications). I upgraded to the Peterson StroboPlus HD tuner and tried the Newman sweetened tunings and both E9th and C6th were right on. Different tuner, different results.
_________________
GFI Ultra Keyless S-10 with pad (Black of course) TB202 amp, Hilton VP, Steelers Choice sidekick seat, SIT Strings
Cakewalk by Bandlab and Studio One V4.6 pro DAWs, MOTU Ultralite MK5 recording interface unit |
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Jim Bates
From:
Alvin, Texas, USA
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Posted 25 Jul 2021 8:40 am
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If J. Bach and I. Newton were still alive watching this Forum, they would chime in also.
There are NO correct answers, but lots of opinions (which is good!) The best answer(s) are in above comments that boil down to: do your own thing!
We are all playing with a bar that will give almost infinite notes no matter how carefully you tune.
Thanx,
Jim
_________________
Jim Bates, Alvin, Texas
Emmons LeGrand,Sho-Bud Super Pro, SB ProII - E13th,C6th on all. Many Resonator guitars |
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Kenneth Kotsay
From:
Davie/Ft Lauderdale, Florida
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Posted 26 Jul 2021 10:48 am
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I've had it, here's a simple solution, no need for fancy expensive electronic tuners & gadgets, JI,vs ET, 440, 438, 970, yada, yada, yada.............
W.W.B.D (What would Buddy Do)
Buddy would simply tune his steel, using his two ears, I've seen him live two times, he never use a tuner prior to performing. Has anyone out is steel land ever observed him use a electronic tuner, now if he did used one, it's news to me.
Now I ask this, are you going to argue with the super icon of pedal steel, Buddy Emmons and the way he tuned his steel? What if he was out of tune with one or two strings while performing live, are you going to hear that he's out of tune and sounds terrible!!!!! Buddy can never sound terrible, it's impossible.
Another fault here, does any one of you have a P.H.D.in the application of, "Tuning a Pedal Steel Guitar," or is a university professor from M.I.T or Harvard or Yale or Oxford with years & years of scientific experience regarding this subject matter, "what is the correct method of tuning your instrument."
Did anyone ever wonder it could be one's hearing. I never got a complaint from my band members that I was out of tune, I may have missed a few notes or screwed up on a lick, came in too soon but never was told I was out of tune with the band. How did I get in tune, a cheap $25.00 tuner from Guitar Center, it worked for me and my steel.
Back in 1965 when I first started on steel guitar, I had to use a tuning fork and my two ears to tune up. And the rest is history.
By the way no disrespect to you all, very interesting subject, I'm just having fun. |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 26 Jul 2021 11:14 am
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So Buddy Emmons tuned by ear. Open strings - no problem. Individual pulls - problem, combination pulls - bigger problem, more questions.
Did he tune out the beats, or did he give certain intervals a bit of wobble to compensate for the various roles a single note can play? At what point did he say, screw it, its not perfect, but it will get me through this gig like it has a thousand times before? |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 26 Jul 2021 12:07 pm
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| Donny Hinson wrote: |
| ET "works" for instruments like marimbas, glockenspiels, vibes, and concert harps. |
These are not alike. The mallet instruments are indeed of fixed pitch and in a spirit of fair play are equally out of tune in all keys. But harpists have to actively tune up, just like guitarists, so you can bet they make choices, especially if a work includes a limited range of keys. I shall enquire.
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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J D Sauser
From:
Wellington, Florida
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Posted 26 Jul 2021 2:23 pm
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| Jim Bates wrote: |
If J. Bach and I. Newton were still alive watching this Forum, they would chime in also.
There are NO correct answers, but lots of opinions (which is good!) The best answer(s) are in above comments that boil down to: do your own thing!
We are all playing with a bar that will give almost infinite notes no matter how carefully you tune.
Thanx,
Jim |
Words of wisdom.
I always admire other people's effectiveness in saying things in so many less words than what I seem to have to use.
Thanks!... J-D.
_________________
__________________________________________________________
Was it JFK who said: Ask Not What TAB Can Do For You - Rather Ask Yourself "What Would B.B. King Do?"
A Little Mental Health Warning:
Tablature KILLS SKILLS.
The uses of Tablature is addictive and has been linked to reduced musical fertility.
Those who produce Tablature did never use it.
I say it humorously, but I mean it. |
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J D Sauser
From:
Wellington, Florida
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Posted 26 Jul 2021 2:31 pm
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I have heard people telling stories about how pretty it was just to hear BE only tune up by ear. And I've seen him do it on the fly... evidently by ear.
Thus more, like many, I was stunned by comments floated around just over 25 years ago, that BE had gone to tune "all straight up" or "to 440" (aka. ET).
BE who did briefly post on here in very well written contributions, only briefly seemed to confirm that indeed he had migrated at this point to tuning ET with only minor "touches" to "soften" the edges on mainly Major 3rds... but never elaborated or confirmed if indeed on BOTH tunings. I cannot believe he would have done that on E9th nor do I see a necessity. On C6th, I am now pretty much to the tuner (ET) and have even refrained from even trying to touch the Major 3rds because it would defy the solution of some issues I was trying to resolve.
I was hoping someone would be able to give WITNESS TESTIMONY as to HOW and WHAT BE did tune ET. Evidently, we all miss BE dearly, and many of his close buddies have left us too. So, I guess, we are on our own on this one and stuck with above posts wise words.
Thanks to all who tried to share some light... J-D.
_________________
__________________________________________________________
Was it JFK who said: Ask Not What TAB Can Do For You - Rather Ask Yourself "What Would B.B. King Do?"
A Little Mental Health Warning:
Tablature KILLS SKILLS.
The uses of Tablature is addictive and has been linked to reduced musical fertility.
Those who produce Tablature did never use it.
I say it humorously, but I mean it. |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 27 Jul 2021 3:13 am
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| Ian Rae wrote: |
| I shall enquire. |
I have enquired, and harpists do indeed tune in equal temperament, although they tune to a scale of Cb (pedals up) to avoid friction in the mechanism while adjusting. They also tune slightly sharp to 441 or 442 as gut strings are quite sensitive to temperature increases.
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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J D Sauser
From:
Wellington, Florida
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Posted 27 Jul 2021 7:19 am
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| Ian Rae wrote: |
| Ian Rae wrote: |
| I shall enquire. |
I have enquired, and harpists do indeed tune in equal temperament, although they tune to a scale of Cb (pedals up) to avoid friction in the mechanism while adjusting. They also tune slightly sharp to 441 or 442 as gut strings are quite sensitive to temperature increases. |
Seems logical to me. They can play in (I believe!) in any key... just like a piano. So a flattened Major third in one key could become a totally ill-flattened minor thirds in another key.
There is an older thread about the Diatonic tuning that Doug Jernigan had been working on with someone else I don't know that got resurrected recently.
I remember that Jerry Byrd at one point used a diatonic tuning, an previous to him using it, there was the "Alkyre System" (a 10 string non-pedal tuning and teaching system). At the time, Jerry Byrd also teased the new upcoming E9th "class" by playing an E9th non-pedal quiet credibly before he left for Hawaii.
I had the privilege of interchanging letter with JB in the late 1990's to early 2000's and I inquired about that Diatonic tuning and what became of it. He only shortly remarked that it couldn't be tuned. A statement that at the time left unsure of what he was trying to tell me. Today, I believe to understand:
JB evidently tuned JI... if you don't have any or too many changes, you can do that, UNLESS of course you have a tuning where every string can be used as a different degree, so the string you sweeten flat or sharp may change degree and become out of tune. The Diatonic approach tries to give more chords to a tuning (C6th is also Am7... Byrd added a C# to have an A7th too, so to have all three chord types... a Diatonic tuning, especially with more strings (like Alkyre's approach), will give you a wide number of 3 note chords all over the place), but they can't all be tuned JI without defying the the intended polyvalence.
One thing is always ET on ALL our guitars, with or without pedals and levers: Our fretboard. As we have been reminded here, we however have a BAR we can nudge to the left of right of that debatable truth.
Speaking of Pythagoras I alluded earlier to:
It seems that Pythagoras might inadvertently have invented the principles used on a PEDAL steel guitars .
In his quest to understand sounds and their physical relationship and trying to "organize" them, he experimented with STRINGS.
Drawings seem to suggest that he built somewhat like a table and attached strings over a nut and a bridge and instead of using different string lengths he used weights at one end (you could argue "the changer"  ) to change string tension and thus pitch.
He then must have discovered "harmonics"/"overtones" and used the dominant one, the 5th, to generate the tuning of the next string which upon repetition from one string tuned a 5th over the preceding one must have led him thru what we now know as the "circle of fifths/fourths) and thus generate 12 strings revealing all 12 semitones (chromatic progression in 4ths or 5th thru all 12 keys).
Evidently using that system, he MAY have found other less dominant harmonics like the Major third HARMONICS ("chimes") and that they do ring out "out of tune" (flat), because they are not generated out of an equal increment algorithm (like our fret board) but FRACTIONS of strings. Strings don't just vibrate back and forth (main tone) but in many of their fractions, generating overtones. Mainly in an "S" shape, creating an "octave overtone" but also in all sorts of fractions like a 1/5 (Major Third (chimes best a bit to the left of the 4th fret, because that's where the 1/5th is and thus the Major 3rd comes out noticeably "flat" compared to a tuner or the ET fret board ), a 1/6 (minor third, slightly sharp, best picked very slightly to the right of the ET 3rd fret) and evidently the dominant 5th at the 7th fret (1/3 of the string)... from which Pythagoras extracted the next notes to build his circle of 5th thru all 12 semitones.
A "tuning" build on a circle of fifths build a an equal increment succession of 12 semitones. Yet, the minor and Major 3rd harmonics these ET strings generate, will clash with the ET tuned stings tuned at an equal increment tuning, because they harmonics of the root strings to that interval will be flat or respectively flat, creating that unpleasant "wobble" or "rub".
It's funny, and actually NICE to see that at least one thing has evolved positively.
I remember HEATED discussions on this forum 25 years ago over this and other subjects.
My good friend Carl Dixon could not believe that JI is the physics way of tuning, because he believed ET had to be, because it is mathematically founded. He believed our "ears wanted to hear JI for some organic reason". People called this very well and mild spoken Senior Southern Gentleman "an old fool", just to bring up the least foul statement. The lynch squat was being called up (yeah, we had dead wishes ushered over JI vs. ET!). I mean it was epic and often so caustic and idiotic, I must not have been the only one to call it quits. BE did, Carl Dixon, and I believe even Paul Franklin did too, and I might even have been one that might have dropped one of too many drops into the bucket, arguing over "musicality" with a professional musician who's argument it was "if it became a hit, it must have been musical"... I think that today's crap on the charts may tell us otherwise.
It's good to be back, it's even nicer to see that we now can discuss things like that going after facts.
... J-D
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Was it JFK who said: Ask Not What TAB Can Do For You - Rather Ask Yourself "What Would B.B. King Do?"
A Little Mental Health Warning:
Tablature KILLS SKILLS.
The uses of Tablature is addictive and has been linked to reduced musical fertility.
Those who produce Tablature did never use it.
I say it humorously, but I mean it. |
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Jim Bates
From:
Alvin, Texas, USA
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Posted 27 Jul 2021 8:39 am
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A little of my history in learning to tune my beginner steel (Gibson BR-9 with numbers on frets and matching amp I bought from local music store in Clinton, OK) in 1953. Store gave me a pitch pipe for A tuning, which I knew nothing about notes then, but sounded good when I tuned guitar to it.
I quickly learned from a local musician that the WWV time standard ( on short wave band) would sound a accurate A=440 as the time standard at certain times/ dates when the on the hour tone was struck. My older brother had a SW radio and we listened for that tone to check the pitch pitch pipe (it was very close, if you blew softly. Next, went learning a 'C' tuning, and found the NBC chimes/tones were G E C. So, I tuned by the radio!
The NBC tones on TV are still sounded, but mainly an octave higher,
Until a several years ago, WWV still sounded the A-440, because the Musician's Union asked to keep the A 440 tone and they did.
On my very early gigs, we all tuned to the band leader!! OR the broken down piano on the stage. That WAS the standard you used, if you wanted to get paid!
Just random memories (for a moment of ZEN!)
Thanx,
Jim
PS- Never use the PHYSICS scale to tune!
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Jim Bates, Alvin, Texas
Emmons LeGrand,Sho-Bud Super Pro, SB ProII - E13th,C6th on all. Many Resonator guitars |
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