ET or Compromise is generally my preference. But if you play a lot of chords and traditional blues, you may prefer JI. It depends what you play, and how you play it. That's why Compromise Tuning is popular. Its the "just right" in the Goldilocks story...
I have to listen really carefully to hear the difference on single notes, and usually can't hear a real difference. Playing together with horns is an acid test, there I do hear it. Playing chords is where you will hear the biggest difference, but I'm generally not a chord player.
Here's a way to experience the difference: buy a Hohner Blue Midnight (JI) and a Hohner Golden Melody (ET), in the same key. Swap them back and forth, while rehearsing with the guitar player. See if it makes a big difference or not.
Last Edited by AppalachiaBlues on Mar 15, 2018 4:36 AM
Thanks. Is Just tuning and compromise tuning the same thing ? I also hear Just intonation. I am confused :)
Last Edited by Frankie on Mar 15, 2018 9:50 AM
Equal temperament means all the notes are equally out of tune--this is particularly evident with blues harp thru an amplifier, the notes don't always sound good together. So most harmonicas are tuned so that the chords sound good, and there are a variety of intonation schemes. I just ordered the "Harmonica Sweetenings" for the iOS app iStroboSoft, it has ten different compromise tunings, including one for chromatic--now that's cool!
Frankie, there have been several forum discussions on this over the past decade. go to the Forum Search function and type: "equal tuning vs just intonation" - its a pretty long thread explaining everything.
Last Edited by AppalachiaBlues on Mar 16, 2018 4:25 AM
Gnarly ! Equal temperament means all the notes are equally out of tune? Yes but for a harmonica that has not been tuned to correct notes they are out of tune. NO?
Intonation and temperament are terms used interchangeably. Think of them both as ways of fine tuning the notes to make certain combinations sound good.
Just intonation starts with simple ratios.
If you let a strong vibrate along its full length, you get the fundamental, or first partial.
If you stop it halfway along its length, you get the second partial which is an octave higher.
If you stop it 2/3 of the way along you get a note five scale steps (a fifth) higher than the octave.
1/4 = two octaves.
1/5 = major third above that (now you have all the notes of a major chord) - but it's also much lower in pitch than the equal tempered major third
1/6 = the fifth again, up an octave
1/7 equals a very flat minor 7th.
And on it goes.
These ratios all line up to produce a full, powerful, and very smooth chord. But as soon as you try to make anything much beyond a major chord, you start to get various clashes.
Over the centuries, many temperament schemes have been devised to emphasize desirable qualities and, often, hide the really bad side effects out in the weeds where nobody goes - weird keys nobody plays in, that sort of thing.
Except that, over time, people started playing in all those weird keys and cutting themselves on all the sharp garbage that was dumped out there.
And so equal temperament (ET) was devised - and eventually adopted widely - to put everything slightly and equally out of tune. You could go anywhere safely, even if nothing sounded really glorious.
But ET makes harmonica chords sound harsh, and originally harmonicas were tuned to 7-limit just intonation. Nowadays, more options are available, including:
The more flexible 19-limit just, which gives you more alternatives to choose from while still dealing with a rational series of naturally derived ratios.
Compromise tunings, where you fudge things until they sound acceptable, but without a system like ratios behind the choices.
Equal temperament
Norton Buffalo used to gig with two full sets of diatonics, one in just intonation for chordal playing, and one in ET for pure melody. =========== Winslow
I have using the iStroboSoft tuner app and tuning to 5-limit Just--with good results. Of course I am also using my ear--the goal is to get adjacent notes to sound good together. I broke down and spent ten bucks on the sweetener pack for harmonica, and will report back on that.
In general, and oversimplified, if you are primarily a single note player or regularly play in positions above third, ET may sound better for those applications.
Just or compromised intonation smooths out the sound of chords by tuning certain reeds a little sharp or a little flat. ET tunes each reed dead on pitch, like a keyboard..
Just and compromised intonation make your chords sound smoother but ET sounds more in tune with the rest of the band IMHO.
Last Edited by hvyj on Mar 16, 2018 3:56 PM
Get a mix. Generally speaking, unless it was an impulse buy, I get lower harps in Compromise and higher harps in Equal (but there are enough impulse buys in my set that it's really a mix.)
You could alternate keys... get a Bb in Compromise, a B in Equal, a C in Compromise, a Db in Equal... that way you can have one handy near any given key and just have the guitars tune up or down a half step (or capo) so that you can have whichever you prefer. The human voice combined with how easy a different key is to play on the instruments is usually what sets the key, so if you are playing with a guitar player who can adjust the tuning of his guitar only the voice is important, and having alternating keys should help you get close enough for whoever is singing.
Now, the guitar, yes, it's got 6 strings and you can tune them differently, but each string plays multiple notes, which makes temperament a much more complicated. Piano, on the other hand, has one string per note, so you may want to grab the 'right' temperament, but of course, pianos historically were tuned to all sorts of temperaments!
Don't worry about it too much. For melodies, in general, go with Equal. For songs that you are going to be playing a lot of chords go with something closer to Just.
I'm not sure if temperament is as important as the frequency at which the harmonica is tuned. Some of the Nashville players tune their harps to 440hz. Pat Bergeson told me he finds that the harmonica sounds more in tune with his guitar this way, since guitars are usually tuned to 440, and harps are often tuned around 442 or 443. TJ Klay's harps are tuned around 442 or 443, so he tunes his guitar around 441 for a better match. One of the Hohner techs once said that Charlie McCoy has his harps tuned to 440 - we'd have to verify this with Charlie.
When I play live with acoustic guitar players, I don't notice enough of a difference to make me want to change my harps to 440, but when you get in the studio under those sensitive condenser mics, and everything's crystal clear, I can see how they'd hear the slight out of tune sound of the harp's frequency versus the guitar.
As for equal temperament versus just intonation or compromised tuning, I use and prefer equal temperament. When I play a harp that isn't tuned to equal temperament, the flatter sounding major 3rds (3 draw, 2 blow, 5 blow, etc.) just bugs me. To me that's more noticeable than anything else. Compromised or just intonation tuned harps do sound better for chords, but I don't use enough chords in my playing to justify it, nor do I play amplified very often. Hope this helps!
Frankie, it depends entirely on the style of harp you are going to be playing. If you are talking about Tom Petty/Bob Dylan/Neil Young stuff or chugging chords I'd suggest Just/Compromise. If you are going to be playing single note solos and such you should lean towards Equal.
Here is another suggestion... buy one of each and try them. I've got to say, when I was starting out I couldn't even hear the difference. It took awhile for my ear to get attuned enough to hear it, so it's not something that is such a huge difference that it will ruin your sound one way or the other.
I think Todd is right, too, about the pitch relative to the guitar being important. That's got a lot to do with how hard you play. Most harps are tuned a little sharp. If you play hard that pulls the pitch back down, but if you play with less force that can leave you a little sharp.
But most of all, get one of each (in the same or close pitches) and let your ear decide which you like better, because it really comes down to how you want to sound.
Most of my playing is with other musicians and I regularly play multiple positions, so my strong preference is ET. Personally, I've never fully understood the logic of playing an instrument that puts you in better tune with yourself when you play chords but somewhat out of tune with the rest of the band. I find it more important to be in tune with the musicians I'm playing with. But YMMV.
I remember that when Charlie McCoy played at SPAH in 2013, the Hohner tech who tuned his harps said that Charlie wanted them tuned to A440. I think he may also have wanted JI, but can't be sure about that part.
Listening to Charlie onstage with his band, his harp sounded flat to me. =========== Winslow
Charlies's harps do sound like JI on his recordings as well. The flatness observed by Winslow could very well be due to the JI tuning, more than the fact that they're tuned to 440.
I notice the "out of tune" sound many times with JI tuned harps, especially on the major 3rds.
The flatness I heard in Charlie McCoy's live sound wasn't just in obvious places like major thirds, it was notes like Blow 4 as well. The pitch depression factor, even with a relatively light-touch player like Charlie McCoy, seemed to be the culprit. =========== Winslow
Yeah... I don't think I'd want to tune to 440. I think 441 or 442 is a safer place to be, especially for live playing where it's much easier to play harder. In the studio, however, 440 may not be so bad.
And groyster - "the audience probably cannot tell at all......and thats what countsIMHO"
Depends on the audience! :) But for the most part, I agree.
if i were to post another tone and not tell you if it was 440 or 442.... how many people would be able to correctly identified the correct freq. with out guessing?
Gnarly, not sure which of my posts you're responding to, but ET sounds more in tune with other instruments to my ears. I have a bunch of digital pianos and keyboards, many of which allow the tuning of the keyboard to be changed to various compromises, but ET seems to be the default. This is what I'm usually comparing the harmonica against, as well as the Hammond B3. I don't play guitar, so I can't comment on that.
Is this because I've gotten used to ET? I don't know, man. I just play - I don't really think much about it. I'm certainly not claiming to be an expert on the subject, but I sure hear when a note is off, especially if it's flat. ET also allows me to play in other positions and sound in tune in those as well.
As for 440 vs 441 vs 442, can I hear a difference? Nah. I just tune a little sharper than 440 to allow for harder playing when needed. But, if you get too sharp, it does start to sound out of tune, more noticeably acoustically than with a full band. I've found some harps to be as sharp as 445 or 446 out of the box.
