It would’ve really been interesting if I could’ve understood it. Way over my head. Pythagorean tuning? That word reminds me of a quote from Sterling McGee in the Satan and Adam Netflix documentary when he responded to some fancy word (coacceleration) that Adam threw out there while being interviewed... Sterling said ”That’s just a big ole word that ain’t worth a damn”. I’ve heard that whole 432 vs 440 debate for years. I tried it on guitar and found the only thing it accomplished was to piss off everyone else in the band.
432 would piss of your band if you didn't all tune to it. The hype about a mystique frequency is B.S. The math they use involves man made time intervals, so it's not something from nature.
That said, bands tune down a half step live sometimes, usually so the singer can get up to the highest note, and on the flip side, sometimes bands play up an octave (or modulate mid song) to make a song sound more energetic. You could think of 432 as a way to tune down a little bit, maybe just enough to get your singer that high note, but keep some of the energy?
Of course, I don't have perfect pitch but I can fairly frequently start singing a song in the right key without a reference pitch. I don't know if 8 cents would mess with me or not. I doubt it would throw me for long.
As for Pythagorean tuning, to get the concept all you need to know is it's another system to set how far apart the notes are. Chords sound best when you use simple ratios. It's got to do with how waves interfere with each other. You can kind of see it visibly if you are ever at a beach and you see two waves coming in at an angle. Depending on how they hit each other they can either amplify each other, cancel each other out, or make different patterns. There are some videos on Youtube that show wave interference patterns and simpler ones even look less chaotic.
But on the other hand, if notes aren't spaced out evenly our ear hears that they aren't spaced equally and things sound flat or sharp. Unfortunately the math for even space and for smooth chords doesn't work well together, so we have different schemes (Just, Compromise, Well, Equal) that split the difference. Some older systems actually made it so different keys had different interval ratios, so they weren't just higher or lower, but they actually had different temperaments. Pythagorean is just another way to skin the cat. It's one of those things where someone picked a formula that sort of looks like the pattern they wanted but not quite, and then said, 'Do it this way' without really listening to it.
I'm not exactly sure how he used it, but I remember Chris Michalek saying something about experimenting with using the Fibonacci Sequence in tuning. The Fibonacci Sequence actually does turn up in nature in weird places, but I have no idea how it would sound on harmonica.
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55... I can't see that being applied to how many cents sharp the notes were without it sounding kind of weird, but I'm not sure how he was doing it, or even if maybe he was just throwing other people off his trail. The Fibonacci Sequence does turn up in a lot of attractive architectural curves.
The above clip is one of many, most related to the comparison of A440 to A432. A lot of harp and guitar, both tuned down or up. I have only watched the opener which is a good start.
Last Edited by ROBERT TEMPLE II on Jul 17, 2019 7:42 AM
