Lots of orchestras tune to 442 for a brighter tone. Also, apparently the Boston Symphony Orchestra tunes to 444, NY Phil tunes to 443, and Berlin Phil tunes to 445
...this is not true, is it.
My response was the following:
Orchestras tune to 440. Baroque performance groups can tune to less than 440 (438 or less), but not higher than 440.
On Jun 16, 2008, at 8:35 PM, BestStudentViolins.com wrote:
> This remark was made on YahooAnswers: >> Lots of orchestras tune to 442 for a brighter tone. Also, apparently >> the Boston Symphony Orchestra tunes to 444, NY Phil tunes to 443, and >> Berlin Phil tunes to 445
> ...this is not true, is it.
It is. And then they tend to drift sharp. "Better sharp than out of tune" is the motto.
> My response was the following:
>> Orchestras tune to 440. Baroque performance groups can tune to less >> than 440 (438 or less), but not higher than 440.
> No?
No. 466 is fairly common. For instance, Koopman's recording of Bach's cantata 172, "Erschallet ihr Lieder," is at that pitch (I imagine all the recordings in that series are at that pitch, but I'm not familiar with many of them), so the opening C major chorus sounds in modern C#.
> On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:35:57 +1000, BestStudentViolins.com wrote > (in article > <a1cf1a3d-62e7-4eab-a67d-62b15a92e...@8g2000hse.googlegroups.com>):
> > This remark was made on YahooAnswers:
> > Lots of orchestras tune to 442 for a brighter tone. Also, apparently > > the Boston Symphony Orchestra tunes to 444, NY Phil tunes to 443, and > > Berlin Phil tunes to 445
> > ...this is not true, is it.
> > My response was the following:
> > Orchestras tune to 440. Baroque performance groups can tune to less > > than 440 (438 or less), but not higher than 440.
> > No?
> No.
> Baroque pitch was anything between about A = 392Hz and A = 466Hz. As a > general (but not reliable) rule, the French opted for the lower end of the > spectrum and the Italians for the higher end.
> -- > Cheers!
> Terry
Terry, I appreciate the information, which is something one should know. My real concern, however, is the following:
>> Lots of orchestras tune to 442 for a brighter tone. Also, apparently
the Boston Symphony Orchestra tunes to 444, NY Phil tunes to 443, and Berlin Phil tunes to 445
BestStudentViolins.com wrote: > On Jun 16, 10:48 pm, Terry <b...@clown.invalid> wrote: >> On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:35:57 +1000, BestStudentViolins.com wrote >> (in article >> <a1cf1a3d-62e7-4eab-a67d-62b15a92e...@8g2000hse.googlegroups.com>):
>>> This remark was made on YahooAnswers:
>>> Lots of orchestras tune to 442 for a brighter tone. Also, apparently >>> the Boston Symphony Orchestra tunes to 444, NY Phil tunes to 443, >>> and Berlin Phil tunes to 445
>>> ...this is not true, is it.
>>> My response was the following:
>>> Orchestras tune to 440. Baroque performance groups can tune to less >>> than 440 (438 or less), but not higher than 440.
>>> No?
>> No.
>> Baroque pitch was anything between about A = 392Hz and A = 466Hz. As >> a general (but not reliable) rule, the French opted for the lower >> end of the spectrum and the Italians for the higher end.
> Terry, I appreciate the information, which is something one should > know. My real concern, however, is the following:
>>> Lots of orchestras tune to 442 for a brighter tone. Also, apparently > the Boston Symphony Orchestra tunes to 444, NY Phil tunes to 443, and > Berlin Phil tunes to 445
> Is this true??
They wouldn't admit it, and the numbers are probably not accurate, but yes, it is broadly true (442 is more believable than 445.) -- John Briggs
At 8:35 PM -0700 6/16/08, BestStudentViolins.com wrote:
>This remark was made on YahooAnswers:
>Lots of orchestras tune to 442 for a brighter tone. Also, apparently >the Boston Symphony Orchestra tunes to 444, NY Phil tunes to 443, and >Berlin Phil tunes to 445
>...this is not true, is it.
>My response was the following:
>Orchestras tune to 440. Baroque performance groups can tune to less >than 440 (438 or less), but not higher than 440.
>No?
Baroque pitch was anywhere between about 392 (in Paris) and 460 (in Venice), but the MODERN compromise "baroque" pitch is 415, which just happens to be about a half step below 440.
My late wife's composition mentor at Indiana, Tom Beversdorf, had to turn down an offer from the Boston Symphony because his perfect pitch was locked to 440 and they played sharp enough to drive him crazy!
Our community string orchestra conductor is European (Finnish), and he wants us to tune to 442, as if anyone could hear the difference! Well, perhaps he does. I certainly don't.
Actually only the oboes players really know, and they won't tell!!
John
-- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:John.How...@vt.edu) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
> Lots of orchestras tune to 442 for a brighter tone. Also, apparently > the Boston Symphony Orchestra tunes to 444, NY Phil tunes to 443, and > Berlin Phil tunes to 445
> ...this is not true, is it.
> My response was the following:
> Orchestras tune to 440. Baroque performance groups can tune to less > than 440 (438 or less), but not higher than 440.
On Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:35:57 -0700 (PDT), "BestStudentViolins.com"
<SunMusicStri...@gmail.com> wrote: >This remark was made on YahooAnswers:
>Lots of orchestras tune to 442 for a brighter tone. Also, apparently >the Boston Symphony Orchestra tunes to 444, NY Phil tunes to 443, and >Berlin Phil tunes to 445
>...this is not true, is it.
>My response was the following:
>Orchestras tune to 440. Baroque performance groups can tune to less >than 440 (438 or less), but not higher than 440.
>No?
NYPO tuned to 442 under Bernstein. I don't know the present practice.
One of my own orchestras tunes to 441. Some of the founders of the orchestra went to Indiana University where that was the standard. All my other groups tune to 440. My own piano is 440. Every oboist I know has a tuning meter of some sort which by default is 440, but the oboist can adjust if the pitch for the group is higher or lower than that. As for me...I take my A from whatever the oboist is doing. At home I have a 440 standard built into my metronome. That is is actually 440 is really an act of faith...I have no means to verify that.
Baroque pitch was a mixed bag, varied from region to region from what I heard and there were no real means to determine standards. (How do you verify a tuning fork is 440 or whatever if you didn't have the means to accurately measure that.) I've seen figures from the high 300's to the 430's, but not as high as current standards.
NIST, the US Standards organization sends out a 440 tone at 2 minutes past the hour on its time station WWV.
A European Standards Organization sends out the signal on the internet at this URL
Jon Teske wrote: > On Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:35:57 -0700 (PDT), "BestStudentViolins.com" > <SunMusicStri...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>This remark was made on YahooAnswers:
>>Lots of orchestras tune to 442 for a brighter tone. Also, apparently >>the Boston Symphony Orchestra tunes to 444, NY Phil tunes to 443, and >>Berlin Phil tunes to 445
>>...this is not true, is it.
>>My response was the following:
>>Orchestras tune to 440. Baroque performance groups can tune to less >>than 440 (438 or less), but not higher than 440.
>>No?
> NYPO tuned to 442 under Bernstein. I don't know the present practice.
> One of my own orchestras tunes to 441. Some of the founders of the > orchestra went to Indiana University where that was the standard. All > my other groups tune to 440. My own piano is 440. Every oboist I know > has a tuning meter of some sort which by default is 440, but the > oboist can adjust if the pitch for the group is higher or lower than > that. As for me...I take my A from whatever the oboist is doing. At > home I have a 440 standard built into my metronome. That is is > actually 440 is really an act of faith...I have no means to verify > that.
I do. I've never encountered a metronome whose version of 440 wasn't accurate.
> Baroque pitch was a mixed bag, varied from region to region from what > I heard and there were no real means to determine standards. (How do > you verify a tuning fork is 440 or whatever if you didn't have the > means to accurately measure that.) I've seen figures from the high > 300's to the 430's, but not as high as current standards.
Those would be for Kammerton. Chorton was higher than A-440, as someone else has already pointed out. When you see a Bach score in which the organ and/or the strings are notated in a key a major second or a minor third lower (on paper) than the woodwind, those string or organ parts are the parts at Chorton, about a half step sharp to A-440. The Matthew Passion is a good example (the organ sounds "in D" relative to everyone else); Cantata 106 -- which I just played -- is scored for recorders and viols tuned a step apart, plus continuo (with the viols in pitch).
The current version of the nice little $20 Korg tuner is very handy: adjustable from 410 to 480 Hz, which goes high enough to keep even bagpipers happy, thought it doesn't go low enough to cover the low "French" chamber pitch ca. A-392. Well since, it only does equal temperament anyway, setting it to 440 and tuning to G instead of A is more than close enough. And it makes a sound (although not a loud one), which allows for much more accurate tuning than trying to center a needle or an LCD emulation of a needle.
-- Roland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food.
NB mail to my.spamtrap [at] verizon.net is heavily filtered to remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it.
John Howell wrote: > Our community string orchestra conductor is European (Finnish), and > he wants us to tune to 442, as if anyone could hear the difference! > Well, perhaps he does. I certainly don't.
It's not in tune until the xylophone sounds flat!
Oh -- string orchestra. Never mind the xylophone, then: it's not in tune until everyone is sharp.
> Actually only the oboes players really know, and they won't tell!!
Oh, the bassoonists know -- and they will not fail to chew out an oboist who give a pitch that makes them reach for a different bocal.
The oboist always faces a moral dilemma: do you give the winds a slightly low A since they are going to rise in pitch as they warm up, or do you give the strings a slightly low A since they are going to tune sharp to it anyway. You can't win.
What do the oboists actually do?
I don't know; they won't tell me, either.
(Cross-posting to r.m.m.b-s restored.)
-- Roland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food.
NB mail to my.spamtrap [at] verizon.net is heavily filtered to remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it.
My sister-in-law used to be principal oboe of a Toronto orchestra (not the Toronto Symphony, but a professional orchestra that no longer exists). Back in the late 80's, I guess it was, she played a concert at which the violin soloist was a former Torontonian then living in Germany, where he was the concertmaster of a second-rank orchestra. She told me of the pressure she felt from the soloist when she gave the tuning note to make it as high as possible (I think she mentioned 445), while the rest of the orchestra was willing her to keep it as low as possible. She said the soloist was glaring at her as she gave the note... not an experience she wanted to repeat.
By the way, isn't it strange that the insturment that gives the tuning note is one that is notoriously hard to play in tune? I imagine that most oboists today have a tuning box open on their music stand when they do give it so they can be sure where it actually is. But what did they do before tuning boxes were invented? And when did this custom originate? Surely not before oboes were routinely included in orchestras, which would be not before the late 18th century, I would assume (just around the time when harpsichords ceased to be routinely included for the continuo part? Coincidence?)
> The oboist always faces a moral dilemma: do you give the winds a slightly > low A since they are going to rise in pitch as they warm up, or do you give > the strings a slightly low A since they are going to tune sharp to it > anyway. You can't win.
At 6:00 AM +0000 6/18/08, Roland Hutchinson wrote:
>Cantata >106 -- which I just played -- is scored for recorders and viols tuned a >step apart, plus continuo (with the viols in pitch).
Actually the BG editors got 106 wrong. They assumed transposing instruments for recorders, and put their edition in Eb. It should have been in F (relative to whatever the Chorton and Kammerton were at -- I think it was Weimar.)
True story. Back in the late '60s, Fiora Contino decided to do 106 with her choir at Indiana. My late wife, an undergraduate, was her recorder consultant and was teaching a recorder class--the first one ever offered at Indiana. When she saw the recorder parts going down to low Ebs, she called Frederich von Heune in Boston and asked, "Do you have any Eb alto recorders that we could rent?" There was this pause on the line, and then he said, "You're doing 106, aren't you. Let me explain about that."
I think they ended up using one alto (in F) and one tenor.
John
-- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:John.How...@vt.edu) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
At 6:09 AM +0000 6/18/08, Roland Hutchinson wrote:
>The oboist always faces a moral dilemma: do you give the winds a slightly >low A since they are going to rise in pitch as they warm up, or do you give >the strings a slightly low A since they are going to tune sharp to it >anyway. You can't win.
You know, I think that's nothing but urban legend, in the same class as "flutes prefer sharp keys." When I'm given a reference A I tune my viola to that A, and so does everyone around me. Admittedly, I DO slightly temper my lower strings rather than tuning perfect 5ths, because if I don't my C string will be flat to the concentus pitch. But I do not deliberately tune sharp, and nobody else does either. Viol is different. the internal octaves and 5ths have to be as pure as possible.
John
-- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:John.How...@vt.edu) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
>My sister-in-law used to be principal oboe of a Toronto orchestra (not >the Toronto Symphony, but a professional orchestra that no longer >exists). Back in the late 80's, I guess it was, she played a concert >at which the violin soloist was a former Torontonian then living in >Germany, where he was the concertmaster of a second-rank orchestra. >She told me of the pressure she felt from the soloist when she gave >the tuning note to make it as high as possible (I think she mentioned >445), while the rest of the orchestra was willing her to keep it as >low as possible. She said the soloist was glaring at her as she gave >the note... not an experience she wanted to repeat.
Interesting (and I believe every word of it!). A piano soloist would not, of course, do any such thing!
>By the way, isn't it strange that the insturment that gives the tuning >note is one that is notoriously hard to play in tune?
I wonder why you say that, and what sources you can cite to support it? Yes, the oboe is a difficult instrument to play, and a difficult instrument to play in tune, FOR BEGINNERS!!! Every instrument is. But for someone who has learned to play the instrument it is just as stable as any other instrument. I work with college-level students, and once they have developed the necessary embouchure strength (which does take a while) and if they have a good instrument in their hands (not always the case) they play just as in tune as anyone else.
>I imagine that >most oboists today have a tuning box open on their music stand when >they do give it so they can be sure where it actually is.
Yes they do. And most math students use calculators these days. So? The inventor of calculus didn't have one and didn't need one.
>But what >did they do before tuning boxes were invented?
Tuning forks.
>And when did this >custom originate? Surely not before oboes were routinely included in >orchestras, which would be not before the late 18th century,
Make that the late 17th century, at least for French orchestras, and sometimes whole herds of oboes, not just one pair. (Not even to mention Handel's Royal Fireworks Music for oboe and bassoon band!) As to whether oboes were used as the tuning reference at that time, I'm not sure I've ever read anything about it one way or the other. Since the keyboard instruments could not be retuned in real time, I rather suspect that they gave the reference pitches. I can't imagine doing anything else if an organ were involved. But to assume that baroque musicians couldn't play in tune or that an electronic box is necessary to tune well seems borderline Darwinian. The fact that they did not use equal temperament and probably couldn't have stood it, while we think it's in tune, demonstrates, for me at least, that their ears were BETTER attuned to good tuning than are most modern ears.
>I would >assume (just around the time when harpsichords ceased to be routinely >included for the continuo part? Coincidence?)
A very unlikely correlation. And one that suggests that the early fortepianos were (a) tuned to 440 and (b) tuned in equal temperament, both of which assumptions are totally unsupported and highly unlikely. It's actually the clarinet that was newly introduced to both the band and the orchestra in the late 18th century. And my understanding is that harpsichords continued to be used in opera pits even after fortepianos started becoming popular. We're talking about George Washington's and Thomas Jefferson's lifetimes, which go rather later than you seem to think. Heck, the Brahms Requiem has a figured continuo line, although I've never heard it played in any modern performance.
I appreciate your comments very much, and thank you for making them. I just can't agree with all of them.
John
-- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:John.How...@vt.edu) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:05:54 -0700 (PDT), "BestStudentViolins.com"
<SunMusicStri...@gmail.com> wrote: >Hmmm....what are the advantages of tuning above, or tuning below, the >440?
I've heard supposedly brightness or mellowness, but frankly I have problems telling the difference. Anyone else know anything about this?
I did a test some 47 years ago when I auditioned for a college orchestra and the conductor had a xylophone type device with 5 or 6 notes 1 Hz apart (this was so long ago, they didn't even call it Hertz). I could descrimination 2 or 3 Hz apart, but not 1 Hz. apart. I've never tried this test again.
Tradition has it that string players, in the late baroque, conspired to increase the pitch of their instruments, realizing that it led to "brighter" timbre. All one has to do, of course, is twist 4 pegs. Pity the organ builders of that time. The music of the later baroque was adapted to this brilliant sound. The earlier gamba literature was of a mellower nature. Compare an early Amati to a Stradivari violin and one sees the same trend.
At any rate, the down bearing on a harpsichord, or the pressure exerted by string on the bridge of a violin definitely increases by a few percent with a change from a-430 to a-440 and if you try this on a violin it is quite apparent. Practitioners of violin acoustical theory including Josef Curtin et. al have a lot to say about this but evidently more tension on the upper table delivered via more string tension, or a tighter sound post, leads to more/richer harmonics with attendant "brilliance" of timbre.
That said, I am a bit miffed about the value of increasing the pitch by 2 Hz. Tune up your violin PERFECTLY to A-440 with your "Korg", IF YOU CAN , play 3 notes, and check again. You will inevitably find that the instrument has drifted already, probably to the "flat" side. I certainly doubt that any "blind screen" test of instruments tuned at 440 and 442 will yield acceptable results assigning different timbre to the latter group. I suppose that the tendency of stringed instruments to drift "south" after tuning and playing a bit, merits tuning up a few Hz to allow them to settle out the the other instrument sections.
On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:43:12 -0700, John Howell <John.How...@vt.edu> wrote: > ...
>> By the way, isn't it strange that the insturment that gives the tuning >> note is one that is notoriously hard to play in tune?
> I wonder why you say that, and what sources you can cite to support it? > Yes, the oboe is a difficult instrument to play, and a difficult > instrument to play in tune, FOR BEGINNERS!!! Every instrument is. But > for someone who has learned to play the instrument it is just as stable > as any other instrument. I work with college-level students, and once > they have developed the necessary embouchure strength (which does take a > while) and if they have a good instrument in their hands (not always the > case) they play just as in tune as anyone else.
Bruce Haynes, in The Eloquent Oboe, describes famous players using the same oboe to play pieces at two widely different pitches in the same concert. In fact, he doesn't use historical oboes for pitch data in his History of Performing Pitch: The Story of "A", because they could encompass a wide range of pitches. This was a bit of a surprise to me, since the concept of the oboe as incarnation of steady "A" is drilled into our minds, but there it is. I would trust his experience. As HIP enthusiasts, we should be used to having our preconceptions shattered once again!
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On Jun 18, 11:32 am, PeterNewton <peternewton2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> By the way, isn't it strange that the insturment that gives the tuning > note is one that is notoriously hard to play in tune?
What is far stranger is the tradition of tuning a symphonic band to the clarinet's Bb, since that note is in the clarinet's transition register, notoriously difficult to control, and on an instrument which is far more famous for playing out-of-tune than oboes. Who has missed the now-old saw:
How do you get two oboists to play in tune? Shoot one. How do you get two clarinetists to play in tune? Shoot both of them.
The oboe isn't that difficult to play in tune, but overall it is difficult to tune, possibly the most difficult to tune because the reed doesn't allow large pitch-shifts by pulling out or pushing in. Double reeds can be 'lipped' up or down, but only so much, and it is fatiguing to have to do it for hours. Bassoonists get over the problem with (as was mentioned) a battery of different-length bocals, usually one at their nominal and most-used pitch, one above and one below. (I believe it's common to have five bocal sizes available, although longer or shorter ones can be made-to-order. Then again, it's been 30 years since I majored in bassoon, and the world changes more quickly than that.) Oboists could combat the problem (and do) with a battery of reeds, possibly on different-length staples, certainly with different-length reed-portions. But that is both a time and accounting problem, because making reeds isn't insignificant, and you make money by playing, not by making perfect playable reeds. (Which doesn't include the folk who make reeds to sell, which are not sold as finished perfect reeds because the players have to modify them, at least a little, and you can't put wood back on the reed!)
Anyway, tradition aside, we tune to the baroque oboe when we have one, because its easier than waiting for the player to modify his reed.
As for tuning organizational music in general, if there's a harpsichord or piano, we tune to that. (four or seven or even 15 strings are nothing to tune in the face of around 200!)...and of course, then play out-of-tune (i.e., temperament, temperature, humidity, near-miss by the tuner, etc.) The late Earl North, director of the symphonic band at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, tuned from the Besson tubas up. This was a great idea, since the bessons provided a stable, harmonic-rich spectrum with lots of ability for others to zero-beat against. It also worked very very well.
As for modern orchestras, at least to my ears, tuning them higher _does_ make them shriller, if not necessarily brighter or more vibrant. If you want bright, vibrant tones, try beating a baroque orchestra!
> What is far stranger is the tradition of tuning a symphonic band to > the clarinet's Bb, since that note is in the clarinet's transition > register, notoriously difficult to control, and on an instrument which > is far more famous for playing out-of-tune than oboes.
Which B flat do they use? The one below middle C is bang in the middle of the chalumeau register and one of the most stable notes on the instrument.
An octave up might be a bit odd (bottom of the clarinet register) but at least the clarinet player will be able to tell if it's in tune with the lower one.
==== j a c k at c a m p i n . m e . u k === <http://www.campin.me.uk> ==== Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739 557 CD-ROMs and free stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts
At 3:54 PM +0100 6/25/08, Jack Campin - bogus address wrote:
> > What is far stranger is the tradition of tuning a symphonic band to >> the clarinet's Bb, since that note is in the clarinet's transition >> register, notoriously difficult to control, and on an instrument which >> is far more famous for playing out-of-tune than oboes.
>Which B flat do they use? The one below middle C is bang in the >middle of the chalumeau register and one of the most stable notes >on the instrument.
STOP!!!!! There is a complete misunderstanding evident here. No band tunes to "the clarinet's Bb," which would sound as a concert Ab. Bands tune to the Clarinet's "c''," which sounds as concert Bb, and which is entirely stable as it is the 7-fingered note in the clarion register, and is NOT in the throat register.
When making statements like the unattributed one above, you have to both understand and take into account the conventions of transposing instruments, something I've been dealing with since elementary school a hundred years ago! And beginners on either clarinet or oboe are out of tune--ALL beginners are! Accomplished and well trained players are not, period! Please lay off the generalizations and urban legends.
And if the band has an oboe, it tunes to the oboe's Bb, also a very stable pitch. At least ours does. And, just to cover the gamut, when a string section joins the band, as we will for our 4th of July Independence Day Celebration, the oboe first gives an A for the strings and then a Bb for the winds.
John
-- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:John.How...@vt.edu) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
"We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition of jazz musicians.
>>> What is far stranger is the tradition of tuning a symphonic band to >>> the clarinet's Bb, since that note is in the clarinet's transition >>> register, notoriously difficult to control, and on an instrument >>> which is far more famous for playing out-of-tune than oboes. >> Which B flat do they use? The one below middle C is bang in the >> middle of the chalumeau register and one of the most stable notes >> on the instrument. > STOP!!!!! There is a complete misunderstanding evident here. No > band tunes to "the clarinet's Bb," which would sound as a concert Ab. > Bands tune to the Clarinet's "c''," which sounds as concert Bb, and > which is entirely stable as it is the 7-fingered note in the clarion > register, and is NOT in the throat register.
I assumed that he meant what a typical band clarinetist with a B flat instrument would think of as a C, I just didn't know which one. Neither of them seemed problematic to me. But I've never heard a military band tuning up.
(I play four different pitches of clarinet, and since this is for folk music and I have a recorder player's brain, I never use transposed dots for any of them).
==== j a c k at c a m p i n . m e . u k === <http://www.campin.me.uk> ==== Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739 557 CD-ROMs and free stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts
A reason for tuning to the oboe is because it has such rich overtones.
I've never played in a band, including professional concert bands, that tuned to the clarinet. Bands usually tune, however, to concert B flat (C on a B flat clarinet). The written "throat" B flat on a clarinet is often out of tune, and rather dull in timbre, especially in inexpensive instruments for beginners.
-- =====AJN (Boston, Mass.)===== Free Download of the Week from the Classical Music Library Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 8 in A minor, K. 310 To download, click on the CML link here http://mysite.verizon.net/arthurjness/
"John Howell" <John.How...@vt.edu> wrote in message
news:mailman.120.1214416878.84820.earlym-l@wu-wien.ac.at... | At 3:54 PM +0100 6/25/08, Jack Campin - bogus address wrote: | > > What is far stranger is the tradition of tuning a symphonic band to | >> the clarinet's Bb, since that note is in the clarinet's transition | >> register, notoriously difficult to control, and on an instrument which | >> is far more famous for playing out-of-tune than oboes. | > | >Which B flat do they use? The one below middle C is bang in the | >middle of the chalumeau register and one of the most stable notes | >on the instrument. | | STOP!!!!! There is a complete misunderstanding evident here. No | band tunes to "the clarinet's Bb," which would sound as a concert Ab. | Bands tune to the Clarinet's "c''," which sounds as concert Bb, and | which is entirely stable as it is the 7-fingered note in the clarion | register, and is NOT in the throat register. | | When making statements like the unattributed one above, you have to | both understand and take into account the conventions of transposing | instruments, something I've been dealing with since elementary school | a hundred years ago! And beginners on either clarinet or oboe are | out of tune--ALL beginners are! Accomplished and well trained | players are not, period! Please lay off the generalizations and | urban legends. | | And if the band has an oboe, it tunes to the oboe's Bb, also a very | stable pitch. At least ours does. And, just to cover the gamut, | when a string section joins the band, as we will for our 4th of July | Independence Day Celebration, the oboe first gives an A for the | strings and then a Bb for the winds. | | John | | | -- | John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music | Virginia Tech Department of Music | College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences | Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 | Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 | (mailto:John.How...@vt.edu) | http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html | | "We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition | of jazz musicians.
> > What is far stranger is the tradition of tuning a symphonic band to > > the clarinet's Bb, since that note is in the clarinet's transition > > register, notoriously difficult to control, and on an instrument which > > is far more famous for playing out-of-tune than oboes.
> Which B flat do they use? The one below middle C is bang in the > middle of the chalumeau register and one of the most stable notes > on the instrument.
> An octave up might be a bit odd (bottom of the clarinet register) > but at least the clarinet player will be able to tell if it's in > tune with the lower one.
> ==== j a c k at c a m p i n . m e . u k === <http://www.campin.me.uk> ==== > Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739 557 > CD-ROMs and free stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts
Agreed. I never found the written C (concert Bb) just over the octave break to be a difficult note to control on the clarinet. The wide-open C (octave key , thumb, and nothing else) is the one that's overly easy to bend :-)
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