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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
7 limit JI question
7 limit JI question
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MP
1943 posts
Jan 06, 2012
12:32 PM
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modern Hohner compromise tuning is 0=442 Hertz
the Hohner Crossover tuning is 0=443 Hertz
i think Seydel is 444
for nearly a century Hohner used 7 Limit Just Intonation until a short stint with 19 limit then changed to the modern compromise tuning we see today.
where is 0 on a 7 LIMIT JI Hohner? 442?
the reason i'm asking is i think i remember the 3rds and 7ths being a whopping 29 cents flat. if 4 cents equals 1 hz this would make those notes clock in at 435- or 434+ at 0 =442.
that seems extreme.
what am i missing here? is my math faulty? if so, i wouldn't be surprised.
thanks guys. mark
MP
doctor of semiotics and reed replacement.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
Last Edited by on Jan 06, 2012 12:34 PM
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timeistight
283 posts
Jan 06, 2012
12:56 PM
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You can't compare cents and hertz: cents are logarithmic; hertz aren't.
For example: A0 (lowest note o a piano) has a frequency of 27.5 hz. Bb0 has a frequency of 29.1352 hz. The distance between those notes (a difference of less than 2 hz) is 100 cents.
A4 (the A above middle C) is 440 hz. The next note up, Bb4, is 466.164, a difference of over 26 hz. Yet the distance between those to notes is still 100 cents.
Up near the top of the piano, A7 and Bb7 are 3520.00 hz and 3729.31 hz, a difference of over 209 hz, but still just 100 cents.
Last Edited by on Jan 06, 2012 1:09 PM
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jim
1119 posts
Jan 06, 2012
1:09 PM
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Of course it's on 1 blow
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MP
1944 posts
Jan 06, 2012
1:47 PM
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timeistight,
facinating! are you a piano tuner?
Lee Oskar has a tuning kit with a booklet and that is where i got the "4 cents equals 1 hz" business. i'll check out Sleighs Hertz and Cents link you were good enough to provide a link to. thank you!
Jim,
historically speaking,are you saying one blow on a pre- world war two Hohner 7 limit JI harp is 0=442? i know this is the case with modern Hohner Compromise tuning.
Jinx, that is another question i've never heard a straight answer to. you are not alone.
MP
doctor of semiotics and reed replacement.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
Last Edited by on Jan 06, 2012 2:53 PM
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timeistight
285 posts
Jan 06, 2012
1:53 PM
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@MP: Nope. I used to be a guitar tuner, but I gave it up. (That's a joke, sorta.)
@Jinx: According to Wikipedia:In music, the prime limit (henceforth referred to simply as the limit) is a number measuring the harmony of an interval. The lower the number, the more consonant the interval is considered to be. It is defined as the largest prime number occurring in the factorizations of the numerator and denominator of the frequency ratio. The limit of the just perfect fourth (4 : 3) is 3, but the just minor tone (10 : 9) has a limit of 5, because 9 can be factorized into 3×3, and 10 into 2×5.
So, with my very limited math, I take that to mean it's a way of specifying the type of fractions used in calculating the intervals in a scale: the lower the limit, the simpler the fractions.
Last Edited by on Jan 06, 2012 1:57 PM
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5F6H
1052 posts
Jan 06, 2012
2:02 PM
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A 440Hz is the A above middle C (one blow on a C harp) so, doesn't that make it 4 blow on a A harp?
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jim
1120 posts
Jan 06, 2012
2:13 PM
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He was asking where the tuner should be pointing to 0 cents.
That's 1 blow.
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MrVerylongusername
2143 posts
Jan 06, 2012
2:14 PM
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So...
The 1 blow is tuned to the reference pitch (it becomes your reference, i.e. 0) and the deviations from the reference +1, -14 etc.. (which can only work in cents not Hertz) all relate to that reference point.
What that reference is depends on the key of harp and the standard (A=440, A=442 etc...) that you choose. That was the original question though. On a Just tuned MB, which standard reference pitch did they use?
Last Edited by on Jan 06, 2012 2:25 PM
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MP
1945 posts
Jan 06, 2012
2:27 PM
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thanks again, timeistight! (i've been reading your name as time in sight). no wonder mathematical concepts are hard for me to grasp. i can't read either.
as far as i can tell, 7 and 19 limit are simply names for measurements given to formulas that are used to determine the distance between harmony note intervals. Whew!!
7 limit just intonation
BLOW 0 -14 2+ 0 -14 2+ 0 -14 2+ 0 cents
DRAW 4+ 2+-12 4+-29 6+-12 4+-29 6+ cents
well, i pulled this up courtesy of BBQ Bob. only the 5 and 9 draw are -29 cents.
Bob posted a whole bunch of tunings on the Bushman Forum some time ago. he did all the Hohner tunings plus a Seydel and the Manji.
so, my question was, with this formula posted above, is 0 442 or something else?
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MP
doctor of semiotics and reed replacement.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
Last Edited by on Jan 06, 2012 2:42 PM
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chromaticblues
1118 posts
Jan 06, 2012
2:38 PM
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MP there are a couple ways of tweaking those tunings.
Try setting the draw 2 blow 3 and blow 9 to 0.
Then try setting the draw 3,5,7 and 9 to -14.
That sounds better to me, but see what you think.
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MP
1946 posts
Jan 06, 2012
2:51 PM
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chromatic,
interesting,
on my personal harps i do set the draw 2, blow 3, and blow 9 to zero.
i set the others you mentioned to -12 rather than -14.
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MP
doctor of semiotics and reed replacement.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
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Jim Rumbaugh
640 posts
Jan 06, 2012
6:58 PM
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My personal opinion
I like the 2 blow and 3 draw flattened for chords on the bottom of the harp. I do not like doing just intonation above 4 hole, because it messes with my 3rd position playing in holes 4 through 10, and my straight harp playing.
Tune it to match your needs.
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HarmoniCollege March 24, 2012
theharmonicaclub.com (of Huntington, WV)
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ReedSqueal
231 posts
Jan 06, 2012
8:37 PM
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I wonder if SBWII ever pondered this stuff....
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Go ahead and play the blues if it'll make you happy.
-Dan Castellaneta
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JInx
158 posts
Jan 06, 2012
9:14 PM
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Did SBW and those guys work on their own harps? or what?
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groyster1
1673 posts
Jan 06, 2012
10:47 PM
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I really dont think sonny boy little walter or any others worked on their harps they just played them and trashed them things were simpler then marine bands 7limit JI
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barbequebob
1800 posts
Jan 07, 2012
9:11 AM
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Much of this info we now have easily on the internet was not available to hadp players back in LW's days and earlier and back in the 80's, when I first discovered some of this info, I was going to publish in in SPAH's magazine, but being also a member of the Cambridge Harmonica Orchestra, I was forced to put the kibosh on it because we also had a deal, which was was essentially an endorsement deal, where we were getting harps at prices far below what you'd get at a retail music store even with its best customer discount (in the East Coast, Manny's in NYC had the best at 39% off list price and 45% if you knew the right guy there).
Now I don't know personally i LW worked on his stuff, but there are some stories of him possibly doing it as well as with SBWII as well, tho there is not a lot of proof one way or the other and many times, any such info was kept secret.
Jim Rumbaugh, I can understand it when using 7LJI, but that won't be true with 19LJI because 5 & 9 craw is tuned 1.5 cents sharp of equal, whereas 7LJI is tuned 29 cents flat, so that immediately will solve that problem. For playing traditional blues, I much prefer 7LJI, but for doing other stuff, 19LJI is much more versatile and Seydel's compromise tuning is essentially 19LJI, and the only difference between theirs and 19LJI is that on 19LJI, 5 & 9 draw is tuned 1.5 cents sharp, and Seydel is 2 cents flat.
Harmonicas have rarely ever been tuned to real A440 because the average player often plays CONSIDERABLY harder than they think and by tuning to at least A442-A443 keeps it as close as possible to to real A440, especially when played really hard and with a hard player, any harp tuned to real A440 would actually belayed closer to A437, which we be a good 50 cents flat in REAL playing breath of the average player and to play a harp tuned to real A440, you have to play with a ridiculously light enough breath force to do that, and the average player doesn't have the capability to do that.
The Seydel 1847 harps I have are A443, but I've seen Hohners in key of D and higher come out of the factory as high as A445 so you may need to check on all of them regardless of key or manufacturer and anything off an assembly line will have inconsistencies no matter what.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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JInx
159 posts
Jan 07, 2012
11:34 AM
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Someone should ask James Cotton if the greats tuned and tweaked their harps. These guys must have had some association with the Hohner people, no?
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nacoran
5073 posts
Jan 07, 2012
2:20 PM
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What was tuning gear like back in the day? When did electronic tuners come around? When did they become portable? Affordable? I know some people might be able to sit there with a tuning fork, but that's some mighty fine tuning.
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Nate
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5F6H
1054 posts
Jan 07, 2012
4:02 PM
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Within a few months of starting playing I was gapping harps, from experience, that didn't respond right, it's not rocket science in a go/no go situation. Anyone who is spending as much time with a harp in their mouth as the greats should be able to do it.
Even if the guys back in the day were not retuning harps to specific tunings, relative tuning by comparing to a good harp, or ear, is easy enough. In fact it's a good method for tuning octaves. Electronic tuners are not *essential* for maintaining a set of harps of a given, common tuning.
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www.myspace.com/markburness
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JInx
160 posts
Jan 07, 2012
6:41 PM
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The cajun players have been tune tweaking their squeezeboxes from long before electronic tuners.
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lor
69 posts
Jan 08, 2012
9:57 AM
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@MP
Working with a slight revision (B instead of Bb) of timeistight's example:
"A4 (the A above middle C) is 440 hz. The next whole note up, B4, is 493.883, a difference of 53.883 hz. Yet the distance between those to notes is still 100 cents."
Cents are a geometric ratio of one tone to the other developed in every case as follows:
a. Find the frequency ratio:
B / A == 493.883 / 440 = 1.122461364
b. Find the hundredth root of that ratio, i.e., the number which multiplied by itself 100 times will equal the ratio:
1.122461364 ^ 0.01 = 1.001155907 (by calculator)
c. That is the value of the 100 'cents' between those particular notes, but the cent is not used as an additive frequency, but rather as a multiplier, as follows.
d. Now then, Bb should sound like it is halfway between A and B, and our ears will hear it that way when the tone is halfway geometrically, not linearly. The cents are the key to the geometric value. Halfway by cents would be 50 cents, so the note frequency will be 440 multiplied by the cent raised to the 50th power:
Bb = 440 * (1.001155907 ^ 50) == 440 * 1.059462785 == 466.164
By the way, one cent between A and B is 0.5086 hz, but that only applies to the first cent. All the other cent positions are the power product as above.
It is also common to develop a cent value that applies to an entire octave by computing the twelve hundredth root of the ratio of the octave note to its tonic note. Then each half-note step is 100 cents above the step before.
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timeistight
286 posts
Jan 08, 2012
10:30 AM
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A to B is 200 cents -- a whole tone. 1200 cents to the octave; 100 cents to the equally-tempered semitone.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cent_%28music%29.
Last Edited by on Jan 08, 2012 10:32 AM
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barbequebob
1801 posts
Jan 08, 2012
12:35 PM
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Until the early 1980's, the only tuners avaialble were strobe tuners made by either Peterson or Conn, and they were eventhen probitively expensive and many of them used tubes and were not designed to be used on a gig and usually instrument makers, piano tuners or repairmen had them at all.
The tuning info has only been around since the late 80's for harmonicas, at least published in any form and prior to that, NONE of this info concerning harmonicas were available on a wide basis at all.
Prior to the 80's, if you tuned a harmonica by yoursself, it's usually in conjunction with either another harmonica, or by ear (just intonation is usually often, IMO, done better by ear but a tuner can help guide you there).
When I started back in the 70's, it would be another decade before the advent of the cheap, LCD quartz tuners you presently see were available and guitars would either tune to a harmonica, or they would tune to a piano.
The tuning has been more of a stickler issue for harp players since the 80's, when the diatonic harmonica began to be used in areas that were once the exclusive territory of a chromatic player.
Until the late 80's, Hohner was extremely secretive about the tuning of the harmonicas and that alone can further explain the first paragraph of my previous post (provided that you didn't skip over it forget to read it very carefully as too many people tend to do), treating it like a trade secret or government classified information.
In the Hohner factory, they still do not allow their people who do the tuning to use ANY kind of a tuner at all, just their ears and a reference plate and that's it. In the old days, they had generations of families that they hired to do this who had perfect pitch hearing and doing this 8 hours a day is a very boring job, especially when you're stuck in a sound proff booth for 8 hours a day, and when they changed the way they paid their factory workers from salary/hourly wage to piece work (sweatshp/slave wages), they no longer could get anybody from these families to do this work any more and they began, in the 90's hiring youg women to do this work, and for about a good 15 years, they were often very poorly trained and so their tunings became annoyingly inconsistent, but it has gotten better.
Doing JI can, if you practice it enough, be done entirely by ear, which is the way I've done for the last 25 years, and those old school famnilies used to do ET tuning that way as well, but since they introduced the comprimise tunings, it hasn't been as consistent as years past.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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