In an e-mail whose subject was "What makes a style Scottish?"
Nigel Gatherer wrote:
I was also fascinated by Alexander's statement: "The ear's perception
of a note can vary so greatly that the literature uses two terms;
"frequency"...and "pitch"...and the two can vary by as much as a whole
tone..." I often disagree with what an electric tuner says is in tune
and make minor adjustments to suit my ear. I wonder if this is an
illustration of that difference?
My comment:
I have no doubt whatsoever that that is what is happening. I don't claim
to be an expert in the workings of electronic tuners but I think they
are such a menace that they should be barred from use. This is what I
think is happening. An electronic tuner is measuring the fundamental but
what your ear is "measuring", hearing, on a "note" on an acoustic
instrument is much more. What your ear "hears" is a composite of the
fundamental and as many as twenty harmonics which the ear perceives as a
single "tone". The number of, and the relative intensity [loudness] of
the harmonics influences the ear's perception of the fundamental, and in
making music perception is reality.
There is another factor at work here if the electronic tuner is used to
"tune" all the strings on your instrument. For reasons quite apart from
the electronic tuner itself, it is more difficult to tune a unison than
it is to tune concords, 5th's 4th's,etc. Under certain circumstances,
when two notes sounded simultaneously are only a few cycles apart, the
ear finds the result pleasing, giving a vibrato effect [sort of].
However when this occurs, the ear's perception of the note is the
average of the two notes which of course means that you're not yet
"tuned". This cannot happen if you tune by ear using the concord
intervals; Pythagorean or "perfect fifth's" on the fiddle; fourth's and
a single third on "conventional" guitar if memory serves. I hope this is
helpful.
Alexander
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