Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!uunet!psivax!torkil
From: torkil@psivax.UUCP (Torkil Hammer)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Abs. pitch, intervals, and other musings (was Re: Perfect Pitch)
Keywords: perfect absolute pitch
Message-ID: <3434@psivax.UUCP>
Date: 4 Jul 90 01:51:59 GMT
References: <137559@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <1990Jun22.171537.1596@ultra.com> <1415@yenta.alb.nm.us>
Organization: Pacesetter Systems Inc., Sylmar, CA
Lines: 42

In article <1415@yenta.alb.nm.us> yenta!dt@bbx.basis.com writes:
# 
# It is interesting that you mentioned alternate tuning schemes.  Hermann
# Helmholz (sp?) in his classic "On the sensations of tone" notes that
# seasoned string players tend to automatically play just intervals (from
# a 'just' scale), not well tempered ones, as the just intervals are more
# harmonious.  Often they have not been explicitly trained to do this.

There is a simple explanation.  When 2 strings are bowed together,
they interact via the bow so that they try to pull into a phase lock,
which is a Just interval.  If they are too far away to do this, the
resulting disharmony makes the instrument and the bow shake in an
offending way, and in addition the bowing is likely to miss.
This holds true for unisons as well as intervals, and if you play a
violin you can try the effect by playing an f# on the d string
together with an open a.

The same is true for tuning.  All violinists I know of tune the a
from the conductor's pitch pipe or an electronic device, then tune
the d and e strings in just fifths to that a, then the g in a just
fifth to the d. (Those that crosstune use the same principle with
different intervals).  Because otherwise 2 open strings bowed together
sound and feel like a catfight.

As an interesting aside, when I play melodic tunes using seventh
chords they come out in the Just 4:5:6:7 interval, which means that
a d7 chord will have d, f#, a, and midway between b and c on the top.
The 4:7 interval is "sufficiently Just" to phase lock between an open
d string and the b/c tone on the a string.

# 
# One more thing while I'm squandering bandwidth anyway...I have long
# been fascinated with quarter tone intervals.  By themselves they sound
# terrible (at least, to my western ear).  But I have found, so far,
# a very few examples of western music where a note a quarter step away
# from the nearest 'piano' note sounds sweeter in the passage than either
# of its neighbors.  Very unusual, and very interesting.  I have what is

You can probably recognize the 4:7 (or n:7) interval, even when played
as separate tones.  It is only a matter of training.

Torkil Hammer