Jack Campin Wrote:
>> There are pipe tunes in G.
>Like what?
My comment:
See Nigel Gatherer's list. This was a side issue. The main one was your
statement that a fiddler would naturally play flat thirds in A major and
normal thirds in G because of the pipes. Nonsense.
She's playing a fiddle.
Jack:
Objective measurements in recent decades (using equipment your pal
Helmholtz couldn't buy, like the Stroboconn) show that the intonation
string players (e.g. in string quartets) tend to use instinctively is
mostly Pythagorean.
My comment:
"My pal" Helmholtz? Would that he were. Imagine being able to call one
of the greatest minds of the last two centuries your pal. But we
shouldn't get personal should we?
We need to be very cautious about scientific instruments measuring
sound. The ear's perception of a note can vary so greatly that the
literature uses two terms; "frequency", the actual vibrations in the
air and "pitch" the ear's perception of frequency and the two can vary
by as much as a whole tone. The musician must satisfy the human ear not
a machine and the ear's capacity and sophistication far exceed any
man-made device in this regard. One example will suffice. The ratio of
the energy in a sound which is so loud that it hurts, called "the
threshold of pain", to the energy in a just audible sound, called the
"threshold of hearing", is 10,000,000,000 to 1. An attempt to replicate
this in a sound system would fry your amp and blow your speakers.
String quartets instinctively playing Pythagorean, for the most part, is
what I would expect, but the suggestion that Lionel Turtis would be
playing Pythagorean thirds and sixths in a quartet with Fitz Kreisler
would provide comic relief were it not so absurd. They are not playing
"scales" they are playing intervals, Pythagorean mostly, mean-tone
where necessary, mutable notes where necessary etc. so as to play in
tune. After all the Pythagorean and mean-tone scales were a compromise
created to deal with a problem which doesn't exist in the violin family
instruments. Ironically the "problem", which these scales only placated
not solved, is our subject , playing in tune. Re your comment on other
cultures, earlier musicians playing Pythagorean or mean-tone scales in
singing or on the violin family instruments, which Lloyd says is
superhuman [read impossible]; why would anyone attempt to play/sing in a
compromised scale which another instrument [piano and its predecessor
instruments] forced on us because the human hand's ten digits couldn't
physically accommodate on a keyboard the much greater demands of the
human ear? Re barbershop singing. I was a barbershopper for 15 years.
Loved it. Biggest reason, we sang "in good close harmony" i.e. in tune.
Re Your comment; "If you tune [your fiddle] in pure fifths you do *not*
get just intonation pitches for the open strings, but Pythagorean
ones;" You certainly *do* get just intonation pitches.. The dominant
interval in the just intonation scale is the Pythagorian fifth.. Are you
confusing just "temperment" with just "intonation"? See P.P.S.
The remainder of your e-mail refers to instruments/cultures having 24
or another number of note intervals, as compared with our 12 note
[piano] scale. Sure, why not? In fact a fiddler has an infinite number
of "pitches" to choose from and one who plays in tune utilizes at least
24 in the compass of an octave. But it seems to me we have gotten way
off topic so lets return to the primary discussion; fiddling and playing
in tune. Previous reference was made to Perlman's "The Fiddle Music of
Prince Edward Island" specifically page 28 where the subject is pitch
and where he lists notes which PEI fiddlers play off standard pitch. To
my ear what Perlman says here is replicated, with one exception, in the
playing of many Cape Breton fiddlers. [The exception; I have not heard
Cape Breton fiddlers play the note D sharp in the key of A]. But the
major players don't do this. So you have two groups playing the same
tunes in the same style playing notes with different pitches. They both
can't be playing "in tune". At this point in the discussion many people
have asked me, "How come the fiddler doesn't know he's playing out of
tune". For an answer I turn again to Turtis who said, "Inattention to
one's faculty of hearing is a vice of such rapid growth that in a very
short time the player accepts faulty intonation with equanimity,
eventually becoming quite unconscious that he is playing out of tune".
He also says in speaking about violinists and true intonation, "Most of
us are capable of discerning this [true intonation]. But how many do
not". So the same problem exists in the classical music world also.
Kate Dunley Wrote:
Some fiddlers are nearly perfect, aren't they! All I can say is that
some
people prefer perfect music and others prefer something wilder. Here's
an
example of a different hierarchy of values from what you expect in the
art-music world: Have you heard Anner Bylsma play baroque cello? He's
a
musician who values spontaneity and emotion in music, and he's willing
to
take chances to achieve it. If that means occasional out-of-tune notes,
it's worth it!
My comment: Hi Kate, [I hope we're taking this as an honest difference
of opinion about something we both love. I have an added incentive. I
grew up with this music. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of
fiddlers in the middle of the day, in the middle of my mother's kitchen,
in the heartland of CB music, Mabou, playing their fiddles. 60 years
latter my passion for it hasn't cooled. I have a second incentive; a
wish to retain some aspects, I emphasize some, of the music which I can
only describe as the 'older' style. The music is changing and in my
opinion we are not helping the younger players in this regard. But I
digress.]
I have not heard Anner Bylsma unfortunately. But I don't see from your
description that what he's doing is necessarily in conflict with what I
have been saying. Deliberate excursions from the "norm" are frequent
show-business fare to attract attention. We even have them in the
fiddling world. Music quality is usually sacrificed in the process. I
have trouble with mutual exclusivity again, "spontaneity and emotion"
requiring even "occasional out of tune notes"? An out-of-tune note in
Schubert's "Ava Maria", Beethovan's Pathetique, Pachelbel's Canon, etc,
now that would destroy emotion. But if you insist otherwise, I must
return to Lionel Turtis who, remember? said; " PERFECT" [his emphasis]
intonation is the rock-foundation of the string player's equipment.
Without this absolute essential of essentials NO ONE [my emphasis]
should be allowed to perform in public".
Kate:
It sure sounded to me like Alexander was placing more value on a
scientific approach than on any (ethno)musicological approach though.
In closing, Alexander, "I agree wit'chu but y're wrong!" [as one of
Howie
MacDonald's characters said so cleverly]
My comment:
I make no infallibility claims. But lets have an independent opinion.
Since my comments are based on Helmholtz' work via L. Lloyd, Let's take
a look at Grove's assessment of Lloyd on this very point. [For those
who haven't been reading earlier e-mail, Grove's is a 20? volume
"Dictionary of Music"]. Quote "The great value of the work done by Lloyd
as a physicist on behalf of music lies in the fact that, although a
scientist by training, he is also a musician by inclination and
education. For him, when ever he deals with a musical subject, art comes
first and science takes a secondary place. That is to say, if a
scientific explanation does not account for a musical phenomenon to his
satisfaction, he concludes that scientific knowledge is incomplete".
Re " [ethno] musicological approach. This phrase is used so often, and
by so many people who can't explain its meaning that I think its become
a sort of catch-all phrase to promote an agenda and or obscure ignorance
of the topic. It's a "10 dollar" word frequently used to dissuade the
questioner, especially the media, from any more queries.
Returning to topic again, these deviations from standard pitch must at
some point be out of tune. In a Helmholtz/Lloyd/Turtis vs
Campin/Dunley/Bylsma disagreement, HLT prevail. Hands down. Sorry.
I'm sticking with the Helmholtz/Lloyd/Turtis opinions/explanations until
someone refutes them, [specifically Chapter 3 in "The Human Ear"] or my
interpretation of them.
This is my last e-mail on this subject. I wish to thank those who read
and particularly those who responded. I concede "the last word".
Alexander.
P.S. Off-list is always available
P.P.S. An obvious afterthought, Lloyd cautions about the meaning and use
of the words "just intonation". He says that it is sometimes used to
define a scale fixed by arithmetic ratios which he prefers to call "just
temperment". His "just intonation" meaning is Helmholtz's, and is
"playing in tune" and that is the sense in which I used the term. When
you [Jack] say "Just intonation has not historically often been the
popular option", you surely don't mean "playing in tune" has not
historically been the popular option so you must mean just temperment
has not historically.....etc..... However just temperment has never been
an option. In Lloyd's words "It cannot be used for real music".
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