1847
1929 posts
Jul 07, 2014
9:16 AM
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i get a lot of request when i play my harmonica
"but i play it anyway"
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Lmbrjak
230 posts
Jul 07, 2014
9:32 AM
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440 sounds much better,especially if you try playing along with harmonica. 432 = flat and dull.
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1847
1930 posts
Jul 07, 2014
9:39 AM
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you would have to tune your harmonica's down as well,
quite the ordeal.
then convince your band mates to
tune down also.
so this is not that feasible.
it does however warrant further consideration.
seems like there are hundreds of video
on this subject, pretty interesting to me.
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i get a lot of request when i play my harmonica
"but i play it anyway"
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1847
1931 posts
Jul 07, 2014
9:41 AM
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i get a lot of request when i play my harmonica
"but i play it anyway"
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OzarkRich
525 posts
Jul 07, 2014
9:57 AM
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With the example of the single guitar above, everything is relative. It's like my battery operated turntable years ago; as the batteries got weak it would start dragging but I would notice the change in speed long before the change in pitch.
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Ozark Rich
__________
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Ozark Rich's YouTube
Ozark Rich's Facebook
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A440
176 posts
Jul 07, 2014
10:51 AM
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A432 is "classical pitch", commonly used by the great European composers of 1730-1820, and continued to be used by some up to the 1950s.
Its all relative: as long as all the instruments are tuned the same way, its fine.
Most OOTB diatonic harps are tuned to around A442-444 . So a harp can be slightly sharp with a band tuned to A440, and slightly flat with a band tuned to around A444, which is sometimes used in Germany (I've been told).
Luckily, blues/rock is more foregiving than classical, which is why I guess we usually get away with being tuned 1 to 3 Hz higher, assuming the rest of the band is tuned exaclty to A440, which it probably is not always.
Last Edited by A440 on Jul 07, 2014 12:20 PM
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WinslowYerxa
646 posts
Jul 07, 2014
11:16 AM
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A432 is not classical pitch. Rather it's a historical pitch from a few centuries ago. Some folks make a big mystical deal out of this, but it's just a shift over time. Higher pitch sounds brighter, and pitch keeps keeping pushing upward as a result. A440 was standardized in 1939, but ever since it's been climbing. And yes, A444 is the de facto standard in Germany.
Classical music is also forgiving of slight pitch differences. Soloists often play a bit sharp to stand out from the ensemble. You can hear classical singers shading their pitch both sharp and flat to create a desired effect.
Harmonicas are tuned a bit sharp partly because players depress pitch with their breath. Listen to Cotton, and sometimes, Little Walter, with Muddy Waters and he often sounds flat relative to the band. Tuning harps above A440 prevents this problem.
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Winslow
Plunge into the SPAH Experience, August 5-9, 2014
Last Edited by WinslowYerxa on Jul 07, 2014 11:17 AM
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BigBlindRay
230 posts
Jul 07, 2014
11:23 AM
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Hi MBHers
A=432 is Pythagorean tuning. Its a modal tuning system. A=440 was developed so that all notes were more or less equally out or in tune with each other so you could do things like (Hey presto) - Key changes. So long as you are cool with accepting that you might never be able to properly communicate with Aliens someday because you're creating unfinished geometric shapes with your sonic vibrations....but I digress...
Would be curious to know if Pure Just Intonated tuning is a derivative of Pythagorean as they are essentially modal tuning schemes.
*EDIT*
I was never really big on Math as a kid so I guess the joke really is on me nowadays....
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Big Blind Ray Trio Website
Big Blind Ray Trio Facebook Page
Big Blind Ray Trio on Bandcamp
Last Edited by BigBlindRay on Jul 07, 2014 11:26 AM
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arzajac
1418 posts
Jul 07, 2014
11:51 AM
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I get a few folks asking for harps to be retuned to A = 432.
One local player wrote and recorded a song specifically for this pitch. On it, he plays both guitar and harmonica. I've been meaning to ask him if he plays it live.
I imagine it can be another trick to pull out of your bag on stage. You can chat with the audience about all the mystique around 432 Hz as you tune your guitar down. If you do it with flair, when your guitar is finally in tune and you hit a loud chord in perfect tune, I'm sure the audience would Ooh! and Ahh!
Top it off by pulling out a specially-tuned harmonica!
Whether there is something measurably better about 432 or not, it's something interesting to think about.
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Custom overblow harps. Harmonica service and repair.
Last Edited by arzajac on Jul 07, 2014 5:12 PM
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A440
178 posts
Jul 07, 2014
12:01 PM
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@arzajac that guy would have been playing "baroque blues" !
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WinslowYerxa
647 posts
Jul 07, 2014
12:02 PM
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A432 is not Pythagorean, and A440 is not equal interval sizes.
I can't find any statement that Pythagoras himself specified that A should be 432. That number is used in discussion of his method of calculating intervals without explanation, possibly because it divides into other whole numbers using the ratios that derive from Pythagoras' method of stacking up 3:2 ratios. But you can apply that method to any reference pitch and get the same proportional results (and have the same problems, too).
A440 is not synonymous with equal temperament. Equal temperament has been around for centuries, long before any universal pitch standard existed. It came into wide use in the mid-19th century, well before A440.
A440, by the way, was internationally standardized. It wasn't the Nazis or the soviets or space aliens posing as your goldfish.
You can apply equal temperament, or just intonation, the Pythagorean system to any reference pitch you like.
Winslow
Plunge into the SPAH Experience, August 5-9, 2014
Last Edited by WinslowYerxa on Jul 07, 2014 12:14 PM
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barbequebob
2635 posts
Jul 07, 2014
12:18 PM
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Before A440 became the international pitch standard, many European countries had a standard pitch of either A442 or A443. A415 was often thought of as Baroque tuning, and you really don't need to retune harps to do that, just get one tuned 1/2 step flat and you're already there.
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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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A440
180 posts
Jul 07, 2014
12:26 PM
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Funny, I did not think about any of this when I chose my alias for this forum. After the first names I thought of were already taken, I just looked at a harp and saw A440 stamped on the side of the cover :-)
Last Edited by A440 on Jul 07, 2014 2:28 PM
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STME58
966 posts
Jul 07, 2014
1:47 PM
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Using Wikipedia for the Pythagorean ratios and pure math for ET I created this chart of an octave based on D with A=440 (any pitch could be used, just multiply the base pitch by the ratios in the chart) showing the difference between Pythagorean and ET. OF particular note is that in Pythagorean, the Diminished fifth and the augmented forth (G# and Ab in this example) are not the same pitch.
ET ET Pyth Pyth
Note Ratio HZ Ratio HZ
D 1.0000 293.7 1.0000 293.7
D# 1.0595 311.1 1.0535 309.4
E 1.1225 329.6 1.1250 330.4
F 1.1892 349.2 1.1852 348.0
F# 1.2599 370.0 1.2656 371.7
G 1.3348 392.0 1.3333 391.5
G# 1.4142 415.3 1.4238 418.1
Ab 1.4142 415.3 1.4047 412.5
A 1.4983 440.0 1.5000 440.5
Bb 1.5874 466.1 1.5802 464.0
B 1.6818 493.9 1.6875 495.5
C 1.7818 523.2 1.7778 522.0
C# 1.8877 554.3 1.8984 557.5
D 2.0000 587.3 2.0000 587.3
Formating looked good in the editor, try this.
Winslow writes;
"A440, by the way, was internationally standardized."
Aha! so it was the UN and their black helicopters. ;-)
The sarcasm in my original post is easily missed in text. Hopefully it is caught here.
Speaking of goldfish, I have heard of an interesting way of creating aleatory music where you put a grand staff on an aquarium and each player picks a fish and plays the note the fish is at for as long as the fish stays there. I am not making this up! I heard it from my music theory teacher. He may have made it up.
Last Edited by STME58 on Jul 07, 2014 2:00 PM
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1847
1932 posts
Jul 07, 2014
2:41 PM
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Harmonicas are tuned a bit sharp partly because players depress pitch with their breath. Listen to Cotton, and sometimes, Little Walter, with Muddy Waters and he often sounds flat relative to the band. Tuning harps above A440 prevents this problem.
they sounded flat because the 5 draw is 27 cents to 32 cents flat in.... just intonation... which is what a harmonica back then was tuned to.
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"
Last Edited by 1847 on Jul 07, 2014 2:41 PM
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1847
1933 posts
Jul 07, 2014
3:44 PM
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i listened to this for the whole 8 hrs
i had it turned way way down,
with my fan running while i slept
i got a great nite's sleep.
however i feel a bit disconnected today
i will try 440 tonight
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i get a lot of request when i play my harmonica
"but i play it anyway"
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1847
1934 posts
Jul 07, 2014
3:46 PM
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i get a lot of request when i play my harmonica
"but i play it anyway"
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WinslowYerxa
648 posts
Jul 07, 2014
5:56 PM
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I wrote:
Harmonicas are tuned a bit sharp partly because players depress pitch with their breath. Listen to Cotton, and sometimes, Little Walter, with Muddy Waters and he often sounds flat relative to the band. Tuning harps above A440 prevents this problem.
A440 replied:
they sounded flat because the 5 draw is 27 cents to 32 cents flat in.... just intonation... which is what a harmonica back then was tuned to.
I counter:
I'm not just talking about Draw 5. I'm talking about all the notes. And Cotton was more prone to it than Muddy's other harp players during the sam period (WJ, WH, Jr Wells). That to me suggests that Cotton was pulling pitch down. That or he had the bad luck that the guitars were always tuned a bit sharp (or both).
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Winslow
Plunge into the SPAH Experience, August 5-9, 2014
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STME58
968 posts
Jul 07, 2014
9:14 PM
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1847, It will be interesting to see if you notice any difference between frequencies near A played in the background. You could probably market a device that you could "tune to you biological perfect frequency" and make all kinds of un-testable claims to sell it.
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OzarkRich
526 posts
Jul 08, 2014
9:35 AM
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What about people with "perfect pitch"? Is the brain wired specifically to 432 or 440, or is it just relative to what they've "programed" in their head?
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Ozark Rich
__________
##########
Ozark Rich's YouTube
Ozark Rich's Facebook
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STME58
971 posts
Jul 08, 2014
1:42 PM
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"What about people with "perfect pitch"? Is the brain wired specifically to 432 or 440, or is it just relative to what they've "programed" in their head?"
David Burge in his ear training lectures makes an analogy with the visible spectrum which I think applies here.
We could define "Purple" as 400 nanometers or any number near there. When you look at the color spectrum you can see purple blue orange etc clearly but there are ranges. If you get to the point where you define "Purple" as 550 nanometers you have created another language as that is what most of us would call green. There is no reason you could not communicate clearly with this system if everyone uses the same definition though.
This analogy is interesting but we can only see one octave of light so we don't get to see what an octave looks like . Would colors at 400 and 800 nano-meters seen together create an effect analogous to a musical octave if we could see both? Light does exhibit a Doppler effect like sound. I saw a red bumper sticker on a car this morning that said "if this sticker appears blue you are driving WAY too fast!
Last Edited by STME58 on Jul 08, 2014 1:46 PM
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WinslowYerxa
652 posts
Jul 08, 2014
5:11 PM
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People with absolute pitch (the preferred term nowadays) learn whatever pitch reference they hear when they're very young.
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Winslow
Plunge into the SPAH Experience, August 5-9, 2014
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STME58
977 posts
Jul 08, 2014
11:29 PM
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You guys on this forum frequently inspire me to learn new (to me) things. Between Big Blind rays and Winslow's comments, I decided to look up Pythagorean tuning. I started to get a handle non ET intonation systems in which F# and Gb are not the same note and why.
I now have a much clearer picture of what a Pythagorean comma is and why it matters. This may be old news to some of you but I find it pretty cool. It does involve math and physics but I will try to explain it in am accessible manner. I may bore everyone on the forum but I'm having fun and learning stuff. At least it is just easy to ignore text and I am not in the corner of the room you are in scratching away on a chalkboard and muttering incomprehensibly!
Exactly what pitch you set A to is arbitrary, octaves and fifths are not. Once you pick a pitch for A, A in the next octave is exactly double that frequency. Two waves of the higher pitch fit exactly into one wave of the lower pitch. The fifth is also determined by physics, 3 waves of the note a fifth above a note will fit exactly into two waves of the original note.
So start at low A 27.5 Hz and go up by octaves to 55,110,220,440,880,1760,and 3520. Seven octaves of A, no problem. Now start at A 27.5Hz and go up 3/2 to E a perfect fifth above at 41.25Hz,Multiply by 3/2 again to get from E to B, 61.875Hz,
B to F#, 92.813Hz
F# to C#, 139.219
C# to G#,208.828Hz
G# to D#, 313.242Hz
D# to A#, 469.863Hz
A# to F, 704.794Hz
F to C, 1057.192Hz
C to G, 1585.789Hz
G to D, 2378.683Hz
D to A, 3568.024Hz
There! an ascending scale of perfect fifths leading up to high A = 3568.024 Hz, remember physics demands this ratio for fifths, anything else will be out of tune and cause beat frequencies. But look, using the octave method High A is 3520 not the 3568Hz that going up by fifths leads to. This difference is the Pythagorean comma. What do you do with this? Start a discussion (argument?) that goes on for centuries, that's what! One way to deal with it is to spread it out equally over all the notes so that the octaves come out right but the fifths are a bit out of tune. This is ET.
To make things even more interesting, it seems that Bach had figured out a novel and great sounding way to deal with this but it has been lost. He wrote his highly influential "The Well Tempered Clavier" and many have assumed Well Tempered meant ET. However, right on the cover of the book is a code that shows how to tune a clavier (any keyboard instrument) to Well Temperament.
Of course not every scholar believes this was a code and there are different ideas on how to interpret it among those who do (Oh Boy! a conspiracy theory, but without the tin foil hats!)
The above shows a 21st century interpretation of the code by Lehman. Each large loop indicates a fifth and the smaller loops inside indicate how to distribute the Pythagorean comma among the fifths.
What you get is a temperament system that unlike ET, will have a different character as you change keys.
If I understand this correctly, if you were to tune a set of harmonicas to Well Temperament, they would not all have the exact same intervals. If you used them to play Bach, it would only sound as Bach intended it if you played in it the key written. One of the arguments that Bach did not use ET is that he seemed to care about the different characters of various keys. ET wipes this out.
Last Edited by STME58 on Jul 08, 2014 11:52 PM
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JInx
818 posts
Jul 09, 2014
12:01 AM
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Thanks STME58
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STME58
980 posts
Jul 09, 2014
5:25 PM
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I just found this on the web Interactive Pythagorean comma It looks like some of the folks who write elaborate mathematical problem solving software have an interest in music.
You can down load a free interactive document viewer and then see a visual representation and hear the fifths, of Pythagorean based tuning systems. You can also divide the octave into things other than 12. Using 5 will get you a true pentatonic scale. Use 50 and you can barely hear the difference between adjacent notes.
They are trying to sell Wolfram Mathematica that allows you to make documents like this. I found this example quite cool. I also found out I have access to Wolfram Mathematica through my company so I may be creating some interactive documents in the future.
Last Edited by STME58 on Jul 09, 2014 5:27 PM
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1847
1945 posts
Jul 09, 2014
5:43 PM
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it's beginning to look like A 432
"is" getting us in touch with the universe after all
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i get a lot of request when i play my harmonica
"but i play it anyway"
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