WANTED: Good quality Hurdy Gurdy
DISKJAKEY
It must be chromatic, with "buzzing bridge," have 2 melody and at least 3 or 4
drones. Would like one tuned to key of D.
Please respond directly.
Thank you,
Jake Conte
J Peekstok
If you are in the United States, you should call Cali and Alden Hackmann at
Olympic Musical Instruments in Indianola, WA. They make the best quality hurdy
gurdies I have seen in this country. And they are good folks and honest
business people. They can be found at:
Olympic Instruments 360-297-7234
hu...@silverlink.net
http://www.hurdygurdy.com/hg/hghome.html
You may also be interested to know about the Over the Water Hurdy Gurdy
Festival, which takes place in late September on Marrowstone Island in Puget
Sound. Four days of great instruction, jams, concerts, wonderful food and
intense natural beauty. There is more info at:
http://members.aol.com/vielle/
Now playing: Garmarna, "Vittrad"
John Peekstok
http://members.aol.com/telynor/
ghost
>If you are in the United States, you should call Cali and Alden Hackmann at
>Olympic Musical Instruments in Indianola, WA. They make the best quality hurdy
>gurdies I have seen in this country. And they are good folks and honest
>business people. They can be found at:
If they're "honest business people", then they'll be honest about what
tuning they've put their instruments in & how it compares to various
traditional tunings that the user may want to play it in, won't they?
Paul Draper
I thought hurdy-gurdies could be retuned!
--
Paul Draper
0171 369 2754
Brad Hurley
<pdr...@baig.co.uk> wrote:
>I thought hurdy-gurdies could be retuned!
I think she means the intervals between the tangents (the keys you press
to get different notes on the chanter strings).
--
Brad Hurley
"I would like to die
as I have lived
disappear among the tundra winds
be transformed into birdsong"
-Nils-aslak Valkeappa, _Trekways of the Wind_
ghost
>In article <7efe3t$nmc$1...@nclient3-gui.server.ntli.net>, "Paul Draper"
><pdr...@baig.co.uk> wrote:
>>I thought hurdy-gurdies could be retuned!
Probably they can, but why should you have to buy an instrument
physically constructed to support one tuning when you actually are
going to be exclusively or primarily using another?
On a series of postings from a guitar group that are currently being
cross-posted to many other groups, they're discussing scallop-necked
guitars & how they help some people who don't want to be playing in
12-tone-equal-temperament get some notes can be harder for some people
to get on straight-necked guitars.
>I think she means the intervals between the tangents (the keys you press
>to get different notes on the chanter strings).
No, I of course mean the musical intervals between the notes, not
the physical spaces between the keys.
Alden Hackmann
>(someone) writes:
>>>I thought hurdy-gurdies could be retuned!
>Probably they can, but why should you have to buy an instrument
>physically constructed to support one tuning when you actually are
>going to be exclusively or primarily using another?
OK, here's how the tuning on a hurdy-gurdy works:
There are several parts that can be adjusted to change the tuning or
intonation:
1) the tension of the string, adjusted with a traditional tapered tuning
peg or a geared mechanical tuning machine.
2) the nut position - the nut slides to make small changes in the
sounding length of the string. There are 2 nuts, one for each chanter
string.
3) the positions of the 46 tangents, 23 for each string. The tangents
(which are little wooden flags) can be adjusted from side to side be
change the intonation of each note.
While we use an equal tempered scale as our starting point, it's pretty
easy to change to another temperament if that's what's desired. It is
possible to build an instrument with, for example, a mean temperament as
its "default". Nobody's asked us to do it yet. One of our customers, a
piano tuner in Nashville, uses different temperaments without any
modification except adjusting the tangents.
>On a series of postings from a guitar group that are currently being
>cross-posted to many other groups, they're discussing scallop-necked
>guitars & how they help some people who don't want to be playing in
>12-tone-equal-temperament get some notes can be harder for some people
>to get on straight-necked guitars.
A guitar has the fret positions established. A hurdy-gurdy has
adjustable tangents, so any temperament is possible.
Alden
hurdy-gurdy fanatic
--
Alden F.M. Hackmann dark...@u.washington.edu
Web: http://weber.u.washington.edu/~darkstar/
"Beati illi qui in circulum circumeunt, fient enim magnae rotae."
Alden Hackmann
>>If you are in the United States, you should call Cali and Alden Hackmann at
>>Olympic Musical Instruments in Indianola, WA. They make the best quality hurdy
>>gurdies I have seen in this country. And they are good folks and honest
>>business people. They can be found at:
>If they're "honest business people", then they'll be honest about what
>tuning they've put their instruments in & how it compares to various
>traditional tunings that the user may want to play it in, won't they?
Sure. We tell everyone who asks about the various tuning options.
Almost everyone gets their vielle tuned in G/C, the traditional
"Auvernait" tuning, because that's the tuning that's most popular in
North America. If someone wants the traditional "Bourbonnais" D/G
tuning, that's how we string and build the vielle. These two tunings
(with a few variants) cover the French traditions and the baroque
repertoire, and almost all other music being played on the the instrument
today. All sorts of other tunings are possible, and we can string and
tune a hurdy-gurdy in any key - it just doesn't come up very often.
Alden
Brotherhood of the Order of Magnae Rotae
Eric Root
flip up the lid over the tangents and look, it is quickly obvious that a
hurdy gurdy is about as user-adjustable temperament-wise as it's
possible for an instrument to be. For a fretted instrument to be that
adjustable you'd have to be able to slide the frets up and down the neck
halfway to the positions of the adjoining frets. Looking under the lid
of a hurdy gurdy for the first time is definitely one of those "a-hah!"
moments.
-Eric Root
- Read more non-fiction?! I get enough _non-fiction_ in real life!
Paul Draper
Brad Hurley wrote in message ...
>In article <7efe3t$nmc$1...@nclient3-gui.server.ntli.net>, "Paul Draper"
><pdr...@baig.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>to get different notes on the chanter strings).
ghost
>j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) writes:
>>If they're "honest business people", then they'll be honest about what
>>tuning they've put their instruments in & how it compares to various
>>traditional tunings that the user may want to play it in, won't they?
>Sure. We tell everyone
>***who asks***
asterisks mine
>about the various tuning options.
>Almost everyone gets their vielle tuned in G/C, the traditional
>"Auvernait" tuning, because that's the tuning that's most popular in
>North America. If someone wants the traditional "Bourbonnais" D/G
>tuning, that's how we string and build the vielle. These two tunings
>(with a few variants) cover the French traditions and the baroque
>repertoire, and almost all other music being played on the the instrument
>today. All sorts of other tunings are possible, and we can string and
>tune a hurdy-gurdy in any key - it just doesn't come up very often.
Do you explain the difference between just intonation &
12-tone equal temperament to them, or do you also wait for them to ask?
You said in a previous post that you put your instruments into
12-TET values & expect the buyer to know enough about the instrument to make
on their own whatever temperament/tuning adjustments they need to make;
a fair expectation for someone who knows all the pertinent stuff about
their instrument before they buy it, but that doesn't describe
every purchaser.
In questions I've asked people about tuning on their accordion-family
instruments (far more easily found, used & sold as-is in the US than
used hurdy-gurdies) I've often heard in response that even those who
wouldn't assay taking the instrument apart to retune it do an empirical test
for "what-sounds-good-to-them" & often find what they've found in the
thrift shop or wherever is in some kind of meantone that appealed to
whomever last used it; either they were retuned that way or were tuned
that way by their makers.
Manuel Waldesco
ghost wrote in message <7edvd5$jkf$1...@canon.deas.harvard.edu>...
>In article <19990405072607...@ng147.aol.com> jpee...@aol.com
>
>>If you are in the United States, you should call Cali and Alden Hackmann
at
>>Olympic Musical Instruments in Indianola, WA. They make the best quality
hurdy
>>gurdies I have seen in this country. And they are good folks and honest
>>business people. They can be found at:
>
>
>tuning they've put their instruments in & how it compares to various
>traditional tunings that the user may want to play it in, won't they?
A member of the band in which I play here in Zaragoza (Spain) makes
"organistrum", the original instrument from which the hurdy-gurdy was
developed: it's diatonic and because of its size you need two people to play
it. If you're interested, email me or him:
Manuel Waldesco
ib31...@public.ibercaja.es
Antonio Poves (the maker)
apo...@svalero.es
J Peekstok
>You said in a previous post that you put your instruments into
>12-TET values & expect the buyer to know enough about the instrument to
>make
>on their own whatever temperament/tuning adjustments they need to make;
>a fair expectation for someone who knows all the pertinent stuff about
>their instrument before they buy it, but that doesn't describe
>every purchaser.
Surely anyone who is using something other than the "standard" tuning that
99.99% of our society uses knows they are doing so? If they don't, they are
probably so tone deaf that we wouldn't want to hand them a hurdy-gurdy anyway .
. .
And wouldn't they likely have the foresight to discuss the issue with an
instrument builder before having an instrument built? If they don't you would
blame the luthier?
And couldn't anyone who knows about alternate temperments take one look at a
hurdy-gurdy and immediately know how to put it in any temperment they want?
If the instrument didn't sound the way they want, couldn't they just return it
to the maker?
There are also several very good books available about tuning and playing the
hurdy-gurdy. Olympic Instruments has taken some pains to assure that these
books are available to hurdy-gurdy players. They also include with every
instrument an instructional video about setting-up the instrument and tuning
it.
John Peekstok
http://members.aol.com/telynor/
J Peekstok
>If they're "honest business people", then they'll be honest about what
>tuning they've put their instruments in & how it compares to various
>traditional tunings that the user may want to play it in, won't they?
I'm curious.
Specifically which "traditional tunings" for the hurdy-gurdy are you talking
about?
Who uses them?
What are they called?
What are the intervals?
What are the nearest keys?
What type of music is played using these tunings?
What hurdy-gurdy traditions from which countries are you familiar with?
Have you ever seen a hurdy-gurdy? Up close?
How many different traditional tunings are in use in France, amongst living
French hurdy-gurdy players? (Olympic Instruments makes French style
instruments).
How many different traditional tunings are in use in the United States and
Canada, amongst living hurdy-gurdy players? (Olympic Instruments, I presume,
sells most of their instruments in North America).
John Peekstok
ghost
>j...@deas.harvard.edu wrote:
>>You said in a previous post that you put your instruments into
>>12-TET values & expect the buyer to know enough about the instrument to
>>make on their own whatever temperament/tuning adjustments they need
>>to make; a fair expectation for someone who knows all the pertinent stuff
>>about their instrument before they buy it, but that doesn't describe
>>every purchaser.
>Surely anyone who is using something other than the "standard" tuning that
>99.99% of our society
You must be in a different society than I am.
99.99% of the society I'm in doesn't tune by 12-tone equal temperament.
>uses knows they are doing so?
They know what *they're* doing, but often they don't know the
terminology involved in describing what *you*'re doing, or the degree of
maladjustments made to music your termminology was invented to describe.
>If they don't, they are probably so tone deaf
>that we wouldn't want to hand them a hurdy-gurdy anyway .
Why assume that people who aren't up on terminology invented to make
people who *are* tone-deaf feel good about their deficiencies are the
tone-deaf ones when it can easily be proved that the tone-deaf ones are
the ones hiding behind terminology?
>And wouldn't they likely have the foresight to discuss the issue
>with an instrument builder before having an instrument built?
>If they don't you would blame the luthier?
Yeah, I would.
>And couldn't anyone who knows about alternate temperments
>take one look at a hurdy-gurdy and immediately know how to put it
>in any temperment they want?
Of course not. Knowing what you want the thing to sound like & knowing
what to adjust & how to adjust it/them to get it there
are not the same thing.
(I have a feeling, from the descriptions-of-innards of hurdy-gurdies
I've read, that they'd more likely take one look at it & run screaming
down the hall.)
Royce Lerwick
>j...@deas.harvard.edu wrote:
>
>>If they're "honest business people", then they'll be honest about what
>>tuning they've put their instruments in & how it compares to various
>>traditional tunings that the user may want to play it in, won't they?
>
>I'm curious.
>
>Specifically which "traditional tunings" for the hurdy-gurdy are you talking
>about?
Just buy one with adjustable tangents and tune your own intervals.
Problem solved.
Royce
Eric Root
>Just buy one with adjustable tangents and tune your own intervals.
Problem solved.
Royce<
Exactly what Royce said. It's _vastly_ easier to adjust the tangents of
a hurdy-gurdy than it is the finger holes of a wind instrument or the
frets of a western fretted stringed instrument. The hurdy gurdy is one
of the _last_ instruments where it makes any sense whatsoever to get in
a tizzy about questions of temperament.
And since when is it a luthier's job, without doing which his status as
an honest business person belongs in quotes, to teach (for free) the
sum-total of all understanding about temperament to every potential
customer? If he learned his craft by the "folk process" (all bow down
and genuflect here), he may not have any knowledge of such things other
than what he learned with his hands and ears when he was learning to
build.
And anyone who would run screaming down the hall upon looking inside a
hurdy-gurdy shouldn't play one. That's trivial; someone who doesn't
like playing with reeds shouldn't play pipes, etc. The hurdy-gurdy
appeals to people who _like_ gadgety musical instruments.
-Eric "you can't get much gadgetier than a concertina" Root
amers
Eric Root wrote in message
<14808-37...@newsd-151.iap.bryant.webtv.net>...
>And since when is it a luthier's job, without doing which his status as
>an honest business person belongs in quotes, to teach (for free) the
>sum-total of all understanding about temperament to every potential
>customer?
Since you-know-who became head judge of what is and isn't good music and
good business. And since having *read* somewhere about the inside of a
hurdy-gurdy suddenly qualifies a person to make judgements on the character
of someone who makes hurdy-gurdies for a living.
Just my two cents.
-Amy
Alden Hackmann
>(Alden Hackmann) writes:
>>j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) writes:
>>>If they're "honest business people", then they'll be honest about what
>>>tuning they've put their instruments in & how it compares to various
>>>traditional tunings that the user may want to play it in, won't they?
>>Sure. We tell everyone
>>***who asks***
>asterisks mine
>>about the various tuning options.
>>Almost everyone gets their vielle tuned in G/C, the traditional
>>"Auvernait" tuning, because that's the tuning that's most popular in
>>North America. If someone wants the traditional "Bourbonnais" D/G
>>tuning, that's how we string and build the vielle. These two tunings
>>(with a few variants) cover the French traditions and the baroque
>>repertoire, and almost all other music being played on the the instrument
>>today. All sorts of other tunings are possible, and we can string and
>>tune a hurdy-gurdy in any key - it just doesn't come up very often.
>Do you explain the difference between just intonation &
>12-tone equal temperament to them, or do you also wait for them to ask?
It's never been an issue. Frequently the customer doesn't know what key
they want it tuned in, much less if there are different temperaments. I
think it's fair to say that the people who are sufficiently well-versed in
a particular historical perspective to know about the temperaments will
ask. So far it hasn't happened.
>You said in a previous post that you put your instruments into
>12-TET values & expect the buyer to know enough about the instrument to make
>on their own whatever temperament/tuning adjustments they need to make;
>a fair expectation for someone who knows all the pertinent stuff about
>their instrument before they buy it, but that doesn't describe
>every purchaser.
As I mentioned before, while the key hole spacing is based on 12-TET, the
tangents are adjustable in a pretty wide range. I would expect that
almost any temperament is achievable on one of our instruments. I'd need
to do the math to prove it. So far, no one except you have brought the
issue up. If you'd like a hurdy-gurdy built with the keys spaced for just
intonation (or whatever), we can do that.
I can think of only one of the people who have our instruments who uses a
different temperament, and he doesn't use it all the time - it
depends if he's playing solo, with a group, or in the studio.
>In questions I've asked people about tuning on their accordion-family
>instruments (far more easily found, used & sold as-is in the US than
>used hurdy-gurdies) I've often heard in response that even those who
>wouldn't assay taking the instrument apart to retune it do an empirical test
>for "what-sounds-good-to-them" & often find what they've found in the
>thrift shop or wherever is in some kind of meantone that appealed to
>whomever last used it; either they were retuned that way or were tuned
>that way by their makers.
Changing the intonation on a HG is a simpler prospect than on a free-reed:
just open the keybox and start moving the tangents around. They need to be
tuned all the time anyway.
In ten years of research and building, this is only the third time that
temperament has been mentioned. Once was a discussion we had with a
player in England who was experimenting with different temperaments.
Once was our piano-tuner customer in Nashville. In all the reading
I've done I've never seen temperament mentioned, as in "The Henri III
hurdy-gurdy is tuned with a just temperament." You have to go back to
"Quomodo Organistrum Constructuar", which is probably 12th century, for
specifics on temperament. The instrument has changed substantially
several times since that was written.
I get the impression that you think that we are hiding something from our
customers by not telling them about temperaments. Since most players are
playing with other people who are playing 12-TET instruments, and for
those who aren't the tangents can be adjusted to any temperament desired,
I'm curious as to what it is that you think we're being deceptive or
dishonest about.
Alden Hackmann
> (J Peekstok) writes:
>>Surely anyone who is using something other than the "standard" tuning that
>>99.99% of our society
>You must be in a different society than I am.
>99.99% of the society I'm in doesn't tune by 12-tone equal temperament.
I'm afraid it's true - almost everyone these days uses equal temperament.
Even Papa Bach ;-)
>>uses knows they are doing so?
>They know what *they're* doing, but often they don't know the
>terminology involved in describing what *you*'re doing, or the degree of
>maladjustments made to music your termminology was invented to describe.
Can you elaborate on this statement? I don't understand. Are you saying
that music was beautiful before 12-TET and ugly afterward?
>>If they don't, they are probably so tone deaf
>>that we wouldn't want to hand them a hurdy-gurdy anyway .
>Why assume that people who aren't up on terminology invented to make
>people who *are* tone-deaf feel good about their deficiencies are the
>tone-deaf ones when it can easily be proved that the tone-deaf ones are
>the ones hiding behind terminology?
Now I'm really confused. What are you saying here? What terminology?
>>And wouldn't they likely have the foresight to discuss the issue
>>with an instrument builder before having an instrument built?
>>If they don't you would blame the luthier?
>Yeah, I would.
I think that's a lot to expect.
As I mentioned in my other post, I'm curious as to why you think this is
such an issue. We're in the business, such as it is, of building
hurdy-gurdies. People play an amazing array of music on them: medieval,
renaissance, baroque, classical, French dance, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish,
jazz, Macedonian, Greek, Turkish, English, Morris, hard rock, psychedelic
rock, avant-garde electric... I think it's reasonable to try to learn how
best to build instruments that will serve each of these types of music.
Knowing every nuance of every tradition or style is perhaps beyond me,
though I'd be happy to apply for that lifetime grant. My goal is to build
the very best instruments we can, and to play them as well as I can.
>>And couldn't anyone who knows about alternate temperments
>>take one look at a hurdy-gurdy and immediately know how to put it
>>in any temperment they want?
>Of course not. Knowing what you want the thing to sound like & knowing
>what to adjust & how to adjust it/them to get it there
>are not the same thing.
Interesting. If you buy a vielle from us, you get our extensive
documentation on maintaining the instrument, tips on starting to play, and
(most important) a videotape showing how to cotton the strings, rosin the
wheel, tune the strings, tune the nuts, and tune the tangents. There you
have it. If you want a different temperament, you have all the
information you need to adjust the tangents to that temperament.
>(I have a feeling, from the descriptions-of-innards of hurdy-gurdies
>I've read, that they'd more likely take one look at it & run screaming
>down the hall.)
So you've never seen inside a HG keybox? What's scary about it?
Alden Hackmann
>Just buy one with adjustable tangents and tune your own intervals.
>Problem solved.
Exactly. And every HG I've ever seen (except one terrible one) had
adjustable tangents.
Alden
J Peekstok
>>Surely anyone who is using something other than the "standard"
>>tuning that 99.99% of our society uses knows they are doing so?
>>If they don't, they are probably so tone deaf
>>that we wouldn't want to hand them a hurdy-gurdy anyway . . .
ghost replied:
>Why assume that people who aren't up on terminology invented to make
>people who *are* tone-deaf feel good about their deficiencies are the
>tone-deaf ones when it can easily be proved that the tone-deaf ones are
>the ones hiding behind terminology?
ghost,
Two things:
1. The last part of my comment above was a joke, and a pretty obvious one at
that. I think everyone who read it, including yourself, knows that.
2. Read my comment again. Even if you don't want to treat it as a joke, it is
very plain that I did not say that people who use alternate temperments are
tone deaf. I said they are probably tone deaf if they live in our society,
surrounded by our music, and don't realize they are using alternate
temperments.
Please stop being a troublemaker. It gets in the way of honest discussion.
John Peekstok
http://members.aol.com/telynor/
Alan Laska
There is a company called "Lark In The Morning" that sells them
as well as tin flutes, bagpipes, accoprdians, etc, etc.
They have a WWW site unfortunately I don't know what the
http:// address is.
However, I'm sure that you can locate them with a searcg engine.
----Alan David Laska----
--
Alden Hackmann
at will, I posted a picture of the inside of a HG keybox on the website:
http://www.hurdygurdy.com/hg/images/keyboxb.jpg
The tunable nuts (#2, below) are at the right. The tangents (#3, below)
are in each key. They are rotated from left to right to decrease the
pitch, or right to left to increase the pitch. Note that due to
variations in the consistancy of the gut strings, some tangents are
adjusted to the left or right from their theoretical "perfect" position
in 12-TET temperament.
Alden
Brotherhood of the Order of Magnae Rotae
Keeper of the Fox-Fiber Cotton
I wrote:
>OK, here's how the tuning on a hurdy-gurdy works:
>There are several parts that can be adjusted to change the tuning or
>intonation:
>1) the tension of the string, adjusted with a traditional tapered tuning
>peg or a geared mechanical tuning machine.
>2) the nut position - the nut slides to make small changes in the
>sounding length of the string. There are 2 nuts, one for each chanter
>string.
>3) the positions of the 46 tangents, 23 for each string. The tangents
>(which are little wooden flags) can be adjusted from side to side be
>change the intonation of each note.
--
ghost
Actually, I've had interactions on usenet with them (Peekstok & his
tempered-instrument-maker friends) in the past.
You could check your Deja-news, but if you've been reading these groups
as far back as you claim in your e-mail you have been, instead of having
signed on a few months ago as I greatly suspect, you'd know all that &
wouldn't have to appear stupid (as usual) by your suppositional comments.
>Just my two cents.
You said it.
amers
deja-news, (mostly to get backlisted recipies, but that's irrelevant) and
I've noticed that the vast majority of your posts on *all* the newsgroups
you frequent are theoretical and have more to do with what you hate than
what you like. You admit that you have never seen a hurdy-gurdy, which by
extention indicates that you know nothing about playing one. Why don't you
leave the hurdy-gurdy discussions to those who play and build them for a
living? I don't see Alden getting on your case about Sacred Harp music, your
forte. (Incidentally, I noticed that the recent notice for the Sacred Harp
convention in DC made a point to welcome singers from ALL backgrounds,
including classical). If you hate certain types of music, then DON'T LISTEN
TO THEM. No one is forcing you to listen to 12-TET pieces! But Usenet is a
free-speech forum. It's a little arrogant to think that you can impose your
agenda on a non-moderated newsgroup and expect everyone to comply, don't you
think?
So how about it, ghost? Do you think that you can discuss something you
enjoy for once? There are so many serious problems in the world that surely
a few classical music fans are relatively immaterial. If Alden decides to
cave into your moral outrage and give free music lessons in addition to
selling well-crafted instruments, would the Serbs and Albanians suddenly
reconcile? Or does your dissatisfaction stem from a deeper level? I hate to
burst your bubble, but there is no conspiracy against you among musicians
who use 12-TET notation. It's simply a method some people use to learn to
sing and play instruments. On some instruments, such as ALL keyboard
instruments, it is the ONLY method (ever look at a piano?).
>>Just my two cents.
>
>You said it.
Yes, I did. Unlike you, I recognize that everyone is entitled to her own
opinion about music, and that just because someone learned to play an
instrument using one type of tuning or notation, it does not necessarily
make them "not worth knowing" (your words).
ghost
>Oh, I know you've had your interactions with them. I've also looked at
>deja-news, (mostly to get backlisted recipies, but that's irrelevant) and
>I've noticed that the vast majority of your posts on *all* the newsgroups
>you frequent are theoretical and have more to do with what you hate than
>what you like. You admit that you have never seen a hurdy-gurdy
What???? I'll get to the rest of your missive some other time, but,
buddy, if you think from what you've read that I've
"admitted I've never seen a hurdy-gurdy", what's really happened is *you've*
admitted you can't read English.
I saw a hurdy-gurdy just last Saturday, & it wasn't the 1st time by a long
shot. I didn't see the tangents etc, of course; I was in the audience,
listening to it be played (the very-adept player was having some problems
with the tuning, which *often* happens with hurdy-gurdies, but that's
another story).
ghost
>I don't see Alden getting on your case about Sacred Harp music, your
>forte.
Its hardly my forte. I listen traditional singers singing it & try to get
to sing it with them (as they're the only singers of it who know what they're
doing) so I can try to learn how to sing it.
>(Incidentally, I noticed that the recent notice for the Sacred Harp
>convention in DC made a point to welcome singers from ALL backgrounds,
>including classical).
That's because the notice is posted by a tone-deaf classical singer, &
because the group in DC, except for a very few of those 200+ convention-goers
who occasionally travel south to sing, knows nothing about traditional
Sacred Harp singing. The tradition itself never had any classical singers
in it until these horrible atrocities started showing up in droves at selected
traditional singings. Kind of spoils the aesthetics of it for those of
us who love the sound of the traditional singing, but traditional Sacred Harp
is a very inclusive & in-practise ecumenical though practising-Christian
tradition (that last aspect which, despite a tune-book full of
Calvinist lyrics & lots of very-vocal-about-it singing believers has so far
managed to elude Mr. Sabol), so they would never turn anybody away.
>If you hate certain types of music, then DON'T LISTEN
>TO THEM. No one is forcing you to listen to 12-TET pieces!
When people who cannot sing harmonically & in human-sounding voices show
up at singing-things I go to, like Sacred Harp, sea chantey workshops,
general sing-alongs, & so forth, I am being forced to listen to their
wretched excuse for music. And they're showing up more & more these days.
Don't you people have any classical concerts you can go to?
Classical choirs you can join?
>But Usenet is a
>free-speech forum. It's a little arrogant to think that you can impose your
>agenda on a non-moderated newsgroup and expect everyone to comply, don't you
>think?
I can only try.
>So how about it, ghost? Do you think that you can discuss something you
>enjoy for once?
I've done this constantly & consistantly over about 8-10 years on usenet.
Use your Deja-news checker. Snottily-phrased recommendations by twerps
like you, such as the one you give off above, have had nothing to do
with it.
>There are so many serious problems in the world that surely
>a few classical music fans are relatively immaterial.
This isn't "solve the problems in the Balkans/Rwanda/Iraq/etc"-newsgroup,
its rec.music.folk. *Not* rec.music.classical.
>If Alden decides to
>cave into your moral outrage and give free music lessons in addition to
>selling well-crafted instruments, would the Serbs and Albanians suddenly
>reconcile?
See above.
Or does your dissatisfaction stem from a deeper level? I hate to
>burst your bubble, but there is no conspiracy against you among musicians
>who use 12-TET notation.
Its taught in the schools as though it was the only way to interpret music,
when in reality its only been tolerated for even Western European classical
music for about the last 200 years. Before that, Western European
classical music used various meantones & a form of just-intonation.
Anything WEC you play in 12-TET that wasn't written to be played in 12-TET
is being reinterpreted by you, usually not to its benefit.
Of course, traditional musicians tuned by ear, to various just-intonation
schemes, & no traditional music other than 20th century trad uses of pianos
should be played in 12-TET.
>It's simply a method some people use to learn to
>sing and play instruments. On some instruments, such as ALL keyboard
>instruments, it is the ONLY method (ever look at a piano?).
Yeah, I've seen pianos.
I await your next posting, claiming I said right there, above, that
I've never seen a piano, because, as we've all seen very recently, you
can't read English.
By the way, there used to be keyboards, including pianos, in other
temperaments. Lots of them did this with more than 12 keys/octave,
of course. And its possible to set various synthesizers in
various temperaments, including various forms of just-intonation.
Check postings over on rec.music.theory.
>>>Just my two cents.
>>You said it.
>Yes, I did. Unlike you, I recognize that everyone is entitled to her own
>opinion about music, and that just because someone learned to play an
>instrument using one type of tuning or notation, it does not necessarily
>make them "not worth knowing" (your words).
People who insist on singing & playing out-of-tune, & singing-in-particular
in weird "Bullwinkle Moose Sings!/Julia Child &/or British Royalty Sing!"
voices, often with wobbly, drive-a-truck-through-it vibratos, & often with
simpering vocal mannerisms, are not worth listening to. They may have
qualities that make them worth knowing in some other regards than musical,
but I wouldn't really care to spend enough time around them to find out,
because they might start singing at any minute.
Alden Hackmann
You said that we were neglecting to inform our customers of all the
options open to them regarding temperament and tuning. (If that's a
misquote, please tell me what you meant to say, because that's certainly
the impression I got.)
Since I would like to have this information available to our customers
(and the world at large), what is it specifically that you would like us
to include, in our webpage for example? Such as:
"The hurdy-gurdy can be used with mean-tone, just, and Pythagorean
temperaments. The tangents can adjusted to change the temperament, and
finger pressure on the keys can also be used "bend" the notes."
What more do you think needs to be added to this? What traditions and
historical contexts should be cited?
Alden
tlmi...@uswest.net
Why even continue a dialogue with that fool?
Run your business however you want and ignore him (or her).
amers
ghost wrote in message <7f2kok$pl3$1...@canon.das.harvard.edu>...
>In article <7f16q0$nha$1...@autumn.news.rcn.net> "amers" <am...@massed.net>
writes:
>
>>I don't see Alden getting on your case about Sacred Harp music, your
>>forte.
>
>Its hardly my forte. I listen traditional singers singing it & try to get
>to sing it with them (as they're the only singers of it who know what
they're
>doing) so I can try to learn how to sing it.
I was trying to be solicitous.
>
>When people who cannot sing harmonically & in human-sounding voices show
>up at singing-things I go to, like Sacred Harp, sea chantey workshops,
>general sing-alongs, & so forth, I am being forced to listen to their
>wretched excuse for music. And they're showing up more & more these days.
>
>Don't you people have any classical concerts you can go to?
>Classical choirs you can join?
Ok, a) I am not a classically trained singer; I never claimed to be one. The
only instrument I have classical training on is the piano, a solo
instrument, and one I play only at church (where I am paid to do so) and at
home for my own enjoyment. And b) in all the choral ensembles I have sung
in, including ones run by classically-trained conductors, the most important
advice given was to listen to those singing around you and worry about
fitting in with them. And I'm sorry, but if you're getting peeved about
people ruining your enjoyment of sing-alongs, which are inclusive by nature,
then get up a fundraiser and start your own. If you aren't part of the
solution, then you have no business complaining about the problem.
>This isn't "solve the problems in the Balkans/Rwanda/Iraq/etc"-newsgroup,
>its rec.music.folk. *Not* rec.music.classical.
Actually, it's rec.music.celtic. I guess when you post to multiple
newsgroups indiscriminately pushing your narrow-minded agenda, forgetting
which one you're on is an understandable mistake. And for the record, *you*
are the one who brought up classical music, and how much you hate it and all
its practicioners. Most of the other people on here subscribe because we
enjoy the music of (to paraphrase Brian O'Donovan of WGBH) the Celtic
countries and England.
>Its taught in the schools as though it was the only way to interpret music,
>when in reality its only been tolerated for even Western European classical
>music for about the last 200 years. Before that, Western European
>classical music used various meantones & a form of just-intonation.
>Anything WEC you play in 12-TET that wasn't written to be played in 12-TET
>is being reinterpreted by you, usually not to its benefit.
Um, Bach died in 1750, and was writing most of his life,and Pachelbel was
writing in 12-TET a hundred years before that. Also, to use one of your
favorite phrases, "check your deja-news".....how many countless posters in
r.m.c ask for ABC format of traditional tunes? Maybe they weren't first
played using 12-TET, but that's how a lot of people are learning the tunes
today. There were other alphabets used before our modern Roman alphabet, and
maybe the circumstances leading to its implementation involved the forced
subjugation of other alphabets, but the folktales that are written in this
alphabet are still folktales. It's the same thing. Regardless of *why*
12-TET was implemented, the fact is, it is the most common means of notation
used in our society currently. If you are uncomfortable with that situation,
then don't use it for your own performances, and boycott all musicians who
do (course, you may be depriving yourself of some wonderful music, but
that's your loss).
Incidentally, I find it amusing that you assume that the widspread use of
12-TET in music is an isolated standardization that could only occur among
stilted snobs, not in genuine folk culture. This is definitely not the case.
Traditional Irish dancing is one of the most strictly governed art forms
I've ever participated in. Teachers have to undergo a rigorous certification
process, which is judged, of course, by other certified teachers. Dancers
may only compete at commision-sanctioned feiseanna, and may only do so if
they are registered students of certified teachers. Dancers who deviate from
the prescribed styles and techniques are marked down, never advance in
competition and are thus virtually ineligible to become teachers themselves.
This doesn't make Irish dancing snobby.....it's just a regimented art form.
I think you'd be a lot happier if you relaxed and realized that music was
meant to be enjoyed, not picked to death. And if you think I'm a twerp for
saying so, then that's your problem.
-Amy
ghost
>j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) writes:
>> (J Peekstok) writes:
>>>Surely anyone who is using something other than the "standard" tuning that
>>>99.99% of our society
>>You must be in a different society than I am.
>>99.99% of the society I'm in doesn't tune by 12-tone equal temperament.
>I'm afraid it's true - almost everyone these days uses equal temperament.
>Even Papa Bach ;-)
Wasn't aware that he was still with us; maybe you have special info
not available to the rest of us?
If so, ask the old guy whether he meant for people to be using 12-TET
or, instead, various mean-tone temperaments; apparently there's a debate in
historical-research circles about this.
At any rate, none of the Bach clan were playing Celtic music, as far as
I can tell, so their opinions are not relevant here.
>>They know what *they're* doing, but often they don't know the
>>terminology involved in describing what *you*'re doing, or the degree of
>>maladjustments made to music your termminology was invented to describe.
>Can you elaborate on this statement? I don't understand. Are you saying
>that music was beautiful before 12-TET and ugly afterward?
Yup. Or, more accurately, it was often harmonically tuned before 12-TET,
& hasn't a chance of being harmonically tuned in 12-TET.
>>>If they don't, they are probably so tone deaf
>>>that we wouldn't want to hand them a hurdy-gurdy anyway .
>>Why assume that people who aren't up on terminology invented to make
>>people who *are* tone-deaf feel good about their deficiencies are the
>>tone-deaf ones when it can easily be proved that the tone-deaf ones are
>>the ones hiding behind terminology?
>Now I'm really confused. What are you saying here? What terminology?
Any kind of discussion about temperament as an intellectual pursuit
applied to music means that the musicians spent lots of time trying to fit
theories to music, & means that you're probably talking about formal theories
& classical musicians, whatever the culture; trad musicians generally
tuned by ear, rather than by mathematical formulae carted in from outside
the culture (although I bet they often maintained pragmatic instrument-specific
formulae for building & tuning their instruments; its only practical, & saves
you having to experiment with each instrument you build or each time you
tune).
When you're tuning by ear, you'll naturally fall on harmonic values for
scale values, but since there are lots of harmonic values available,
which ones you choose reflect which are considered nice choices in your
tradition. That's where hearing & remembering stuff your parents &
grandparents played & sang, & trying to reproduce the way it sounded
when they did this comes in.
Clearer now? If you're building instruments meant for playing French trad
music from a particular region of France, you really ought to be tuning them
to the scale values used in that region. Not 12-TET.
ghost
>All right, ghost, here's what I'd like to know:
>You said that we were neglecting to inform our customers of all the
>options open to them regarding temperament and tuning. (If that's a
>misquote, please tell me what you meant to say, because that's certainly
>the impression I got.)
>Since I would like to have this information available to our customers
>(and the world at large), what is it specifically that you would like us
>to include, in our webpage for example? Such as:
>"The hurdy-gurdy can be used with mean-tone, just, and Pythagorean
>temperaments.
Pythagorean is (just) a subset of just, this subset being used in
earlier eras of Western European classical music & not specifically adhered to
in all its philosophically cranky fine points by various forms of
traditional music, which instead tuned to the just values they liked by ear
rather than by use of philosophy-based mathematical equations.
You might mention that.
>The tangents can adjusted to change the temperament, and
>finger pressure on the keys can also be used "bend" the notes."
>What more do you think needs to be added to this?
That you (by admission in your previous articles) have put the keyhole
placement in positions of 12-TET tuning, based around note values
(such as A @ 440 whatevers) used in North America circa 1999, & that a
traditional instrument would not have been built this way but would be
key-specific to the best ability of the builder (& probably oriented
around a different value for its base-note, too).
>What traditions and
>historical contexts should be cited?
I'd leave that up to people who are actually experts on trad uses of
the hurdy-gurdy, which leaves both you & me out of it.
ghost
In article <7ephqm$qiq$1...@nntp3.u.washington.edu> dark...@u.washington.edu (Alden Hackmann) writes:
>j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) writes:
>>(Alden Hackmann) writes:
>>>j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) writes:
>>Do you explain the difference between just intonation &
>>12-tone equal temperament to them, or do you also wait for them to ask?
>It's never been an issue. Frequently the customer doesn't know what key
>they want it tuned in,
This is very scary. There are, of course, some very stupid people out
there, & a lot of them apparently have lots of money to spend on
custom-made instruments that they don't know the 1st thing about.
As far as I know there's no law against selling musical instruments
to the stupid, but its certainly a gray area morally as far as I'm
concerned.
>much less if there are different temperaments. I
>think it's fair to say that the people who are sufficiently well-versed in
>a particular historical perspective to know about the temperaments will
>ask. So far it hasn't happened.
>>You said in a previous post that you put your instruments into
>>12-TET values & expect the buyer to know enough about the instrument to make
>>on their own whatever temperament/tuning adjustments they need to make;
>>a fair expectation for someone who knows all the pertinent stuff about
>>their instrument before they buy it, but that doesn't describe
>>every purchaser.
>As I mentioned before, while the key hole spacing is based on 12-TET, the
>tangents are adjustable in a pretty wide range. I would expect that
>almost any temperament is achievable on one of our instruments. I'd need
>to do the math to prove it. So far, no one except you have brought the
>issue up. If you'd like a hurdy-gurdy built with the keys spaced for just
>intonation (or whatever), we can do that.
Only if its free. I can't play a hurdy-gurdy & am not in the market for
one.
It looks like tuning your hurdy-gurdies so that they're in any tuning other
than 12-TET depends entirely on manipulating the tangents. Aren't these the
parts most likely to go out of whack? In the hurdy-gurdy's traditional uses,
weren't the tangents meant for fine-tuning an existing just-temperament
rather than achieving one? Of course, you're not the one to ask about this.
Anybody with a trad-built hurdy-gurdy out there want to answer?
>I can think of only one of the people who have our instruments who uses a
>different temperament, and he doesn't use it all the time - it
>depends if he's playing solo, with a group, or in the studio.
>In ten years of research and building, this is only the third time that
>temperament has been mentioned. Once was a discussion we had with a
>player in England who was experimenting with different temperaments.
>Once was our piano-tuner customer in Nashville.
He (the piano-tuner) I'll guess (you don't need to answer; its a guess)
is Ed Foote, the Nashville piano-tuning expert who posts a bit on
rec.music.theory. He likes just temperaments & various
well-temperaments (mean-tone temperaments, & probably what Bach meant
when he wrote for "the well-tempered clavier", rather than 12-TET).
If it is Mr. Foote, you should talk to him about temperament some time.
>In all the reading
>I've done I've never seen temperament mentioned, as in "The Henri III
>hurdy-gurdy is tuned with a just temperament." You have to go back to
>"Quomodo Organistrum Constructuar", which is probably 12th century, for
>specifics on temperament. The instrument has changed substantially
>several times since that was written.
I'm interested in traditional uses of the instrument, which, unfortunately,
are unlikely to be written up in any of the literature you've consulted
(or anywhere else, to be fair).
>I get the impression that you think that we are hiding something from our
>customers by not telling them about temperaments.
You're constructing an instrument which has not been used in
Western European classical music since the era of 12-TET & of abandoning
instruments that sound like hurdy-gurdies began, & which has been
continuously used in various forms of traditional music, always
in a form of just-temperament appropriate to the region's music. Yeah,
you *are* hiding something from your customers by putting your keyholes
in 12-TET positions & pretending that you have made a traditional-style
instrument.
>Since most players are
>playing with other people who are playing 12-TET instruments
Well, in my experience listening, even most fretted-instrument players who
play traditional & trad-based forms of music manage to acheive just-temperament
of something close to it. How do they do it? Ask on various
fretted-instrument newsgroups; I'm out of conjecture at this time (people
have mentioned everything from wider-than-normal frets to playing
techniques that involve bending the strings to bend the notes to
scalloped-neck instruments to fiddling with nut-to-fret relationships, &
just as many people will write back to say "I don't do that").
And I've had some fiddle-players insist they *always* tune to some form
of just-temperament when not accompanying pianos. And lots of
wind instrument players, especially of fingered rather than keyed instruments,
have instruments that are built just-tuned or close to it, or achieve
just-intonation by their blowing- & fingering-techniques (even the players
of keyed wind instruments can do wonders with blowing-techniques).
So exactly who are *your* hurdy-gurdy player customers playing with who
are playing 12-TET instruments & keeping them stictly tuned in 12-TET?
ghost
>ghost wrote in message <7f2kok$pl3$1...@canon.das.harvard.edu>...
>>In article <7f16q0$nha$1...@autumn.news.rcn.net> "amers" <am...@massed.net>
>writes:
>I was trying to be solicitous.
"patronizing" is the world you're searching for. Not "solicitious".
>Ok, a) I am not a classically trained singer; I never claimed to be one. The
>only instrument I have classical training on is the piano, a solo
>instrument, and one I play only at church (where I am paid to do so) and at
>home for my own enjoyment. And b) in all the choral ensembles I have sung
>in, including ones run by classically-trained conductors,
You sing in choral ensembles but you're not classically trained?
Hardly likely. If ever one of your choral-ensemble directors gave you
that physiologically-inaccurate guff they peddle about breathing & singing
techniques, &/or told you to direct the wind stream to lose or develop
certain tonal qualities in your voice, you're classical trained,
although your training might not have been as extensive as that of
a classical soloist.
>the most important
>advice given was to listen to those singing around you and worry about
>fitting in with them.
If the people around you are classically trained & you've been told to
"fit in with them", that's classical training.
>And I'm sorry, but if you're getting peeved about
>people ruining your enjoyment of sing-alongs, which are inclusive by nature,
>then get up a fundraiser and start your own. If you aren't part of the
>solution, then you have no business complaining about the problem.
More weird logic of yours. I pay for attendance at a lot of these events
(I pay at the ones that charge anything) whereas the choral-group invaders
inevitably get in free via their friendship & professional relationships
with people on the organizing committees interested in turning the things
into publically-funded get-togethers for classical singers.
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with publically-funded get-togethers
for classical singers (other than their sounding horrible), but they
should be advertised as such & shouldn't be riding under the funding umbrella
reserved for promoting forms of traditional music.
>>This isn't "solve the problems in the Balkans/Rwanda/Iraq/etc"-newsgroup,
>>its rec.music.folk. *Not* rec.music.classical.
>Actually, it's rec.music.celtic. I guess when you post to multiple
>newsgroups indiscriminately pushing your narrow-minded agenda, forgetting
>which one you're on is an understandable mistake.
You're the one who brought in references to that "Steven Sabol rides again"
post, leading me to believe I was on a group on which he'd posted it.
Hey, if *you* don't have "a narrow-minded agenda", how come you brought
in to this group a reference to a post that promotes your agenda
on other groups?
>And for the record, *you*
>are the one who brought up classical music
Sorry; you are the one who keeps bringing it up, probably because you
like it so much.
>>Its taught in the schools as though it was the only way to interpret music,
>>when in reality its only been tolerated for even Western European classical
>>music for about the last 200 years. Before that, Western European
>>classical music used various meantones & a form of just-intonation.
>>Anything WEC you play in 12-TET that wasn't written to be played in 12-TET
>>is being reinterpreted by you, usually not to its benefit.
>Um, Bach died in 1750, and was writing most of his life
See previous posts. Its debatable whether Bach intended anything except
his later-life pieces written expressedly for the piano to be in 12-TET.
>,and Pachelbel was
>writing in 12-TET a hundred years before that.
I don't know specifics about Pachelbel's choice of temperaments, but since
you're wrong about Bach you're probably wrong about him too.
>Also, to use one of your
>favorite phrases, "check your deja-news".....how many countless posters in
>r.m.c ask for ABC format of traditional tunes? Maybe they weren't first
>played using 12-TET,
You better believe they weren't. Why ever would you believe they were?
>but that's how a lot of people are learning the tunes
>today.
That's one of the reasons (but only one of them; using lame
Western European classical playing techniques in another) that people who
learn music this way sound so lousy. Whatever happened to listening to
great musicians & copying them?
>There were other alphabets used before our modern Roman alphabet, and
>maybe the circumstances leading to its implementation involved the forced
>subjugation of other alphabets, but the folktales that are written in this
>alphabet are still folktales.
A very weird analogy that as far as I can see has nothing to do with music.
Trad music was transmitted auditorally & so, as far as I have read, were
folk tales.
How about changing around the pronunciation of the letters so that your
Roman-alphabet-transcribed tales are completely unintelligble?
That's exactly what's been done by trying to force various traditions' tunes
into WEC notation.
>Incidentally, I find it amusing that you assume that the widspread use of
>12-TET in music is an isolated standardization that could only occur among
>stilted snobs, not in genuine folk culture. This is definitely not the case.
See previous articles I've posted by various turn-of-the-century &
more-recent experts on Irish music bewailing the changes forced by 12-TET
interpretations.
It definitely is the case. People like O'Neil used it as a short-hand
(at least he usually got the modes more or less right, though not always;
classical notators never can handle modal music). A lot of the trad
notators of the turn of the century would have loved a more-accurate
& less-easily misinterpreted form of notation. They'd have gone straight
to recordings if they had only had the resources to do it (& in the cases of
some of them, recording devices had yet to be invented).
DISKJAKEY
New Jersey area that specializes in English & Celtic traditional folk music in
a progressive style. Most of the songs and tunes we play are in the following
keys: D, Dm, A, Am, C, Em. I was told that most hurdy gurdies are built in
keys of C or D. Which tuning should I go with?
Here is my original posting:
I am looking to buy a good quality hurdy gurdy. It must be chromatic, with
"buzzing bridge," have 2 melody and at least 3 or 4 drones. Would like one
tuned to key of D.
Please respond directly.
Thank you,
Jake Conte
Alden Hackmann
>(Alden Hackmann) writes:
>>j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) writes:
>>> (J Peekstok) writes:
>>I'm afraid it's true - almost everyone these days uses equal temperament.
>>Even Papa Bach ;-)
>Wasn't aware that he was still with us; maybe you have special info
>not available to the rest of us?
I think he's being channeled by Wendy Carlos ;-)
(That's a joke, not intended to responded to seriously, OK?)
>If so, ask the old guy whether he meant for people to be using 12-TET
>or, instead, various mean-tone temperaments; apparently there's a debate in
>historical-research circles about this.
I'm afraid that I'm not familiar with this research. Is there a newsgroup
(rec.music.theory perhaps?) where it's discussed?
I understood "The Well-Tempered Clavier" to have been written to
demonstrate the possibilities of using equal temperament, but I'm willing
to change that opinion.
>>Can you elaborate on this statement? I don't understand. Are you saying
>>that music was beautiful before 12-TET and ugly afterward?
>Yup. Or, more accurately, it was often harmonically tuned before 12-TET,
>& hasn't a chance of being harmonically tuned in 12-TET.
OK, fair enough.
>>>Why assume that people who aren't up on terminology invented to make
>>>people who *are* tone-deaf feel good about their deficiencies are the
>>>tone-deaf ones when it can easily be proved that the tone-deaf ones are
>>>the ones hiding behind terminology?
>>Now I'm really confused. What are you saying here? What terminology?
>Any kind of discussion about temperament as an intellectual pursuit
>applied to music means that the musicians spent lots of time trying to fit
>theories to music, & means that you're probably talking about formal theories
>& classical musicians, whatever the culture;
The person I know who knows the most about the HG is a baroque player,
not a classical player - depending on the terminology, I'd say that
there's very little if any "classical" repertoire for the instrument. I
asked him about how he views temperament, and he said that he usually
tunes the tangents so that each note is in tune relative to the drones.
(How he tunes the 7th I'm not sure, but I'll have to experiment.) I'm not
sure what kind of intonation this would be regarded as.
>trad musicians generally
>tuned by ear, rather than by mathematical formulae carted in from outside
>the culture (although I bet they often maintained pragmatic instrument-specific
>formulae for building & tuning their instruments; its only practical, & saves
>you having to experiment with each instrument you build or each time you
>tune).
>When you're tuning by ear, you'll naturally fall on harmonic values for
>scale values, but since there are lots of harmonic values available,
>which ones you choose reflect which are considered nice choices in your
>tradition. That's where hearing & remembering stuff your parents &
>grandparents played & sang, & trying to reproduce the way it sounded
>when they did this comes in.
Pity my parents were neither (a) French or (b) musical.
>Clearer now? If you're building instruments meant for playing French trad
>music from a particular region of France, you really ought to be tuning them
>to the scale values used in that region. Not 12-TET.
Got it. Well, this certainly brings a new aspect to the research we've
been doing. My ear will need to improve to pick out how Gaston Riviere's
(or insert other "really trad" player here) intonation is different.
However, as I mentioned before, we sell HG's to people playing a wide
range of types of music. I'm not sure it's realistic for us to research
local scale values for everybody, given our production schedule and the
almost nonexistant profit margin. I tend to think that it's the players
responsibility to fine-tune the instrument according to "local tradition"
or style. We give them the tools: adjustable tangents. It's up to them
to determine what intonation is best for them.
With that said, I'm certainly willing to look at adjusting the key
positions to a different "default". I used 12-TET because it's pretty
easy to calculate the key positions, and I wasn't really aware of other
temperaments. I'd entertain ideas on how to determine the best "default"
key spacing, if not 12-TET. Perhaps I'll subscribe to rec.music.theory.
Alden Hackmann
>(Alden Hackmann) writes:
>>j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) writes:
>>>(Alden Hackmann) writes:
>>>>j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) writes:
>>>Do you explain the difference between just intonation &
>>>12-tone equal temperament to them, or do you also wait for them to ask?
>>It's never been an issue. Frequently the customer doesn't know what key
>>they want it tuned in,
>This is very scary. There are, of course, some very stupid people out
>there, & a lot of them apparently have lots of money to spend on
>custom-made instruments that they don't know the 1st thing about.
>As far as I know there's no law against selling musical instruments
>to the stupid, but its certainly a gray area morally as far as I'm
>concerned.
The economics of the situation dictate the terms to us: if a person
becomes fascinated by the HG and wants to buy one, it's our business to
make one for them. We strongly hope that they will learn to play it,
since we put a lot of work into building it, and we love the instrument.
I don't think that the people who buy HG's (or any other instrument they
fall in love with) are stupid. It may be that they don't know very much
about the instrument yet, but that's hardly uncommon: very few people even
know what it is.
Your criteria seems to be that they be very knowledgable about the
instrument before we allow them to buy it. With all due respect, this is
unworkable for us, for two reasons: first, I don't know of any other
luthier who applies such a test, and second, you need an instrument to
play so that the research you do has someplace to go: into your playing.
If that's not clear, I can elaborate.
>It looks like tuning your hurdy-gurdies so that they're in any tuning other
>than 12-TET depends entirely on manipulating the tangents.
Correct.
>Aren't these the
>parts most likely to go out of whack?
No, the strings are much more likely to go out than the tangents.
>In the hurdy-gurdy's traditional uses,
>weren't the tangents meant for fine-tuning an existing just-temperament
>rather than achieving one? Of course, you're not the one to ask about this.
If I knew the mathematical relationships for just temperament, I could
compare them to the key spacing of a 19th century HG we have in the shop,
and a turn-of-the-century lute-back awaiting restoration. Of course, this
is only a small sample, one baroque style and one "folklorique" style, so
it will be hard to draw any conclusions.
There's also the danger of examining an instrument that was made by
"building it that way because that's how my master built it", when in fact
the master set up the keys that "looked right" or whatever, not based on
any particular plan or intonation. Without interviewing the long-dead
maker, it's hard to make inferences about why he did what he did.
>>In all the reading
>>I've done I've never seen temperament mentioned, as in "The Henri III
>>hurdy-gurdy is tuned with a just temperament." You have to go back to
>>"Quomodo Organistrum Constructuar", which is probably 12th century, for
>>specifics on temperament. The instrument has changed substantially
>>several times since that was written.
>I'm interested in traditional uses of the instrument, which, unfortunately,
>are unlikely to be written up in any of the literature you've consulted
>(or anywhere else, to be fair).
So what is it precisely that you would like me to research, and how do you
propose that I should do it?
>>I get the impression that you think that we are hiding something from our
>>customers by not telling them about temperaments.
>You're constructing an instrument which has not been used in
>Western European classical music since the era of 12-TET & of abandoning
>instruments that sound like hurdy-gurdies began, & which has been
>continuously used in various forms of traditional music, always
>in a form of just-temperament appropriate to the region's music. Yeah,
>you *are* hiding something from your customers by putting your keyholes
>in 12-TET positions & pretending that you have made a traditional-style
>instrument.
Did I make that claim? I checked our web pages, and I don't find anything
that said that we build "traditional" HG's.
In any case, "traditional" is a pretty fluid term with HG's: there is no
obligatory wood, body shape, wheel material, dimensions, or whatever that
has to be used for it to be "authentic". If it has a wheel that rubs the
strings, some of which are drones and some of which are chanters shortened
by the keys, it's a HG. That covers a lot of territory. We're not really
interested in making exact copies of 18th century instruments (though I'd
like to build a few, just to do it): what we want are good-sounding HG's
that work well.
A just-intonation keyboard may be part of that. Now I'm interested in
seeing how far the tangent hole positions would need to be moved from the
12-TET positions I've been using.
>>Since most players are
>>playing with other people who are playing 12-TET instruments
>So exactly who are *your* hurdy-gurdy player customers playing with who
>are playing 12-TET instruments & keeping them stictly tuned in 12-TET?
Other HG players.
By your definition, maybe they're not. Perhaps I've been unaware of the
just temperaments. FWIW, most players use a chromatic tuner - it's easier
to keep in tune with the other HG players.
Alden Hackmann
>(Alden Hackmann) writes:
>>"The hurdy-gurdy can be used with mean-tone, just, and Pythagorean
>>temperaments.
>Pythagorean is (just) a subset of just, this subset being used in
>earlier eras of Western European classical music & not specifically adhered to
>in all its philosophically cranky fine points by various forms of
>traditional music, which instead tuned to the just values they liked by ear
>rather than by use of philosophy-based mathematical equations.
>You might mention that.
I'm glad to know that. What portion of the buying public will understand
it?
>>What more do you think needs to be added to this?
>That you (by admission in your previous articles) have put the keyhole
>placement in positions of 12-TET tuning, based around note values
>(such as A @ 440 whatevers) used in North America circa 1999, & that a
>traditional instrument would not have been built this way but would be
>key-specific to the best ability of the builder (& probably oriented
>around a different value for its base-note, too).
I don't have any evidence to support this about "traditional instruments".
If you can provide me with evidence to support it, I might consider it.
The tangents can be tuned to a just temperament from the current key
positions of our instruments. So is it really that big of a deal? It
seems to make a difference to you, but you've already said that you're not
buying.
Nobody has ever refused to buy one of our HG's because they were
dissatisfied with the default temperament, because no one has ever even
asked about it. It's such a fine point. Most people want to know: does
it work well? How much is it? Can you sing with it? How long is the
wait?
If it's such a big deal to you, it's your job to educate people so that
they know about alternate temperaments, so that they'll know to ask us.
I could point out that your methods of doing so are not very effective,
because you tend to turn people off with your confrontational attitude. I
would have appreciated a gentler hand on the keyboard in your first post.
As it turns out, you have enlarged my world-view somewhat with regards to
temperament, but I think it was unncessarily painful. Consider that the
result is that I'll grind my teeth and grumble a bit every time I think
about just intonation, instead of thinking "ah, here's this cool thing
that ghost told me about."
ghost
>j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) writes:
>>(Alden Hackmann) writes:
>>>j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) writes:
>>>> (J Peekstok) writes:
>>>I'm afraid it's true - almost everyone these days uses equal temperament.
>>>Even Papa Bach ;-)
>>>ask the old guy whether he meant for people to be using 12-TET
>>or, instead, various mean-tone temperaments; apparently there's a debate in
>>historical-research circles about this.
>I'm afraid that I'm not familiar with this research. Is there a newsgroup
>(rec.music.theory perhaps?) where it's discussed?
If you want elaboration on "what Bach really meant" or
"what various people think Bach really meant" that would be a good place
to ask.
>The person I know who knows the most about the HG is a baroque player,
>not a classical player
Baroque is an era of Western European classical music.
I understand that people specializing in other eras of WEC sometimes
reserve "classical" for the past 200 years or so, but in general they're
all part of the same big unhappy soup.
>- depending on the terminology, I'd say that
>there's very little if any "classical" repertoire for the instrument.
If its notated in classical notation & comes from before around the turn of
the 19th century into the 20th, with very rare exceptions its not traditional,
its classical.
>I asked him about how he views temperament, and he said that he usually
>tunes the tangents so that each note is in tune relative to the drones.
>(How he tunes the 7th I'm not sure, but I'll have to experiment.) I'm not
>sure what kind of intonation this would be regarded as.
That would, generally speaking, unless he's a die-hard 12-TET-er,
be a form of just temperament. What sounds "in tune" to him is
going to depend on which subset of the drone's harmonics he chooses to discern;
its an easy bet that he'll come up with the set used for northern French
current-day trad music (otherwise known to me as "the modern-folkie scale")
as that's about the only set of harmonics you can usually get someone
coming from the classical crowd to home in on. Listening for notes
in tune with the drones is the standard way of picking up harmonic notes
for scale values. For people with instruments without
seperate constant drones, just pick the lowest note of your scale
& harmonize with that.
>Got it. Well, this certainly brings a new aspect to the research we've
>been doing. My ear will need to improve to pick out how Gaston Riviere's
>(or insert other "really trad" player here) intonation is different.
This is either another joke on your part or more in the "pretty scary"
dept. Just about anyone who can sing in tune (don't ask classical singers;
ask folkies who specialize in harmony) can sing you a simple 1-3-5 triad
around your chosen "1"; now play that triad on a piano & listen to how
far out of tune it sounds. Or you could get a guitar player who knows
about temperament & specialized in-key tunings to demonstrate chords in
various temperaments.
>However, as I mentioned before, we sell HG's to people playing a wide
>range of types of music. I'm not sure it's realistic for us to research
>local scale values for everybody, given our production schedule and the
>almost nonexistant profit margin. I tend to think that it's the players
>responsibility to fine-tune the instrument according to "local tradition"
>or style. We give them the tools: adjustable tangents. It's up to them
>to determine what intonation is best for them.
>With that said, I'm certainly willing to look at adjusting the key
>positions to a different "default". I used 12-TET because it's pretty
>easy to calculate the key positions, and I wasn't really aware of other
>temperaments. I'd entertain ideas on how to determine the best "default"
>key spacing, if not 12-TET. Perhaps I'll subscribe to rec.music.theory.
Its scary to think people are building instruments (& teaching the tuning
of them) without knowing about the historical temperaments for that instrument,
or about temperament in general. I've read that various brands of harmonicas
come out of the box with little accompanying slips of paper saying
"this instrument is supposed to be in thus-&-such temperament" (usually,
but not always, they're in a form of just intonation). These are instruments
that sell (some of them) for under $20. Its not too much to ask for an
instrument that costs hundreds or thousands to have similar information shipped
with it. If the purchasers don't understand the information they've been given
(from recurrent discussions on the harmonica mailing list, not all of them do)
it may at least start them on the road to researching it.
ghost
>j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) writes:
>>(Alden Hackmann) writes:
>>>j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) writes:
>>>>(Alden Hackmann) writes:
>>>>>j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) writes:
>I don't think that the people who buy HG's (or any other instrument they
>fall in love with) are stupid.
They're only stupid if they've bought something they don't know anything
about, much less how to tune or play.
>It may be that they don't know very much
>about the instrument yet, but that's hardly uncommon: very few people even
>know what it is.
I seem then to be living in a dream-world where about every other band
that comes through town has a hurdy-gurdy player; certainly all the
Breton bands & Celtic-parts-of-Spain bands have one.
>Your criteria seems to be that they be very knowledgable about the
>instrument before we allow them to buy it. With all due respect, this is
>unworkable for us, for two reasons: first, I don't know of any other
>luthier who applies such a test,
I've done enough shopping for recordings in shops that also sell
instruments to hear the comments made about someone buying something
they don't know how to play (which lack of ability they have just
demonstrated). The comments are usually not too complimentary.
>and second, you need an instrument to
>play so that the research you do has someplace to go: into your playing.
>If that's not clear, I can elaborate.
Ideally you ought to make friends with someone who teaches you on their
instrument before you shell out the money for your own (unless you've
got money to burn).
>>It looks like tuning your hurdy-gurdies so that they're in any tuning other
>>than 12-TET depends entirely on manipulating the tangents.
>Correct.
>>Aren't these the
>>parts most likely to go out of whack?
>No, the strings are much more likely to go out than the tangents.
Well, OK; strings go out 1st, then tangents break (or otherwise become
anti-whacked).
>If I knew the mathematical relationships for just temperament, I could
>compare them to the key spacing of a 19th century HG we have in the shop,
>and a turn-of-the-century lute-back awaiting restoration.
Lutes, according to Margo Schulter over on rec.music.theory, are the
1st instruments for which 12-TET was generally accepted (in the 1600s)
by the WEC establishment. I would not compare a trad instrument to a lute.
>Of course, this
>is only a small sample, one baroque style and one "folklorique" style, so
>it will be hard to draw any conclusions.
>There's also the danger of examining an instrument that was made by
>"building it that way because that's how my master built it", when in fact
>the master set up the keys that "looked right" or whatever, not based on
>any particular plan or intonation. Without interviewing the long-dead
>maker, it's hard to make inferences about why he did what he did.
Nevertheless, I've read & been personally told that people building violins &
hammered-dulcimers do just that; try to reproduce the structure of
old instruments that sound good when played, even if the physics behind
that structure isn't clear, & though lots of aspects of the design may well
represent unexplained traditional building methods. In both cases here
the modern builders are not trying to prize out intonation-intentions for the
stringing so much as come up with a physical resonating box that amplifies
any harmonics produced that do sound good to the player.
The more I read about hole-placement in trad wind instruments of the Celtic
countries, the more I feel that blowing & fingering techniques & learning
your way around the ideosyncracies of your individual instrument meant
a lot more than exact hole-placement according to any temperament; this is
because the melodies played on these instruments, though always in
(what modern theorists would call) one key, often moved from
(what modern theorists would call) mode to mode within a piece in ways
that would to a modern player be thought to require more holes than
are drilled in the instrument (& to a modern WEC player to
"break the WEC so-called 'rules-of-music' "). One of the biggest changes
in modern trad & turn-of-the-century trad Irish airs (as heard on recordings
made as far back in time as possible), for example, is that the modern
interpretations turn them into mono-modal pieces.
Modern WEC players have the opposite attitude to instruments; they would
like them to be able to change key within a piece, which 12-TET was
invented for doing, but they're very rigid as to mode & are restriced to
a couple.
In general, it makes no sense for an instrument with a limited scale
to be built in 12-TET unless the player wants at all times to play with
pianos. If you build a limited-scale instrument 12-TET you have an
instrument that's out of tune with its own harmonics & still isn't very
versatile in the way you've built it to *try* to be. Any whistle or flute
I've seen just doesn't have enough holes drilled into it (& isn't long enough
to have more holes drilled into it) to make playing in most keys very far away
from what key the thing is supposed to be in feasible; you run out of holes.
I'm not sure where hurdy-gurdies stand in the "span of notes", but
I'm reasonably sure they're not up there with either pianos or guitars.
>>>Since most players are
>>>playing with other people who are playing 12-TET instruments
>>So exactly who are *your* hurdy-gurdy player customers playing with who
>>are playing 12-TET instruments & keeping them stictly tuned in 12-TET?
>Other HG players.
I've never yet run into a multiple-hurdy-gurdy band.
Not that I can remember. I'm not saying they don't exist, but
I just can't think of one I've heard play here.
>By your definition, maybe they're not. Perhaps I've been unaware of the
>just temperaments. FWIW, most players use a chromatic tuner - it's easier
>to keep in tune with the other HG players.
Most players of *anything* I've seen using chromatic tuners, which come
in 12-TET unless you specifically ask for them to come in other
temperaments, spend a lot of time squinting at the tuner & saying things
like "it must be broken". They should learn about temperaments, recognize
that a 12-TET tuner is only going to get them into the ballpark for
some notes & not even that for others, & go back to fine-tuning by ear.
If their ears are good enough to recognize when the 12-TET tuner is out of
tune, their ears are good enough to use instead of the tuner.
(I *have* had people tell me they're a G-d-send for getting new strings
into the ballpark, though.)
ghost
>j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) writes:
>>(Alden Hackmann) writes:
>>>"The hurdy-gurdy can be used with mean-tone, just, and Pythagorean
>>>temperaments.
>>Pythagorean is (just) a subset of just, this subset being used in
>>earlier eras of Western European classical music & not
>>specifically adhered to in all its philosophically-cranky fine points
>>by various forms of traditional music, which instead tuned to the
>>just values they liked by ear rather than by use of philosophy-based
>>mathematical equations. You might mention that.
>I'm glad to know that. What portion of the buying public will understand
>it?
The part that reads English? You could translate it for the rest,
I guess.
I find it strange that "Pythagorean" gets presented in a lot of places
as though it was something different from just-intonation, when what
it is is a limited form of just-intonation that might not make too much
sense for various forms of traditional music (especially Celtic forms).
In general they ought to understand just-intonation. Most people do
instinctively, because it involves hearing naturally-occuring harmonics,
& have to have it trained out of them by the classical establishment if
they want to get ahead in the classical-music world.
>Nobody has ever refused to buy one of our HG's because they were
>dissatisfied with the default temperament, because no one has ever even
>asked about it. It's such a fine point. Most people want to know: does
>it work well?
It doesn't "work well", in the sense of sounding in tune with itself,
in 12-TET.
>Can you sing with it?
Most pop & trad singers sing just intervals. Even the WEC crew agrees
on this point. Unless you're selling your instruments exclusively to
WEC singers, the answer is "it won't sound very good to sing with until
you retune it".
>If it's such a big deal to you, it's your job to educate people so that
>they know about alternate temperaments, so that they'll know to ask us.
>I could point out that your methods of doing so are not very effective,
>because you tend to turn people off with your confrontational attitude. I
>would have appreciated a gentler hand on the keyboard in your first post.
My "gentle hands on the keyboard" approach was worn out long ago by several
oafs on usenet (some of them good friends of yours, I've been given to
understand) & on a now-defunct mailing list who insisted that there was
no such thing as just temperament, that people cannot tell the difference
between 12-TET note-values & just values even when notes are played &/or
sung simultaneously (which is the best way to test your tuning) & that
the laws of physics were somehow put in abeyance in honor of their beloved
modern Western European classical music.
Fortunately various other people, from the posters on harp-l
(the harmonica list) & rec.music.theory to some recently-deceased
more-widely-known music theorists such as Paul Hindemith (sp?) & Harry Partch,
turn out to be well versed in the concept of harmonic temperaments.
>As it turns out, you have enlarged my world-view somewhat with regards to
>temperament, but I think it was unncessarily painful.
Well, if you build instruments for a living, or even just tune them for
a living, you ought to have become versed in issues of temperament
long ago.
Your introduction, though I seriously doubt this really was it, cannot
have been more painful than mine; imagine hearing a room full of about
200 singers who cannot sing in any form of just temperament because they've
been trained to be modern Western European singers. Then imagine that
these singers try their ways on what is supposed to be harmony singing.
Alden Hackmann
>I appreciate all the response to my original posting. I play in a duo in
>the New Jersey area that specializes in English & Celtic traditional folk
>music in a progressive style. Most of the songs and tunes we play are in
>the following keys: D, Dm, A, Am, C, Em. I was told that most hurdy
>gurdies are built in keys of C or D. Which tuning should I go with?
You can get a HG in any key, by changing the strings. If you choose an
uncommon tuning, there are fewer HG players for you to play with. ;-)
Almost every HG has the keys set up so that the open note of the chanter
is a fourth below the root note of the scale. So, for instance, in the
Auvernait tuning, the chanter is tuned to g', and the bottom row of keys
gives a C scale. The top row gives the sharps and flats, just like the
black keys on a piano.
The Auvernait tuning is also called G/C: G for the chanter, C for the
scale on the bottom row. This tuning is ideal for playing in C, Cm, G,
Gm, D, and Dm. You can play in A or Am, but the drones don't work very
well. If you're really accomplished, you can play in B-flat or any other
key: the keyboard is chromatic, so all of the keys are available.
The other common French tuning is Bourbonnais, which is D/G: chanters in D
in octaves, ie d" and d', and a G scale on the bottom row. D, Dm, G, Gm,
A, and Am are the good keys here. Again, any key is possible, but
fingering and drone conflicts make some less desirable.
For you, I might recommend an A/D tuning, one step up from Auvernait. I
used this tuning on a Minstrel Gurdy for a while until we sold it, and I
liked it very well. The keys that would work best would be A, Am, D, Dm,
E, and Em, which include the ones you asked for, except for C. You can
certainly play in C, but it could be a little odd. I don't know any tunes
in B-flat, which is the equivalent on a G/C. You'd certainly want a
dedicated C drone.
Alden
Brotherhood of the Order of Magnae Rotae
Keeper of the Fox-Fiber Cotton
ghost
>>>(Alden Hackmann) writes:
Oops; make that
"because they were trained to be modern Western European classical singers".
But you knew that.
amers
there certain bands you like? Or perhaps certain styles of songs (such as
puirt a beul or waulking songs)? One tradition in particular that you're
more into than others (eg, Irish vs. Scottish)? What first drew you to the
music?
I just thought that perhaps some healthy discussion on celtic music might be
a refreshing change for all.
-Amy
ghost
>Got a question for you ghost. What about your interest in Celtic music? Are
>there certain bands you like? Or perhaps certain styles of songs (such as
>puirt a beul or waulking songs)? One tradition in particular that you're
>more into than others (eg, Irish vs. Scottish)? What first drew you to the
>music?
Go check Deja-news. Use "power-check" (or whatever they call it)
so you can go way back. All your very patronizing questions will be
answered.
Otherwise, when a topic comes up here that I want to discuss,
I'll discuss it, whether you approve of it or not.
ghost
>The Auvernait tuning is also called G/C: G for the chanter, C for the
>scale on the bottom row. This tuning is ideal for playing in C, Cm, G,
>Gm, D, and Dm. You can play in A or Am, but the drones don't work very
^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^
>well. If you're really accomplished, you can play in B-flat or any other
^^^^
>key: the keyboard is chromatic, so all of the keys are available.
>The other common French tuning is Bourbonnais, which is D/G: chanters in D
>in octaves, ie d" and d', and a G scale on the bottom row. D, Dm, G, Gm,
>A, and Am are the good keys here. Again, any key is possible, but
>fingering and drone conflicts make some less desirable.
^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^
>For you, I might recommend an A/D tuning, one step up from Auvernait. I
>used this tuning on a Minstrel Gurdy for a while until we sold it, and I
>liked it very well. The keys that would work best would be A, Am, D, Dm,
>E, and Em, which include the ones you asked for, except for C. You can
>certainly play in C, but it could be a little odd. I don't know any tunes
>in B-flat, which is the equivalent on a G/C. You'd certainly want a
^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^
>dedicated C drone.
^^^^^^^^^ ^ ^^^^^
Its kind of weird that you claim to know nothing about temperament but
give what is probably accurate information vis-a-vis the instruments you
make & "drone conflicts" with the keys people want to play them in.
Essentially, "drone conflicts" are what you get when the drone isn't in
the same key that you're playing in. I wouldn't recommend anyone play
a drone in a key other than the one they're playing the rest of the notes
in unless they're going for the "maximum-noise factor". And if you want
your instrument to be in tune, & it comes with a drone like a hurdy gurdy
does, & which you plan to use, just tune your scale to the drone.
Its that simple.
Dave Holland
ghost <j...@deas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>Ideally you ought to make friends with someone who teaches you on their
>instrument before you shell out the money for your own (unless you've
>got money to burn).
Given that teachers and students are unlikely to be geographically
close, how are students supposed to practise in that situation?
>I'm not sure where hurdy-gurdies stand in the "span of notes", but
>I'm reasonably sure they're not up there with either pianos or guitars.
Typical range on the melody strings is 2 octaves, I believe.
>I've never yet run into a multiple-hurdy-gurdy band.
>Not that I can remember. I'm not saying they don't exist, but
>I just can't think of one I've heard play here.
Mortimer's Morris; The Duellists; also Blowzabella? (in the early days?)
>They should learn about temperaments, recognize
>that a 12-TET tuner is only going to get them into the ballpark for
>some notes & not even that for others, & go back to fine-tuning by ear.
Definitely agreed!
Cheers,
Dave
Alden Hackmann
>(Alden Hackmann) writes:
>>The person I know who knows the most about the HG is a baroque player,
>>not a classical player
>Baroque is an era of Western European classical music.
>I understand that people specializing in other eras of WEC sometimes
>reserve "classical" for the past 200 years or so, but in general they're
>all part of the same big unhappy soup.
Interesting. When I was reading about temperaments in Groves, the article
said that equal temperament is used by all musicians today except for
Baroque and Renaissance specialists, or words to that effect.
>That would, generally speaking, unless he's a die-hard 12-TET-er,
>be a form of just temperament. What sounds "in tune" to him is
>going to depend on which subset of the drone's harmonics he chooses to discern;
>its an easy bet that he'll come up with the set used for northern French
>current-day trad music (otherwise known to me as "the modern-folkie scale")
>as that's about the only set of harmonics you can usually get someone
>coming from the classical crowd to home in on.
I think you're assuming a lot here. The player in question is Italian,
and started out playing Celtic, no classical training at all. How in the
world do you determine so much about someone you've never even heard of
before?
>Listening for notes
>in tune with the drones is the standard way of picking up harmonic notes
>for scale values. For people with instruments without
>seperate constant drones, just pick the lowest note of your scale
>& harmonize with that.
This is useful information.
>Its scary to think people are building instruments (& teaching the tuning
>of them) without knowing about the historical temperaments for that instrument,
>or about temperament in general.
Perhaps so. BTW, we don't actually teach people to tune the tangents
to 12-TET - it's up to them to decide what sounds good.
When you're Queen of the Universe, you can make a declaration concerning
how long people have to study various types of music theory before they
can start building instruments. I can't think of any luthiers I've ever
talked to or whose articles and interviews I've read who said, "I started
out with a firm grounding in music theory and intonation." They almost all
said, "I thought it would be really cool to build a <blank>, so I got some
wood and a saw..." Lutherie is, as someone else mentioned, part of the
folk process: you start building, you find what doesn't work, you look
around at what does, you learn to do it that way, you see if you can
improve on it. At some point your building reaches a point where the fine
points of music theory may be of assistance.
Alden Hackmann
>(Alden Hackmann) writes:
>>I don't think that the people who buy HG's (or any other instrument they
>>fall in love with) are stupid.
>They're only stupid if they've bought something they don't know anything
>about, much less how to tune or play.
How in the world do you learn to play an instrument that you don't have?
>>It may be that they don't know very much
>>about the instrument yet, but that's hardly uncommon: very few people even
>>know what it is.
>I seem then to be living in a dream-world where about every other band
>that comes through town has a hurdy-gurdy player; certainly all the
>Breton bands & Celtic-parts-of-Spain bands have one.
There are more HG's than average in Seattle and its environs, yet hardly
anybody seems to know what they are. It's a fact of life of being a HG
player: you do a lot of explaining.
>>Your criteria seems to be that they be very knowledgable about the
>>instrument before we allow them to buy it. With all due respect, this is
>>unworkable for us, for two reasons: first, I don't know of any other
>>luthier who applies such a test,
>I've done enough shopping for recordings in shops that also sell
>instruments to hear the comments made about someone buying something
>they don't know how to play (which lack of ability they have just
>demonstrated). The comments are usually not too complimentary.
I've sat people down with my instrument often enough and remember clearly
enough what it was like when I started that I'm quite forgiving. You have
to start somewhere, and for many people the instrument we sell is their
first. It's impossible to learn to play HG unless you have one. It takes
a lot of practice.
>>and second, you need an instrument to
>>play so that the research you do has someplace to go: into your playing.
>>If that's not clear, I can elaborate.
>Ideally you ought to make friends with someone who teaches you on their
>instrument before you shell out the money for your own (unless you've
>got money to burn).
This is a reasonable idea if there were as many HG's around as guitars.
There are perhaps 100 or 200 HG players in North America. For example, I
know of only one player in the state of Massachusetts. Usually these
people are friendly, but not willing to lend out their instruments, which
is what you need to get to practice enough to get reasonable. It helps to
have good instruction, which is not always available either.
>I've never yet run into a multiple-hurdy-gurdy band.
>Not that I can remember. I'm not saying they don't exist, but
>I just can't think of one I've heard play here.
Here we have dances with HG players, and gatherings of HG players. There
may be just 3 or 4, sometimes 8, at the festival perhaps 15 onstage
together. Being in tune is very important.
>>By your definition, maybe they're not. Perhaps I've been unaware of the
>>just temperaments. FWIW, most players use a chromatic tuner - it's easier
>>to keep in tune with the other HG players.
>Most players of *anything* I've seen using chromatic tuners, which come
>in 12-TET unless you specifically ask for them to come in other
>temperaments, spend a lot of time squinting at the tuner & saying things
>like "it must be broken". They should learn about temperaments, recognize
>that a 12-TET tuner is only going to get them into the ballpark for
>some notes & not even that for others, & go back to fine-tuning by ear.
>If their ears are good enough to recognize when the 12-TET tuner is out of
>tune, their ears are good enough to use instead of the tuner.
It would be nice if we all could use our ears. Sometimes some help is
needed, especially when starting out.
>(I *have* had people tell me they're a G-d-send for getting new strings
>into the ballpark, though.)
This is true.
Chuck Boody
ghost ) wrote:
Well, I said I wouldn't get drawn into any more of ghost's polemicals, but
here I am again.
1) I know you don't appreciate "classically trained" singers/musicians,
but tough. If you or any of the rest of those discussing equal temperment
and other temperments really would like to understand what you are talking
about go read "Tuning and Temperment" by J. Murray Barbour. Or go find
the old 78 records that have performance examples of such things done on a
carefully tuned reed organ (pre synthesizer days).
2) You'll discover at least this information: Pythagorian tuning is not a
special form of just intonation. It is a tuning system based on perfectly
tuned fifths. As such it does not return to the starting note after 12
fifths are tuned. It is this problem, called the Pythagorean comma (that
is the amount be which the intended note is missed by), that leads to all
of the tuning issues. There are literally dozens of meantone tunings and
just tone tunings suggested and supposedly implimented by various theorists
and musicians. Each is based on fudging tunings in some way that makes the
ear happier than it is with the huge problem (the comma) in Pythagorean
tuning.
3) I've forgotten now if it is mean of just tunings in general that favor
low thirds. Pythagorean results in high thirds.
4) Some tunings adjust the third rather than the fifth as the basic
interval to be adjusted. that is, they push things around to keep the
thirds happy in the keys you are playing in.
5) The "purer" (for lack of a better term) the tuning is the less happy it
is if the music moves away from the starting key or mode. That is, an
instrument that is tuned wonderfully in C major will sound terrible played
in F#.
6) Singers can, of course, adjust to the key center and sing ins some pure
temperment or another. Some groups (both of traditional musicians and of
classical performing musicians) claim to do this.
7) Non fretted string instruments (violins etc) and wind instruments can
be played in the various temperments. Fretted string instruments can be
pushed and pulled into the temperment but only to some degree. Fixed
string instruments (keyboards, hammered dulcimers etc.) can be tuned to a
particular temperment but would have to be retuned to each new key area.
More than a little problematical. Hurdy Gurdies fall in that last
category.
8) There is no written (nor recorded of course) information about how
singers and players from the distant past actually tempered their scales.
We have some fairly extensive theoretical discussions of what supposedly
went on and it is useful, but it varies from location to location in the
world. We have only the aural tradition to base things upon. In this
ghost is very much correct.
9) Some countries musics (say India for example) have made exact tuning
very important in their music and have spent considerable time on passing
on that tradition.
10) When western music decided to "modulate" (that is to change keys along
the way in pieces) or to play in a larger variety of keys the need to do
this efficiently on fixed instruments (like organs and other keybaord
instruments) lead to the establishment of 12-ET tuning as a solution to
that problem. In the process they gave up (but not in traditional musics)
the consistent use of tempered tunings (at least for keyboard instruments).
However it has been alleged that even orchestras temper the tuning. And, I
suspect it is true.
11) There is now historical evidence that the tuning Bach was espousing
was not equal tempered tuning. The translation of those volumes is "The
*Well* tempered Clavichord" not the "Equal Tempered Clavichord" (My
emphasis).
In sum. I think ghost's arguements are fuzzy and nasty, but I also think
she has a point about the viability and importance of tempered tuning.
However, she needs to recognize that different ears have different
opinions about tempering.
I once had a choir in which there were two very good tenors. One heard
high (Pythagorean) thirds and the other low (just?) thirds. That were best
of friends, but argued constantly about who was right. The answer was that
both were.
Finally I remember when the founder of the St. Olaf College choir, in those
days probably the finest acapella choir in the world, wa asked why he used
a piano to train his choir when they sang so much better in tune than the
piano. His answer was, I think, enlightening: "If I could get my choir to
be as well in tune and as consistent as a well tuned piano I would be
delighted." And, that is where I stand on the whole thing.
Chuck Boody.
BTW I still think ghost should go take some music courses at harvard.....
Dave Holland
>7) Non fretted string instruments (violins etc) and wind instruments can
>be played in the various temperments. Fretted string instruments can be
>pushed and pulled into the temperment but only to some degree. Fixed
>string instruments (keyboards, hammered dulcimers etc.) can be tuned to a
>particular temperment but would have to be retuned to each new key area.
>More than a little problematical. Hurdy Gurdies fall in that last
>category.
I'd say they fall into the second category ("fretted string instruments")
because you can adjust the pitch by the finger pressure on the keys.
Dave
ghost
>j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) writes:
>>(Alden Hackmann) writes:
>>>The person I know who knows the most about the HG is a baroque player,
>>>not a classical player
>>Baroque is an era of Western European classical music.
>>I understand that people specializing in other eras of WEC sometimes
>>reserve "classical" for the past 200 years or so, but in general they're
>>all part of the same big unhappy soup.
>Interesting. When I was reading about temperaments in Groves, the article
>said that equal temperament is used by all musicians today except for
>Baroque and Renaissance specialists, or words to that effect.
Groves is a reference book for classical musicians. When they say
"all musicians" they do not cover all musicians; they don't cover *any*
jazz musicians, traditional musicians from any culture, most pop musicians,
& a few other groups I could think of if I had time right now. They talk
about *only* classical musicians. Since the instrument you make has
*no* repertoire (not that I'm aware of, anyway) in the "Romantic" era (last
200 years or so) or in 20th century post-Romantic-era classical music,
& in fact hasn't been used in classical music since medieval times,
Groves has nothing to say about its temperament, even as refers to its
use in classical music. I hope you're not misreading your reference to
believe it says that 12-TET was in use in medieval times.
>>That would, generally speaking, unless he's a die-hard 12-TET-er,
>>be a form of just temperament. What sounds "in tune" to him is
>>going to depend on which subset of the drone's harmonics he chooses
>>to discern; its an easy bet that he'll come up with the set used for
>>northern French current-day trad music (otherwise known to me as
>>"the modern-folkie scale") as that's about the only set of harmonics
>>you can usually get someone coming from the classical crowd to home in on.
>I think you're assuming a lot here. The player in question is Italian,
>and started out playing Celtic, no classical training at all. How in the
>world do you determine so much about someone you've never even heard of
>before?
From what you've told me about them.
I wonder how they fare in the modern Baroque-manque classical world
if they have, as you say above, "no classical training at all".
I'm right on the button with my assumptions, apparently. I haven't heard any
modern northern trad-style Italian players using the traditional old-style
Celtic scales. The scales they'd be using were traditionally used for
Northern French, some Scandinavian, Italian (except for parts of Italy
that get their musical influence from the middle east) music & are also
used by modern German pop musicians, though I'm not so sure all the
Germans used them historically.
>When you're Queen of the Universe, you can make a declaration concerning
>how long people have to study various types of music theory before they
>can start building instruments. I can't think of any luthiers I've ever
>talked to or whose articles and interviews I've read who said, "I started
>out with a firm grounding in music theory and intonation." They almost all
>said, "I thought it would be really cool to build a <blank>, so I got some
>wood and a saw..." Lutherie is, as someone else mentioned, part of the
>folk process: you start building, you find what doesn't work, you look
>around at what does, you learn to do it that way, you see if you can
>improve on it.
Everyone I can think of (except you) apprentices themselves to someone
(often a series of someones) who knows what they're doing before they
strike out on their own. Most don't "get some wood & a saw" & hack into
it. You seem to be reading different articles. Can you point me to some
of these "I got some wood & a saw" articles by well-thought-of instrument
builders?
Instrument building is *not*, generally speaking, some kind of amorphous
process; people start with specific intentions & get trained by people
who know how to build a particular instrument. When they make
modifications they generally do it for specific reasons
Christopher John Smith
ghost <j...@deas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>Groves is a reference book for classical musicians. When they say
>"all musicians" they do not cover all musicians; they don't cover *any*
>jazz musicians, traditional musicians from any culture, most pop musicians,
>& a few other groups I could think of if I had time right now. They talk
>about *only* classical musicians.
The New Grove Dictionary of American Music and Musicians is a separate 4-
volume set which includes jazz and pop musicians.
The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz is a separate 2-volume set which includes
jazz musicians.
--
Chris Smith - Lecturer in World Music at IU; Producer: "One World" at WFIU;
Musician: Altramar medieval music ensemble, Amandla (African jazz), Las
(Irish/Scots traditions); Author: "Celtic Backup"; (p) 812/855-2664
(WWW) http://www.indiana.edu/~smithcj "Do your best" -- Shakyamuni
Royce Lerwick
>They talk
>about *only* classical musicians. Since the instrument you make has
>*no* repertoire (not that I'm aware of, anyway) in the "Romantic" era (last
>200 years or so) or in 20th century post-Romantic-era classical music,
>& in fact hasn't been used in classical music since medieval times,
Well, here I thought she even knew what "classial" music was. I think
she means "academic" music, since the "Classical" and "Medieval"
periods are hundreds of years apart, therefore its oxymoronic to speak
in terms of playing "Classical" music in "Medieval" times.
Royce
Alden Hackmann
>(Alden Hackmann) writes:
>>j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) writes:
>>Interesting. When I was reading about temperaments in Groves, the article
>>said that equal temperament is used by all musicians today except for
>>Baroque and Renaissance specialists, or words to that effect.
>Groves is a reference book for classical musicians. When they say
>"all musicians" they do not cover all musicians; they don't cover *any*
>jazz musicians, traditional musicians from any culture, most pop musicians,
>& a few other groups I could think of if I had time right now. They talk
>about *only* classical musicians.
Funny, there seem to be numerous articles on all sorts of music and all
periods. Maybe your version is different from the one sitting on our
shelf.
> Since the instrument you make has
>*no* repertoire (not that I'm aware of, anyway) in the "Romantic" era (last
>200 years or so) or in 20th century post-Romantic-era classical music,
>& in fact hasn't been used in classical music since medieval times,
>Groves has nothing to say about its temperament, even as refers to its
>use in classical music.
And, of course, as you mentioned earlier, the temperament isn't likely to
be discussed in print anywhere. So here's the question: isolated as we
are here in the Pacific Northwest, far from the True Home of Hurdy-Gurdy
Temperament in the village of Jenzat, France, how do you reasonable expect
that I'd be familiar with temperament?
The whole question is a confusing one to me: you take umbrage at our
building instruments unsuitable to just temperament. I point out that
they can be tuned to just temperament if desired. You then take umbrage
at our failing to describe how to tune them. I point out that we provide
all the information needed to tune the tangents to any temperament
desired. You take umbrage at the "fact" that we claim to be building
traditional instruments, and I point out that nowhere in our literature or
website is there any such claim.
I could perhaps understand all this if you were a dissatisfied customer,
but you're not: you have no interest in playing the hurdy-gurdy. So what
is the problem? Do you imagine that I lie awake at night dreaming up new
schemes to impose equal temperament on the world just to annoy you? I can
assure you that this is not the case.
Despite your obvious animosity, I've learned some interesting things. If
your goal was to annoy me so much that I turn away from just temperament
forever, you failed.
>Everyone I can think of (except you) apprentices themselves to someone
>(often a series of someones) who knows what they're doing before they
>strike out on their own.
I would have liked to do so. There's one builder in the US, now
semi-retired from building HG's, and we did in fact do a very short
intensive apprenticeship with him. Whether he builds in a traditional
style as you define it is open to question. The other builders are mostly
in France. I'd have loved to take a year and apprentice with Bleton or
Boudet or Grandchamps, but my French and our budget weren't up to that.
And do they build "traditionally" by your definition? Who can say? Nobody
uses non-removable shafts any more - those were certainly traditional.
The last "traditional" builder was perhaps Marcel Soing, who is no longer
with us. Whether he was truly traditional is also in question, if one is
truly concerned about such things.
So if my choices are to wait until I can afford an apprenticeship with one
of the current masters just so I can get a stamp of approval from someone
who doesn't want to buy one of our instruments anyway, or to go ahead and
build based on what I've learned to date (which is substantial, but of
course not everything) and to continue to learn at every opportunity, of
course I choose the latter.
>Most don't "get some wood & a saw" & hack into
>it. You seem to be reading different articles. Can you point me to some
>of these "I got some wood & a saw" articles by well-thought-of instrument
>builders?
Sure - pick up a copy of "American Lutherie", the journal of the Guild of
American Luthiers. There's a series called "Prepare to Meet the Maker".
Granted, some of these people did apprenticeships or had some formal
training. Many did not. I don't think that there's any particular
advantage one way or the other.
Also of interest - I can't think of when I've seen temperament discussed
in AL. There are all sorts of discussions of tools, jigs, techniques,
woods, finishes, and physics as it relates to instruments.
>Instrument building is *not*, generally speaking, some kind of amorphous
>process; people start with specific intentions & get trained by people
>who know how to build a particular instrument. When they make
>modifications they generally do it for specific reasons
Was there something more that you were going to say here?
Paul Draper
.
>. Since the instrument you make has
>*no* repertoire (not that I'm aware of, anyway) in the "Romantic" era (last
>200 years or so) or in 20th century post-Romantic-era classical music,
>& in fact hasn't been used in classical music since medieval times,
>
Vivaldi's 'Il Pastor Fido'.
--
Paul Draper
0171 369 2754
ghost
>ghost <j...@deas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>>Ideally you ought to make friends with someone who teaches you on their
>>instrument before you shell out the money for your own (unless you've
>>got money to burn).
>Given that teachers and students are unlikely to be geographically
>close, how are students supposed to practise in that situation?
Maybe they could organize hurdy-gurdy camps, with loaner hurdy-gurdies
for the learners. None but the idle rich can afford to buy
musical instruments, especially complicated & expensive ones, that they
don't have an inkling how to play. If you've got an instrument that's
popular enough that several levels of quality, priced accordingly,
are available, learners usually get advised to buy a mid-range one
(so they won't get turned off entirely by inferior-sounding &
difficult-to-play low-end ones) & move up when they know which of the
better ones they want to chose for various acoustic & playability properties.
Heck, the mountain dulcimer classes around here even hand out or sell
cardboard kits they they claim are not that terrible to *learn* on.
Somehow, I cannot imagine a cardboard-kit hurdy gurdy working, though.
>>I'm not sure where hurdy-gurdies stand in the "span of notes", but
>>I'm reasonably sure they're not up there with either pianos or guitars.
>Typical range on the melody strings is 2 octaves, I believe.
Enough to tempt someone to go for 12-TET with "every key available"
(albeit in only one octave for the higher key-notes), until,
of course, they hear what the keys that are not in tune with the drone
sound like. Unless you've got a re-tunable drone this just isn't going to
work.
>>I've never yet run into a multiple-hurdy-gurdy band.
>>Not that I can remember. I'm not saying they don't exist, but
>>I just can't think of one I've heard play here.
>Mortimer's Morris; The Duellists; also Blowzabella? (in the early days?)
Never heard or heard of the 1st two; remember Blowzabella, but remember
it more for multiple bagpipes (them & Na Caberfe <sp?>, aka Rare Air) than for
multipe hurdy gurdies. Can't say they didn't have them, though.
>>They should learn about temperaments, recognize
>>that a 12-TET tuner is only going to get them into the ballpark for
>>some notes & not even that for others, & go back to fine-tuning by ear.
>Definitely agreed!
Thanks!
J Peekstok
>Maybe they could organize hurdy-gurdy camps, with loaner hurdy
>gurdies for the learners.
Alden and Cali of Olympic Instruments did this. The Over the Water Hurdy Gurdy
Festival is now in its fourth year. I've been camp director for the last two
years.
>None but the idle rich can afford to buy musical instruments,
>especially complicated & expensive ones, that they
>don't have an inkling how to play.
Hooey. You obviously don't know anything about people who play unusual
instruments. We see/hear instruments we want to play and we have enough
confidence in our ability to learn that we go ahead and get the instrument and
just start learning. It's really a fairly tradtitional way to learn --
schooling is often not available for folk music and instruments. When my wife
bought her first hurdy gurdy, there were no other players in town. The closest
was a two hour drive away. Since, I can assure you, we were neither idle nor
rich, four hours of driving for a hurdy gurdy lesson was a rare thing. One can,
in fact, learn to play instruments without having a teacher nearby.
>If you've got an instrument that's popular enough that several
>levels of quality, priced accordingly, are available, learners
>usually get advised to buy a mid-range one (so they won't get
>turned off entirely by inferior-sounding & difficult-to-play
>low-end ones) & move up when they know which of the
>better ones they want to chose for various acoustic & playability
>properties.
Yes, this is always my advice to beginners. Unfortunately, in the hurdy gurdy
world, even the terrible low end instruments are quite pricey for the first
time buyer. And they don't really work. Olympic Instruments does build a
scaled-back version that works very well and is very reasonably priced (I
suspect they don't really make much money on it), but it is still more than a
lot of people want to spend on an instrument they don't know how to play. The
dedicated few go ahead and buy, trusting that they will be able to learn. Many
of them also come to the hurdy gurdy camp to get instruction.
Ghost, what is the point of all this? You obviously don't know anything about
(or care at all about) hurdy gurdys, hurdy gurdy players, hurdy gurdy makers,
hurdy gurdy mechanics, hurdy gurdy building, hurdy gurdy tuning, hurdy gurdy
music (traditional or otherwise), hurdy gurdy history, or hurdy gurdy playing.
You are arguing with people (this includes me) who are deeply involved with the
instrument and have been for many, many years. Alden and Cali Hackmann are the
generally acknowledged premiere hurdy gurdy builders and authorities in North
America. If you knew ANYTHING about hurdy gurdys you would know that. They
started the largest annual hurdy gurdy teaching camp on this continent. They
make it their business to talk to every hurdy gurdy player and every hurdy
gurdy builder they can find. And they apparently know most of them, all over
the world.
You seem to have some very deep knowledge of specific types of folk music. And
you can, when moved, write interestingly and beautifully about them. You could,
if you wanted, be a well-respected contributor to this newsgroup. Why not stick
to subjects that you know anything about and stop being such a trouble maker?
John Peekstok
http://members.aol.com/telynor/
http://members.aol.com/telynor/
Bob Cameron
(snip)
Enough to tempt someone to go for 12-TET with "every key available"
(albeit in only one octave for the higher key-notes), until,
of course, they hear what the keys that are not in tune with the drone
sound like. Unless you've got a re-tunable drone this just isn't going to
work.
I would find it difficult to believe that drones on hurdy gurdies would
not be retunable- they are strings, are they not? Any string must have
the capability to be tuned up or down or it will be forever out of tune-
the nature of strings.
I don't buy the argument that only the idle rich can afford to buy
instruments- most of the musicians I know, either amateur or
professional, come from somewhat more modest backgrounds. If someone
has a fire in their being to play an instrument, they will work towards
getting one, and make sacrifices- but only if the desire is there- sand
unless the particular instrument is tremendously un-affordable ( like a
Stradivarius , or a concert-hall organ) The idle rich, of course can
collect expensive intruments at will, but that's not really the same
thing, is it?
Is there such a thing as a learner-model Hurdy gurdy? Perhaps if not, it
is because there is insufficient demand for such.
Alden Hackmann
>The idle rich, of course can
>collect expensive intruments at will, but that's not really the same
>thing, is it?
Not really. We would like to see the instruments played rather than stuck
in a glass box or in the back of a warehouse.
>Is there such a thing as a learner-model Hurdy gurdy? Perhaps if not, it
>is because there is insufficient demand for such.
There's a demand. It's a problem to make a functioning instrument for
very little money - I've heard of $300 and $400 hurdy-gurdies, and seen
them, and played them. They don't work well enough to learn to play. The
best you can do is our Minstrel Model, $990, 1 chanter, 2 drones, with
trompette and chromatic keybox. It's a very playable instrument,
professional quality, reasonable price. Below that figure the instruments
all have either no trompette, diatonic keybox, no tunable chanter
nut, plastic parts, loose bearings, low quality shaft, or some combination
of the above. It's very hard to play on these instruments.
Alden
Order of the Brotherhood of Magnae Rotae
Keeper of the Fox-Fiber Cotton
Alden Hackmann
>Maybe they could organize hurdy-gurdy camps, with loaner hurdy-gurdies
>for the learners.
We organized a camp/festival for this very purpose. We'd like to have
loaner HG's available for everybody to try. So far, nobody has stepped
forward with the $10,000 or $20,000 such a project would require. Nice
thought, though. Would YOU loan out your spare vielle (which you paid at
least $1500 for) to a complete beginner?
>None but the idle rich can afford to buy
>musical instruments, especially complicated & expensive ones, that they
>don't have an inkling how to play. If you've got an instrument that's
>popular enough that several levels of quality, priced accordingly,
>are available, learners usually get advised to buy a mid-range one
>(so they won't get turned off entirely by inferior-sounding &
>difficult-to-play low-end ones) & move up when they know which of the
>better ones they want to chose for various acoustic & playability properties.
The people who buy and play HG's come from all economic strata. Some have
the bucks for Volks and lute-back models, or for French instruments.
Some people can barely afford the $990 for a Minstrel. I wouldn't
recommend that anyone who wants to play the instrument start any lower
than that.
>Heck, the mountain dulcimer classes around here even hand out or sell
>cardboard kits they they claim are not that terrible to *learn* on.
>Somehow, I cannot imagine a cardboard-kit hurdy gurdy working, though.
Precisely. There's no such thing as a "just-to-get-started" cheap HG.
They just don't work.
>Enough to tempt someone to go for 12-TET with "every key available"
>(albeit in only one octave for the higher key-notes), until,
>of course, they hear what the keys that are not in tune with the drone
>sound like. Unless you've got a re-tunable drone this just isn't going to
>work.
You can retune a drone up or down a half-step. The mouche you can
sometimes get away with a whole step.
If the drones are a problem, just disengage them. Pierre taught us a very
nice waltz in B-flat. You could retune your C drone down there, but it
would be disgruntled with you for the rest of the night.
I still don't get it. You aren't a HG player. You barely know how they
work. You aren't a HG builder. You aren't a French music traditional
scholar. What's your angle? Why are you so adamant about all this?
If people want to play an instrument, and they don't know anything about
the instrument, why is this such a problem? It happens every day: 15
year-old kids buy electric guitars, and they've never even heard of Buddy
Holly or Leadbelly. At their playing level, it doesn't matter.
People buy HG's because they like the sound and the look. If they're not
devotees of Gaston Riviere or his disciple Patrick Bouffard (I'm not,
heresy of heresies), so what? Again, at their playing level, it doesn't
matter: you're just trying to keep the vielle in tune and master the
fingering and the coup de poignee. That's what the festival is about:
teaching people to play their instruments well so they can pursue whatever
type of music they desire to play on them.
Alden
Brotherhood of the Order of Magnae Rotae
Keeper of the Rosin
Alden Hackmann
>j...@deas.harvard.edu wrote:
>>Maybe they could organize hurdy-gurdy camps, with loaner hurdy
>>gurdies for the learners.
>Alden and Cali of Olympic Instruments did this. The Over the Water Hurdy Gurdy
>Festival is now in its fourth year. I've been camp director for the last two
>years.
And we're most grateful to John (and the rest of the fine OTW committee)
for keeping alive what we've started.
>>None but the idle rich can afford to buy musical instruments,
>>especially complicated & expensive ones, that they
>>don't have an inkling how to play.
>Hooey. You obviously don't know anything about people who play unusual
>instruments. We see/hear instruments we want to play and we have enough
>confidence in our ability to learn that we go ahead and get the instrument and
>just start learning.
Agreed. For some people, it's better to learn everything there is to
learn about the instrument, then go get one. For others (Instrument
Addicts, of which I am one) it's more pleasurable and productive to get
the instrument, learn to play it in a way that suits, and then learn more
about its history and culture.
>It's really a fairly tradtitional way to learn --
>schooling is often not available for folk music and instruments. When my wife
>bought her first hurdy gurdy, there were no other players in town. The closest
>was a two hour drive away. Since, I can assure you, we were neither idle nor
>rich, four hours of driving for a hurdy gurdy lesson was a rare thing. One can,
>in fact, learn to play instruments without having a teacher nearby.
It's a hard road. I know several people who have learned to play HG in a
complete vacuum: Muskett method book, vielle, cotton, rosin, extreme
patience and perserverance.
>>If you've got an instrument that's popular enough that several
>>levels of quality, priced accordingly, are available, learners
>>usually get advised to buy a mid-range one (so they won't get
>>turned off entirely by inferior-sounding & difficult-to-play
>>low-end ones) & move up when they know which of the
>>better ones they want to chose for various acoustic & playability
>>properties.
>Yes, this is always my advice to beginners. Unfortunately, in the hurdy gurdy
>world, even the terrible low end instruments are quite pricey for the first
>time buyer. And they don't really work. Olympic Instruments does build a
>scaled-back version that works very well and is very reasonably priced (I
>suspect they don't really make much money on it), but it is still more than a
>lot of people want to spend on an instrument they don't know how to play.
Exactly. We can't charge what any of our instruments is worth in time. We
barely make our materials and tooling costs. I've lost track of how many
thousands of dollars we've spent on tools, and the time spent on research
and development. The market is not large enough that we can afford to
increase our prices very much, because we would lose the first-time
Minstrel buyers. Fortunately, we enjoy what we do, and I'm proud of our
reputation and of the instruments we build.
Alden
Brotherhood of the Order of Magnae Rotae
Maker of Tangents
ghost
>In article <7fbrgh$t4m$1...@canon.das.harvard.edu>, j...@deas.harvard.edu (
>ghost ) wrote:
>1) I know you don't appreciate "classically trained" singers/musicians,
>but tough. If you or any of the rest of those discussing equal temperment
>and other temperments really would like to understand what you are talking
>about go read "Tuning and Temperment" by J. Murray Barbour. Or go find
>the old 78 records that have performance examples of such things done on a
>carefully tuned reed organ (pre synthesizer days).
>2) You'll discover at least this information: Pythagorian tuning is not a
>special form of just intonation. It is a tuning system based on perfectly
>tuned fifths. As such it does not return to the starting note after 12
>fifths are tuned. It is this problem, called the Pythagorean comma (that
>is the amount be which the intended note is missed by), that leads to all
>of the tuning issues. There are literally dozens of meantone tunings and
>just tone tunings suggested and supposedly implimented by various theorists
>and musicians. Each is based on fudging tunings in some way that makes the
>ear happier than it is with the huge problem (the comma) in Pythagorean
>tuning.
According to Margo Schulter, probably at this point the world-expert on
Pythagorean tuning, writing over on rec.music.theory, Pythagorean *can* be
regarded as a subset of just tuning; the current day just-tuners would
call it "3-limit just tuning", meaning you get all your other values based
on manipulating 3 intervals, the unison (which gives you nothing new),
the octave & the 5th. Pythagoras was enamoured of 5ths for whatever
reason. Modern-day acoustic scientists & tuning experimenters don't have
his exclusive attachment to them.
One very handy solution of "what to do with intervals you have generated
using 5ths (or any other interval) that you don't like" is just not to use
*those* intervals. *Some*, but by no means all, early theorists were instead
hell-bent on adjusting their tunings so that every interval they generated
would be usable. Their problem, not mine. According to what I've read,
if you're climbing up a scale by one particular interval you really can forget
about getting your octaves to come out exactly an octave apart *unless* you're
tuning *by* octaves, that is, unless your "one particular interval" is the
octave. I think I've read that climbing up by 5ths & climbing up by octaves
doesn't put you in the same place until you're fairly far up there.
(I'll have to look up the value you gave to see if it agrees with what I've
read about.)
>3) I've forgotten now if it is mean of just tunings in general that favor
>low thirds. Pythagorean results in high thirds.
Pythagorean 3rds give you 81/64 for a tuning ratio.
Modern-folkie just 3rds give you 5/4.
You can also get just-tuned 3rds, with a different choice of ratios
that I'd have to look up, that come out lower than 5/4 3rds. These are
probably what are used in forms of music famous for their "low 3rds"
(Cajun, some Appalachian, *some* blues).
Anyone who wants to experiment with different tuning ratios at home
has to have an instrument with 2 strings of exactly equal length & gauge
that can be tuned to the same note (& even if they're not exactly equal
gauge but are equal length & tuned to the same note this should still
work pretty well). Measure out one of the strings to segments equal to the
number on the top of the ratio, then fret it so that the active length
gives you the number on the bottom of the ratio (i.e., mark the string into
5 equal segments & fret it so you're playing a string the length of 3 of them).
Your shorter string should now be playable at a particular just interval above
the note-value of the longer string. (In the example above you'd have tuned
a 5/4 just 3rd. Play them together & see what you think. Compare it to
the 3rd on a 12-TET instrument.)
>4) Some tunings adjust the third rather than the fifth as the basic
>interval to be adjusted. that is, they push things around to keep the
>thirds happy in the keys you are playing in.
According to Ms. Schulter, at that point in time in European theory that 3rds
became an interval that was used as what she terms "restful",
Pythagorean tuners managed to come up with a manipulation of octaves, 4ths
(4ths are one of the 1st values manipulating 5ths gives you; I believe you
just hang a 5th down from your octave) & 5ths which gave a "lower 4th" that
was close enough to a 5/4 3rd to sound like one.
>5) The "purer" (for lack of a better term) the tuning is the less happy it
>is if the music moves away from the starting key or mode. That is, an
>instrument that is tuned wonderfully in C major will sound terrible played
>in F#.
What I think is really, really weird is that despite early experimentation
with *many* kinds of equal-sized-interval temperaments (17-TET, 19-TET, etc)
that give you some close-to-just values, the temperament that emerged as
the favorite one, 12-TET, gives you really rotten 3rds which don't come out
close to *any* of the possible just-temperament 3rds, & certainly not the
5/4 3rds being favored in the music of the time.
12-TET was probably favored because people using a 12-note scale didn't
want any notes on a keyboard that they'd have to ignore depending on what
key they were in. They learned to live with lousy 3rds. I can't.
Also, people tuning to even a just-tempered scale favored in parts of
Scandinavia, Italy, France & Germany were not allowing at all for values
(such as a slightly raised 4th) found in scales used in other nearby places,
like the Celtic regions of various countries
>6) Singers can, of course, adjust to the key center and sing ins some pure
>temperment or another. Some groups (both of traditional musicians and of
>classical performing musicians) claim to do this.
>7) Non fretted string instruments (violins etc) and wind instruments can
>be played in the various temperments. Fretted string instruments can be
>pushed and pulled into the temperment but only to some degree. Fixed
>string instruments (keyboards, hammered dulcimers etc.) can be tuned to a
>particular temperment but would have to be retuned to each new key area.
>More than a little problematical. Hurdy Gurdies fall in that last
>category.
Not according to the hurdy-gurdy builders & designers; they keep saying
you can adjust temperament with the tangents. My question is how far in
either direction (higher or lower) than the note-value the thing was built
to hold (in Hackman's case, 12-TET values) the tangents can be used for &
how well they actually hold the note where you've thus adjusted them.
>8) There is no written (nor recorded of course) information about how
>singers and players from the distant past actually tempered their scales.
>We have some fairly extensive theoretical discussions of what supposedly
>went on and it is useful, but it varies from location to location in the
>world. We have only the aural tradition to base things upon. In this
>ghost is very much correct.
Thank you.
>9) Some countries musics (say India for example) have made exact tuning
>very important in their music and have spent considerable time on passing
>on that tradition.
>10) When western music decided to "modulate" (that is to change keys along
>the way in pieces) or to play in a larger variety of keys the need to do
>this efficiently on fixed instruments (like organs and other keybaord
>instruments) lead to the establishment of 12-ET tuning as a solution to
>that problem. In the process they gave up (but not in traditional musics)
Well, thanks for agreeing about "not in traditional musics".
What kinds of music are at least *some* of Hackman's customers
going to play on their hurdy-gurdies?
>the consistent use of tempered tunings (at least for keyboard instruments).
>However it has been alleged that even orchestras temper the tuning. And, I
>suspect it is true.
I've read a lot of stuff by piano tuners clearly stating that they fudge things
too (at least the better ones do), especially at the far ends of the keyboard.
The point is *not* to get an instrument religiously tuned in 12-TET, the point
is to get an instrument you can stand to listen to in all keys.
>11) There is now historical evidence that the tuning Bach was espousing
>was not equal tempered tuning. The translation of those volumes is "The
>*Well* tempered Clavichord" not the "Equal Tempered Clavichord" (My
>emphasis).
>In sum. I think ghost's arguements are fuzzy and nasty,
Even though you're basically restating them, all but the part about
whether Pythagorean tuning is a subset of just or not.
> but I also think
>she has a point about the viability and importance of tempered tuning.
>However, she needs to recognize that different ears have different
>opinions about tempering.
Oh, I recognize it, all right. I also have read that various instruments
designed &/or extensively modified after the adoption of 12-TET were
designed so that some of the overtones they generate (according to the
basic principles of physics) would be diminished. (This is true of
pianos, this is true of some woodwinds.) You don't want just 3rds,
for instance, to be very loud in your overtone series when you've got
the instrument tuned to wacky 3rds. People will hear the clash.
>BTW I still think ghost should go take some music courses at harvard.....
Actually, I did audit one in the extension (night) school years ago.
Employees, such as I am, can take courses in the day school instead
if they can get permission from their job & the instructor, but I have
to work during the day. The course was taught by one of the day-school
(read "Harvard faculty") instructors. They taught *nothing* about temperament.
Didn't even mention it.
Alden Hackmann
>(Chuck Boody) writes:
>>7) Non fretted string instruments (violins etc) and wind instruments can
>>be played in the various temperments. Fretted string instruments can be
>>pushed and pulled into the temperment but only to some degree. Fixed
>>string instruments (keyboards, hammered dulcimers etc.) can be tuned to a
>>particular temperment but would have to be retuned to each new key area.
>>More than a little problematical. Hurdy Gurdies fall in that last
>>category.
>Not according to the hurdy-gurdy builders & designers; they keep saying
>you can adjust temperament with the tangents.
Correct: the temperament can be adjusted with either the tangents or the
key pressure.
>My question is how far in
>either direction (higher or lower) than the note-value the thing was built
>to hold (in Hackman's case, 12-TET values) the tangents can be used for &
>how well they actually hold the note where you've thus adjusted them.
I did the math for the more obvious intervals:
Interval Ratio Difference (mm)
-------- ----- --------------
2nd 9/8 -0.7
3rd 5/4 +2.2
4th 4/3 +0.3
5th 3/2 -0.3
6th 5/3 +1.9
These values are for the mensur we use, 344 mm, and are for the first
octave of keys. The differences in the second octave would be smaller,
basically unnoticable in the overall scheme of things. The largest
difference, 2.2 mm, is well within the range of adjustment for the
tangents. Once adjusted there, the tangents should stay there as well as
they ever stay anywhere - it is, after all, a hurdy-gurdy.
If these ratios are not what you were thinking of, feel free to suggest
some others, and I can calculate what the difference is. For example,
what ratio does one use for the 7th? How about the flatted 3rd (one of
my favorites)?
Dave Holland
>It's a hard road. I know several people who have learned to play HG in a
>complete vacuum: Muskett method book, vielle, cotton, rosin, extreme
>patience and perserverance.
You forgot "frustration" :-|
Dave
Alden Hackmann
>You forgot "frustration" :-|
Ah, I listed the things they had that they needed. You don't NEED
frustration when playing the vielle - it arises quite naturally from the
instrument. ;-) The patience and perserverance are to offset the
frustration.
Alden
Brotherhood of the Order of Magnae Rotae
--
Chuck Boody
ghost ) wrote:
I haven't the time to respond in detail to ghost's reasoned response to my
note except to say these things:
1) You can't build a scale based on octaves. I don't think ghost meant to
imply that, but she did.
2) Pythagorean tuning is based entirely on the circle of fifths. As such
it gives many different ratios for thirds depending on what two notes you
take for the third. Basic problem is that you miss on the
octave---badly--and have to decide what to do about it.
3) Just intonation is usually based upon the 5/4 interval ghost mentions.
However, it too has a problem when worked around the scale for all 12
tones. The problem (the so called comma) is not as big as the pythagorean
one. Ther result of this problem was the proliferation of so called mean
tone tunings.
4) Given that one tuning is based on thirds and the other on fifths I fail
to see how one could be considered a subset of the other...except for the
fact that the pure third is derived from the ratios of the first few notes
in the phthagorean circle fo fifths. (Think C-G-D-A-E) to get the pure
third.
5) I wish I could think of the title of a book I ran across about two
years ago. It not only discusses all of the various tuning schemes, it
also provides vibration ratios for all of the various intervals and gives
parallel frequency indication and "cents" (hundreths of a semitone)
variations from equal temperment. I will try to look that up.
ghost
>In article <7fq5ni$fsv$1...@canon.das.harvard.edu>,
>ghost <j...@deas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>>Groves is a reference book for classical musicians. When they say
>>"all musicians" they do not cover all musicians; they don't cover *any*
>>jazz musicians, traditional musicians from any culture, most pop musicians,
>>& a few other groups I could think of if I had time right now. They talk
>>about *only* classical musicians.
>The New Grove Dictionary of American Music and Musicians is a separate 4-
>volume set which includes jazz and pop musicians.
>The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz is a separate 2-volume set which includes
>jazz musicians.
I'm willing to bet the quote Hackman cited here wasn't from either of these
seperate books, it was from the classical reference. I sure hope that if
they've done a seperate set of books on pop & jazz they aren't stupid
enough to claim that all such musicians play in 12-TET.
Mr. Hackman, from which flavor of Groves, the well-known classical
reference or one of these other books, did your quote come?
ghost
>On 23 Apr 1999 16:05:06 GMT, j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) wrote:
>>They talk
>>about *only* classical musicians. Since the instrument you make has
>>*no* repertoire (not that I'm aware of, anyway) in the "Romantic" era (last
>>200 years or so) or in 20th century post-Romantic-era classical music,
>>& in fact hasn't been used in classical music since medieval times,
>Well, here I thought she even knew what "classial" music was. I think
>she means "academic" music, since the "Classical" and "Medieval"
>periods are hundreds of years apart, therefore its oxymoronic to speak
>in terms of playing "Classical" music in "Medieval" times.
The word "classical" in reference to music means "is governed by
a set of airtight, very formally set-out rules which only get changed after
a whole lot of arguing by the reigning practitioners & theorists & usually
over a long period of time". Its kind of a shorthand for "hidebound". In the
case of Western European classical music it also incorporates an incredibly
unjustifiable superiority complex & refers to very stilted music.
[In the case of, say Indian classical or Turkish classical it still means
"lots of abstract theory, lots of formal rules", but they can still put out
music with some life to it.]
*All* Western European classical music was & is academic music. Your
pretence that the name given the whole field should be reserved
only for the more-recent historical periods within this field isn't shared
even by too many people in the field, I don't believe.
Medieval classical composers were into all kinds of formal theoretical
stuff about what intervals should serve what function in a piece of
music, how harmony should be structured, etc. Check over on
rec.music.theory.
This is not to say various forms of traditional music don't have strict
rules, but just to restate (remember about 15 previous discussions of it?)
that they usually aren't formally set-out, but are usually learned by
observation by the musician & approval & disapproval of an individual's
music by the group in general & in particular. Also I've never run across
a case of traditional music being seriously governed by some abstract
theory about the structure of music, though often enough it is highly
influenced by a group's sociological holdings about what natural phenomenon
their music is supposed to emulate &/or what purpose its supposed to serve.
At any rate, very few of the modern practioners of classical music of the
medieval era are actually using tunings in use in the era & recommended by the
composers for their music, & most of the rest of the aspects of this music,
such as timbre & timing, is a matter of guesswork, with most modern practioners
imposing modern Western European classical technique on the music no matter
where & when it comes from.
ghost
>ghost wrote in message <7fq5ni$fsv$1...@canon.das.harvard.edu>...
.
>>. Since the instrument you make has
>>*no* repertoire (not that I'm aware of, anyway) in the "Romantic" era (last
>>200 years or so) or in 20th century post-Romantic-era classical music,
>>& in fact hasn't been used in classical music since medieval times,
>Vivaldi's 'Il Pastor Fido'.
Yeah, I think I've even heard it. OK, you've got a one-piece repertoire.
ghost
>j...@deas.harvard.edu wrote:
>>Maybe they could organize hurdy-gurdy camps, with loaner hurdy
>>gurdies for the learners.
>Alden and Cali of Olympic Instruments did this. The Over the Water Hurdy Gurdy
>Festival is now in its fourth year. I've been camp director for the last two
>years.
Somehow, I don't find that hard to believe.
Does this camp ever import players of different makers' hurdy-gurdies?
Have any instructors who actually come out of a living tradition?
>>None but the idle rich can afford to buy musical instruments,
>>especially complicated & expensive ones, that they
>>don't have an inkling how to play.
>Hooey. You obviously don't know anything about people who play unusual
>instruments. We see/hear instruments we want to play and we have enough
>confidence in our ability to learn that we go ahead and get the instrument and
>just start learning. It's really a fairly tradtitional way to learn --
>schooling is often not available for folk music and instruments.
Wrong again. Tons of traditional musicians, one of which you pride yourself
on *not* being, while endlessly claiming on usenet & elsewhere that
you "play traditional music", learn from the people who learned before them.
>When my wife
>bought her first hurdy gurdy, there were no other players in town. The closest
>was a two hour drive away. Since, I can assure you, we were neither idle nor
>rich, four hours of driving for a hurdy gurdy lesson was a rare thing. One can,
>in fact, learn to play instruments without having a teacher nearby.
Weirdly enough (to you, I'm sure), most people with a decent player willing
to teach them (let alone a really good one from a trad background;
don't know what your case above was) within a 4-hour round-trip drive would
count themselves lucky the drive was so short. Hundreds of people flock to
various traditional & trad-style music camps given all over this country & in
others, & many travel far more than 2 hours each way to get there.
>Ghost, what is the point of all this? You obviously don't know anything about
>(or care at all about) hurdy gurdys, hurdy gurdy players, hurdy gurdy makers,
>hurdy gurdy mechanics, hurdy gurdy building, hurdy gurdy tuning, hurdy gurdy
>music (traditional or otherwise), hurdy gurdy history, or hurdy gurdy playing.
Oh, bull. I'm interested in all of the above, just not from your
modern-classical angle. I'm *not* interested in what you "Renaisance Faire"
characters play, how you play it, or just about anything else about your
lives, musical or otherwise.
I listen to a lot of French & Spanish music trad & trad-style music
that contains hurdy gurdies. Are the overseas trad musicians flocking to
buy their instruments from the Hackmans?
>Alden and Cali Hackmann are the
>generally acknowledged premiere hurdy gurdy builders and authorities in North
>America. If you knew ANYTHING about hurdy gurdys you would know that.
Oh yeah; they're the reigning authorities (North American variety, that is)
on a medieval & modern-trad instrument with all kinds of leverage built
into it specifically so that players could change the temperament, but they
know nothing *about* any temperament other than one invented for entirely
different & later-designed instruments, or didn't until this discussion
(or so that want people to believe).
>You seem to have some very deep knowledge of specific types of folk music. And
>you can, when moved, write interestingly and beautifully about them. You could,
>if you wanted, be a well-respected contributor to this newsgroup. Why not stick
>to subjects that you know anything about and stop being such a trouble maker?
You know, this specifically-constructed condescending bull-crap is even more
obnoxious than your usual general run of condescending bull-crap. And you *do*
carefully plan it that way.
Peter Hughes
Ah, so all these 18th cent. pieces by Chedeville, Baton, Corette etc, to name but a few, are figments
of my imagination. That probably explains why they're so difficult to play!
Peter.
J Peekstok
>Does this camp ever import players of different makers' hurdy-gurdies?
I'm not sure what you mean by "import". In case you are referring to the
teaching staff, of course we do. Of last years seven instructors, two played
Olympic Instruments hurdy gurdys. Why?
>Have any instructors who actually come out of a living tradition?
Our main instructor is Pierre Imbert, formerly of Lo Jai and Ad Vielle Que
Pourra. I think he probably qualifies. If you are defining "a living tradition"
as players learning from other players, then all the teaching staff falls
within that category. All the students, too. No one teaches hurdy gurdy at
universities or music conservatories.
>Wrong again. Tons of traditional musicians . . . learn from the people
>who learned before them.
Well, of course. How else does anyone learn to play an instrument?
>Oh, bull. I'm interested in all of the above, just not from your
>modern-classical angle. I'm *not* interested in what you "Renaisance
>Faire" characters play, how you play it, or just about anything else
>about your lives, musical or otherwise.
Ghost, where do get this stuff? This is about the fifth time in the last couple
of years that you have claimed that I am a classically trained musician who
plays at Renaissance fairs. I don't necessarily think that is a bad thing, but
it certainly does not describe me. I have no classical training at all, and
I've never even been to one of these big events that most people think of when
you say "Renaissance Faire". I do play every year at a very small one-weekend
Renaissance fair, but that hardly makes me a "Renaissance Faire character", as
it constitutes about a fiftieth of my gigs. I've told you this a couple of
times before. Get it straight.
I find it strange that you spend so much time railing against classical
musicians, but you are more rigid than any of them in your definitions of
appropriate music. You would have us so bound in rules about how to learn
music, what scales to use, what instruments to use, etc. that if we followed
them all no music would ever get played. Or if it did, it would sound like the
lamely careful rendititions of medieval music by classical musicians that have
been taught that they have to follow an endless list of rules in order for the
music to be correct.
You are also more offensive than any classical musician when it comes to
putting down people who play other types of music. I'm actually impressed that
you are able to do this better than they, who have refined the art to a high
degree. It's especially impressive since this is one of the things you
apparently hate about classical musicians.
>>You seem to have some very deep knowledge of specific types of folk
>>music. And you can, when moved, write interestingly and
>>beautifully about them. You could, if you wanted, be a
>>well-respected contributor to this newsgroup. Why not stick
>>to subjects that you know anything about and stop being such a
>>trouble maker?
>You know, this specifically-constructed condescending bull-crap is
>even more obnoxious than your usual general run of condescending
>bull-crap. And you *do* carefully plan it that way.
Sorry, ghost. This was not bull-crap. It was an honest plea for civil discourse
on a subject that we all love. I'm really tired of your hatefulness, especially
since you seem to seek out postings by me and a few others and use them to
fling insults, rather than discussing the subject at hand. I really do think
that this newsgroup would be a much better place if you approached each
communication as an opportunity to communicate, rather than a forum for insults
and nastiness.
John Peekstok
http://members.aol.com/telynor/
ghost
>In article <7g7020$p3j$1...@canon.das.harvard.edu>, j...@deas.harvard.edu (
>ghost ) wrote:
>1) You can't build a scale based on octaves. I don't think ghost meant to
>imply that, but she did.
I actually did mean to say that. It wouldn't be a very interesting scale,
though, &, because all your notes are an octave apart from each other,
it would be well out of most people's vocal range (even mine) in
a hurry. It would be a "2-limit" just intonation scale, with the only
possible values being 1/1 (unison) & 2/1 (octaves).
>2) Pythagorean tuning is based entirely on the circle of fifths. As such
>it gives many different ratios for thirds depending on what two notes you
>take for the third. Basic problem is that you miss on the
>octave---badly--and have to decide what to do about it.
Just pick a string, tune it an octave apart from the note you want it
an octave apart from, & you've got it.
The Pythagoreans' problem is they badly wanted it to fall out of
manipulation of 5ths because they had mystical reasons for wanting it to
do so. So they kept trying figure out ways to make it happen. My bet is
that traditional players of these eras ignored the theorists & just tuned
dedicated strings, as I describe above, wherever they wanted them.
>3) Just intonation is usually based upon the 5/4 interval ghost mentions.
Major misconception here:
Just intonation means you're using whole-number ratios for your
scale-degree intervals, & that's *all* it means. Which whole-number ratios
you choose are up to you. Formal theorists using just intonation make
a game of, quite literally, setting their limits (hence all that talking
about 5-limit JI, 7-limit JI & so forth).
Traditional musicians pick scale degrees, I & some other people think,
that reflect back into the home octave the intervals that overtones make
with each other in the octaves in which they are found. These scale degrees
are represented by whole-number ratios because overtones only occur as
whole-number divisions of the length of the original string (it vibrates
as 1 piece, 2 1/2-length pieces, 3 1/3-length pieces, etc). Your 1st
overtone is the octave (2 1/2-length pieces), your 2nd overtone sounds at a
5th above the octave (3 1/3-length pieces). Taking the sound of
"a 5th above the octave" & reflecting it back into "a 5th above the base-note"
by using the ratio 3/2 gives you your 5th scale-degree. (And so on; I'm
splitting out of this example quickly, for now).
>However, it too has a problem when worked around the scale for all 12
>tones. The problem (the so called comma) is not as big as the pythagorean
>one. Ther result of this problem was the proliferation of so called mean
>tone tunings.
>4) Given that one tuning is based on thirds and the other on fifths I fail
>to see how one could be considered a subset of the other...except for the
>fact that the pure third is derived from the ratios of the first few notes
>in the phthagorean circle fo fifths. (Think C-G-D-A-E) to get the pure
>third.
Here's the point where you got scrambled:
Pythagorean tuning, based on unisons (1/1 note ratio),
octaves (2/1 note ratio) & 5ths (3/2 note ratio) & anything clever
you can get by combining these ratios in ways Ms. Schulter outlines in
her articles, or some tuning you speak of based on thirds (5/4 note-ratio)
are both subsets of just intonation. They are *not* subsets of each other.
(And you can't get an exact 5/4 3rd by Pythagorean manipulations, though
you can get closer than the typical Pythagorean 3rd at 81/64).
Jeri Corlew
>j...@deas.harvard.edu wrote:
>
>>Oh, bull. I'm interested in all of the above, just not from your
>>modern-classical angle. I'm *not* interested in what you "Renaisance
>>Faire" characters play, how you play it, or just about anything else
>>about your lives, musical or otherwise.
>
>Ghost, where do get this stuff?
I was waiting for the inevitable anti-Peekstock post from ghost.
John, don't feel like you have to defend yourself. I believe most
people know BS when they hear it.
>
>I find it strange that you spend so much time railing against classical
>musicians, but you are more rigid than any of them in your definitions of
>appropriate music.
Most musicians I know (myself included) "just do it." We don't
analyze it, we don't follow the same path in learning, and we don't
follow rules other than what works with the people we play with. We
try to do the best we can. We learn from teachers of every sort,
books, recordings and playing with others. If someone doesn't want to
hear us, that's their choice. We still play.
>
>You are also more offensive than any classical musician when it comes to
>putting down people who play other types of music. I'm actually impressed that
>you are able to do this better than they, who have refined the art to a high
>degree. It's especially impressive since this is one of the things you
>apparently hate about classical musicians.
Nail/head/WHAMMO!
--
Jeri Corlew
(Remove XXX to reply)
Michael Wodzak
>
> (And you can't get an exact 5/4 3rd by Pythagorean manipulations, though
> you can get closer than the typical Pythagorean 3rd at 81/64).
Just a quick historical note:
I'm not really sure why the scale of 5ths is refered to as "Pythagorean"
when the other scales are not. I suspect the tag is medieval.
It was originally in any case Pythagorean research which discovered the
exact relationship between the various ratios of lengths of strings and
musical intervals, 2:1 giving the octave, 3:2 giving the fifth, 5:4
giving the third etc etc. Joan is almost certainly right here that
musicians of the day probably paid no real mind to exact ratios but just
tuned up their instruments to what sounded good and played by ear rather
than theory -- of course, what the "classical" Pythagorean male voice
choir did is another story ;0)
Of course, the coprimality of these ratios leads to their
incompatability in a single (just) scale system, and what many posters
have already referd to as "commas" and the "corrections" (I don't mean
to cause anyone any offense by the use of this word -- it's just the
best I could come up with off the cuff) such as 81/64 to replace
80/64=5/4.
If the Pythagoreans were particularly enamored of the 3:2 fifths rather
than any other of the intervals (and I'd be interested to know what
evidence there is for this contention -- read a request for information
rather than a doubting of assertions anyone here has made) it would have
been as a result of their numerological world view. They almost
certainly would have seen the fact that 3+2=5 as significant.
Michal
Alden Hackmann
>I'm willing to bet the quote Hackman cited here wasn't from either of these
>seperate books, it was from the classical reference. I sure hope that if
>they've done a seperate set of books on pop & jazz they aren't stupid
>enough to claim that all such musicians play in 12-TET.
>Mr. Hackman, from which flavor of Groves, the well-known classical
>reference or one of these other books, did your quote come?
It's the big multi-volume set (20, I think, it's in the other house).
I think you're the only one I've every heard of who refers to them as the
classical reference. Every time I open one, there's an article on sitars
or string drums or some obscure Polynesian music I've never heard of.
Sure, there's a big article on Beethoven, but that's to be expected. If
it doesn't interest you, turn the page, just like anything else. Methinks
you have discarded the infant with the washing solution.
Alden
Brotherhood of the Order of Magnae Rotae
Librarian and Bookcase Builder
Alden Hackmann
>(J Peekstok) writes:
>>Alden and Cali of Olympic Instruments did this. The Over the Water Hurdy Gurdy
>>Festival is now in its fourth year. I've been camp director for the last two
>>years.
>Does this camp ever import players of different makers' hurdy-gurdies?
The first year, only a few of the players had one of our instruments.
Last year, it was about half. None of the instructors has one of ours:
Pierre Imbert plays a Bleton, and Marcello Bono makes his own.
>Have any instructors who actually come out of a living tradition?
Pierre did extensive field research in France, and was a member of the
very traditional group Le Grand Rouge and later the somewhat less
traditional Lo Jai.
Marcello is probably the best baroque style player in the world. He has
done extensive research on building and playing techniques, especially
those of the baroque era. Much of this research is published in his book
"La Ghironda".
>Oh, bull. I'm interested in all of the above, just not from your
>modern-classical angle. I'm *not* interested in what you "Renaisance Faire"
>characters play, how you play it, or just about anything else about your
>lives, musical or otherwise.
Then why do you continue this conversation? Just curious.
And who ever said that we were interested in a "modern-classical" angle?
I personally love medieval, Renaissance, and baroque music, as well as the
older trad and trad-style French dance music played on the HG. There's a
guy here in Seattle who's playing East Indian on it, which I think is
great.
>I listen to a lot of French & Spanish music trad & trad-style music
>that contains hurdy gurdies. Are the overseas trad musicians flocking to
>buy their instruments from the Hackmans?
Not exactly, because they have a bunch of makers in their own back yard,
so to speak. This may change when we go to France.
>>Alden and Cali Hackmann are the
>>generally acknowledged premiere hurdy gurdy builders and authorities in North
>>America. If you knew ANYTHING about hurdy gurdys you would know that.
>Oh yeah; they're the reigning authorities (North American variety, that is)
>on a medieval & modern-trad instrument with all kinds of leverage built
>into it specifically so that players could change the temperament, but they
>know nothing *about* any temperament other than one invented for entirely
>different & later-designed instruments, or didn't until this discussion
>(or so that want people to believe).
I'll say it again: I know a lot about the instrument, but there's always
more to learn. You seem to be obsessed with temperament. I'm interested
in learning, but it just hasn't come up all that often, and (as I've
demonstrated in a previous post), it's not such a great concern with this
instrument, because it can be adjusted.
You can get a lot better results when you're polite to people and make
suggestions about how and where they might want to expand their knowledge
than when you verbally abuse them for not knowing it already.
Alden Hackmann
>ghost wrote:
>> "Paul Draper" <pdr...@baig.co.uk> writes:
>>
>> >ghost wrote in message <7fq5ni$fsv$1...@canon.das.harvard.edu>...
>> .
>> >>. Since the instrument you make has
>> >>*no* repertoire (not that I'm aware of, anyway) in the "Romantic" era (last
>> >>200 years or so) or in 20th century post-Romantic-era classical music,
>> >>& in fact hasn't been used in classical music since medieval times,
>>
>> >Vivaldi's 'Il Pastor Fido'.
>>
>> Yeah, I think I've even heard it. OK, you've got a one-piece repertoire.
>Ah, so all these 18th cent. pieces by Chedeville, Baton, Corette etc, to name but a few, are figments
>of my imagination. That probably explains why they're so difficult to play!
I didn't mention these because they were over 200 years old. If we
include them (Il pastor fido was written in 1737), there are over a
thousand pieces written for the instrument, a large and almost forgotten
body of work. For a listing of these, see Robert Green's "The Hurdy-Gurdy
in Eighteenth Century France", Indiana University Press, 1995.
Alden
Brotherhood of the Order of Magnae Rotae
Librarian
--
ghost
>Peter Hughes <peter....@bt-sys.bt.co.uk> writes:
>>ghost wrote:
>>> "Paul Draper" <pdr...@baig.co.uk> writes:
>>> >ghost wrote in message <7fq5ni$fsv$1...@canon.das.harvard.edu>...
>>> >>. Since the instrument you make has *no* repertoire
>>> >>(not that I'm aware of, anyway) in the "Romantic" era (last
>>> >>200 years or so) or in 20th century post-Romantic-era classical music,
>>> >>& in fact hasn't been used in classical music since medieval times,
>>> >Vivaldi's 'Il Pastor Fido'.
>>> Yeah, I think I've even heard it.
>>> OK, you've got a one-piece repertoire.
>>Ah, so all these 18th cent. pieces by Chedeville, Baton, Corette etc,
>>to name but a few, are figments of my imagination. That probably
>>explains why they're so difficult to play!
>I didn't mention these because they were over 200 years old.
Which makes them pre romantic-era-classical. Like I said above.
Thanks for the confirmation, Mr. Hackman.
>If we
>include them (Il pastor fido was written in 1737), there are over a
>thousand pieces written for the instrument, a large and almost forgotten
>body of work. For a listing of these, see Robert Green's "The Hurdy-Gurdy
>in Eighteenth Century France", Indiana University Press, 1995.
And to see what temperaments their composers meant for them to be played
in on the hurdy-gurdy, you'll have to consult the original references
for their intentions, unless they are conveyed by Green. Alden Hackman
can't tell you much about it all because he *says* he never even thought
about any temperament but 12-TET til this discussion started.
I would certainly guess that they meant for the drones, if specified to
be used, to be in the key of the piece. (And if you want to argue about
"key" not being suitable terminology for this era, & its arguably not
if you use the modern WEC interpretation for which the term was invented,
just say "the base-note of the piece" or something like that).
Hackman has (in a previous article) said his drones are dedicated to
one key & can only be tuned a half step up or down from that (this sounds
more like a "bad weather" kind of adjustment mechanism than a serious
tuning device for the dron on an instrument advertised as being playable
in 12 keys). Nevertheless, he also (in a previous article) advertised his
instruments as being playable in any of the modern keys, while being
tuned 12-TET.
(I can only hope no-one tries to use one of these instruments to accompany
June Tabor in any other key than that of the drone; she goes off the wall
if she hears *anything* humming in a key other than the one she plans
to sing in. Providing its something that *can* be turned off; I've seen
her give up when the heat in winter was involved.)
ghost
>j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) writes:
>>I'm willing to bet the quote Hackman cited here wasn't from either of these
>>seperate books, it was from the classical reference. I sure hope that if
>>they've done a seperate set of books on pop & jazz they aren't stupid
>>enough to claim that all such musicians play in 12-TET.
>>Mr. Hackman, from which flavor of Groves, the well-known classical
>>reference or one of these other books, did your quote come?
>It's the big multi-volume set (20, I think, it's in the other house).
>I think you're the only one I've every heard of who refers to them as the
>classical reference. Every time I open one, there's an article on sitars
>or string drums or some obscure Polynesian music I've never heard of.
This reference thinks that Polynesian musicians & (Indian) sitar players
& so forth are using 12-TET???
You said in your original article "Grove says all musicians nowadays use
12-TET".
ghost
>I'm not really sure why the scale of 5ths is refered to as "Pythagorean"
>when the other scales are not. I suspect the tag is medieval.
>It was originally in any case Pythagorean research which discovered the
>exact relationship between the various ratios of lengths of strings and
>musical intervals, 2:1 giving the octave, 3:2 giving the fifth, 5:4
>giving the third etc etc.
But there's no record that Pythagoras or his followers knew anything about
the physics behind it all; nevertheless, they could manipulate string ratios
& listen to the evidence of their ears.
>Joan is almost certainly right here that
>musicians of the day probably paid no real mind to exact ratios but just
>tuned up their instruments to what sounded good and played by ear rather
>than theory
I said "the *traditional* musicians (of the time) probably tuned (& played)
by ear".
The classical musicians were beholden to follow very strict formal theory
about what intervals, used both melodically & harmonically, were
intended, because the composers had their audiences' aesthetic responses
planned to be evoked by their particular organization of music. Whether
they *got* those responses is anybody's guess (& I'd bet the
classical musicians who came from trad backgrounds tended to cheat
in the direction of their background whenever they encountered pieces
that sounded familiar to them).
>Of course, the coprimality of these ratios leads to their
>incompatability in a single (just) scale system
If Pythagoras had been into developing prime-number theory he'd have
figured this one out. Oh well, one mathematician can't do *every*thing.
>, and what many posters
>have already referd to as "commas" and the "corrections" (I don't mean
>to cause anyone any offense by the use of this word -- it's just the
>best I could come up with off the cuff) such as 81/64 to replace
>80/64=5/4.
>If the Pythagoreans were particularly enamored of the 3:2 fifths rather
>than any other of the intervals (and I'd be interested to know what
>evidence there is for this contention -- read a request for information
>rather than a doubting of assertions anyone here has made)
http://www.medieval.org will get you to a web-page for which
Margo Schulter has written extensively on Pythagorean methods of
scale-note generation & the various remedies for correcting what the
Pythagoreans took to be defects in their system (such as reconciling
what you get by climbing by 5ths with what you get by climbing by
octaves).
(The address was originally given out to be
http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/harmony/pyth.html in order to get you right
to the Pythagorean-stuff section but the whole address didn't work last time
I tried it.)
As far as I can tell from the last time I read any of this, the
trick with Pythagorean tuning is to manipulate 5ths, octaves & 4ths
(which last are derived from manipulating 5ths & octaves)
in various ways so as to generate your other scale-values.
The rules of the game don't allow you to use any interval you can't
get by some manipulation of the permissable intervals, but I believe
any new intervals you do generate under the rules of the game can be
used to generate newer ones.
Also check all & any articles by msch...@value.net on rec.music.theory
for lots & lots of elaboration & detail regarding actual pieces of music
composed along these (& other) lines.
amers
anything, they'd be senior citizens before they'd be qualified in ghost's
book to play. Another very important point is that at the early stages,
classical training and learning through the folk process are pretty much the
same. When you're playing the violin/fiddle, for example, you need to learn
very basic things like the names of the notes, how to hold the bow, how to
make new notes by putting your fingers on the strings, etc. I speak from
experience on this one, being an absolutely *terrible* violinist/fiddler.
It's not until you reach a certain skill level that you can veer into one
"type" of playing or another, at least on most instruments. As far as I
know, screeching is a painful sound no matter what tradition you're playing
in.
Any by the way ghost....why is it condescending b/s when other people say
it, but acceptable when you do?
-Amy
Alden Hackmann
>(Alden Hackmann) writes:
>>j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) writes:
>>>Mr. Hackman, from which flavor of Groves, the well-known classical
>>>reference or one of these other books, did your quote come?
That's Hackmann, 2 N's, if you please.
>>It's the big multi-volume set (20, I think, it's in the other house).
>>I think you're the only one I've every heard of who refers to them as the
>>classical reference. Every time I open one, there's an article on sitars
>>or string drums or some obscure Polynesian music I've never heard of.
>This reference thinks that Polynesian musicians & (Indian) sitar players
>& so forth are using 12-TET???
I didn't say that. It certainly doesn't.
>You said in your original article "Grove says all musicians nowadays use
>12-TET".
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1980, reprinted 1991,
Volume 18 (Spiridion to Tin Whistle) begins its article on Temperament
thus:
"Tunings of the scale in which most or all of the concords are made
slightly impure in order that few or none will be left distastefully so.
Equal temperament, in which the octave is divided into 12 uniform
semitones, is the standard Western temperament today except among
specialists in Renaissance or Baroque music."
I should, perhaps, have included this quote initially, since I left out
the word "Western". Woe is me.
Looking in my newly arrived 2073 edition, edited by Thaddeus
Rookwhistle, the article on temperament has the following paragraph,
about half-way down:
"The use of the equal temperament was solidified in the late 1990's by
luthiers Alden and Cali Hackmann, who ignored the pleas of ardent
traditionalists to modify their instruments to a supposedly more
appropriate just temperament. As a result of their reticence, just tuning
fell into disuse at the beginning of the new millenium, never to return."
I can see from this entry that a lot is at stake. Make me an offer, and
I'll consider ransoming Pythagoras as well. There had better be a lot of
zeros in the number, or we won't submit.
---
Much has been said about following one's cultural background to guide you
to the promised land of good temperament. My own background is most
strongly influenced by one band, where the best vocalist they had
died 10 years before I ever heard of them, where there was almost always a
Hammond organ (hence equal temperament, I would assume), and where Jerry
was lucky to remember the words much less sing them on pitch. From there
to here, the land of hurdy-gurdies, has been a long strange trip.
"If you can abide, let the hurdy-gurdy play..."
Alden
Brotherhood of the Order of Magnae Rotae
Librarian of the Past, Present and Future Tenses
Alden Hackmann
>(Alden Hackmann) writes:
>>If we
>>include them (Il pastor fido was written in 1737), there are over a
>>thousand pieces written for the instrument, a large and almost forgotten
>>body of work. For a listing of these, see Robert Green's "The Hurdy-Gurdy
>>in Eighteenth Century France", Indiana University Press, 1995.
>And to see what temperaments their composers meant for them to be played
>in on the hurdy-gurdy, you'll have to consult the original references
>for their intentions, unless they are conveyed by Green. Alden Hackman
>can't tell you much about it all because he *says* he never even thought
>about any temperament but 12-TET til this discussion started.
One method, that of Corrette, gives a short discussion of a suggested
temperament which I've never tried. We're a little short on field
recordings, and Charles Baton's diary is still missing, so we can't really
say how many people used this temperament.
>I would certainly guess that they meant for the drones, if specified to
>be used, to be in the key of the piece. (And if you want to argue about
>"key" not being suitable terminology for this era, & its arguably not
>if you use the modern WEC interpretation for which the term was invented,
>just say "the base-note of the piece" or something like that).
>Hackman has (in a previous article) said his drones are dedicated to
>one key & can only be tuned a half step up or down from that (this sounds
>more like a "bad weather" kind of adjustment mechanism than a serious
>tuning device for the dron on an instrument advertised as being playable
>in 12 keys). Nevertheless, he also (in a previous article) advertised his
>instruments as being playable in any of the modern keys, while being
>tuned 12-TET.
It's the string material and string pressure on the wheel that provide the
limitation. There's a pretty narrow range in which the strings sound
good: if the tension is too low, they're floppy and very subdued; if it's
too high, they're screechy or they break. We had to air express a new set
of chanters to a guy who tried to tune his g' chanters up to a'.
One more time: you can disengage the drones and just play the chanters.
Hence any key is possible, though I think only Clastrier uses them all.
I rather like the sound of a g drone on a C major or C minor tune. It is,
perhaps, an acquired taste.
Jeri Corlew
>Amen Jeri. If people had to learn theory before they learned how to play
>anything, they'd be senior citizens before they'd be qualified in ghost's
>book to play. Another very important point is that at the early stages,
>classical training and learning through the folk process are pretty much the
>same. When you're playing the violin/fiddle, for example, you need to learn
>very basic things like the names of the notes, how to hold the bow, how to
>make new notes by putting your fingers on the strings, etc. I speak from
>experience on this one, being an absolutely *terrible* violinist/fiddler.
>It's not until you reach a certain skill level that you can veer into one
>"type" of playing or another, at least on most instruments. As far as I
>know, screeching is a painful sound no matter what tradition you're playing
>in.
Hang in there - it gets better!
I actually learned fiddle by trying to play tunes. I bought a very
cheap used Gibson fiddle, (anybody know what that puppy's worth?)
somebody told me how to tune it, and I had rudimentary music reading
skills from long-past piano lessons. I knew quite a few tunes from
going to dances, so at least I knew how they were supposed to sound
without the screeching. But ornamentation and improvisation came way
down the road.
>Any by the way ghost....why is it condescending b/s when other people say
>it, but acceptable when you do?
I think ghost meant that bit that went "And you can, when moved, write
interestingly and beautifully ..." Can't say I've ever heard her say
anything like that to anybody.
ghost
>>(Alden Hackmann) writes:
>>>Interesting. When I was reading about temperaments in Groves, the article
>>>said that equal temperament is used by all musicians today except for
>>>Baroque and Renaissance specialists, or words to that effect.
Just in case anybody missed it the 1st time.
This is the book you say has articles about Polynesian music etc
along with its classical cant?
And they think that Polynesian musicians etc are using equal temperament?
Or, just to be charitable, they've got different people to write the
different articles, & the editors don't bother to read what they're
putting out side-by-side?
ghost
>Amen Jeri. If people had to learn theory before they learned how to play
>anything, they'd be senior citizens before they'd be qualified in ghost's
>book to play. Another very important point is that at the early stages,
>classical training and learning through the folk process are pretty much the
>same. When you're playing the violin/fiddle, for example, you need to learn
>very basic things like the names of the notes,
Oh, good. Go ask people who actually learned to play trad fiddle from
trad teachers if one of the 1st things they learned was "the names of the
notes". They have to learn what the notes sound like & where to put them
(but if they grew *up* in that tradition they'll already know all that,
though they won't know just by listening *how* to make the notes come out
where they want them on a fiddle; sounding right without too much practise
is a lot easier for singers than fiddlers) but not the names unless
they come from a tradition that's into note-names.
Jeri Corlew
>In article <7gb3gv$m47$1...@autumn.news.rcn.net> "amers" <am...@massed.net> writes:
>
>>Amen Jeri. If people had to learn theory before they learned how to play
>>anything, they'd be senior citizens before they'd be qualified in ghost's
>>book to play. Another very important point is that at the early stages,
>>classical training and learning through the folk process are pretty much the
>>same. When you're playing the violin/fiddle, for example, you need to learn
>>very basic things like the names of the notes,
>
>Oh, good. Go ask people who actually learned to play trad fiddle from
>trad teachers if one of the 1st things they learned was "the names of the
>notes".
It might be interesting to do a study of this, but I think perhaps
even growing up within a tradition have to be able to say "OK, this
tune starts on a G." Or maybe not, if they weren't playing with other
people. In any case, it's necessary to know whether the note is a C
or a C# these days.
>They have to learn what the notes sound like & where to put them
>(but if they grew *up* in that tradition they'll already know all that,
>though they won't know just by listening *how* to make the notes come out
>where they want them on a fiddle; sounding right without too much practise
>is a lot easier for singers than fiddlers) but not the names unless
>they come from a tradition that's into note-names.
I suspect fiddling is a tradition which is into note-names. There
must be some language used to communicate with players of other
instruments. I know a few people who can't read music, but they still
know what the notes are called. And the first thing I learned was
"this string is tuned to a G"
You're more concerned with the way you think things should be, rather
than the way they are.
Jeri Corlew
>In article <7gb3gv$m47$1...@autumn.news.rcn.net> "amers" <am...@massed.net> writes:
>
>> When you're playing the violin/fiddle, for example, you need to learn
>>very basic things like the names of the notes,
>
>Oh, good. Go ask people who actually learned to play trad fiddle from
>trad teachers if one of the 1st things they learned was "the names of the
>notes".
I replied, with no Hurdy Gurdy content. See "Learning How to Play."
ghost
>On 30 Apr 1999 11:34:43 GMT, j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) wrote:
>I suspect fiddling is a tradition which is into note-names.
American old-time fiddling traditionally wasn't. Now that its mostly
been taken over by people from other backgrounds, it is (into note names).
(One of the most obnoxious signature-file quotes on the web is put out
by a classical creep who dabbles in old-time making fun of a
real <& very well-regarded by those who like the music> old-time fiddler's
response to questions about his tuning scheme.)
I'd bet that old-time Irish fiddling traditionally wasn't into note-names,
either. Nor was old-time klezmer fiddling into note-names. OK, those
are just a few out of many fiddling traditions that aren't into note-names.
Anyone know about old-time Romany fiddling?
>You're more concerned with the way you think things should be, rather
>than the way they are.
No, I'm concerned with the way things *were*, & why you
classically-oriented players & singers felt you had to go reorient them
to your way of thinking.
Most old-time musicians, whatever their tradition, were into orienting
to intervals & fairly-complicated overlapping rhythmical aspects,
not note-names & time-signatures.
ghost
>I replied, with no Hurdy Gurdy content. See "Learning How to Play."
And I was replying to amers' post, not yours.
See "how to reading the headers & find out who's being answered".
ghost
>Most old-time musicians, whatever their tradition, were into orienting
>to intervals & fairly-complicated overlapping rhythmical aspects,
>not note-names & time-signatures.
And oh yeah: Its completely unnecessary to know the classical names,
if there even are any, for those intervals & rhythmical patterns. All
you have to be able to do is recognize & repeat them.
Glenn S. Sunshine
>
> >>> >>. Since the instrument you make has *no* repertoire
> >>> >>(not that I'm aware of, anyway) in the "Romantic" era (last
> >>> >>200 years or so) or in 20th century post-Romantic-era classical music,
> >>> >>& in fact hasn't been used in classical music since medieval times,
>
> >>> >Vivaldi's 'Il Pastor Fido'.
>
> >>> Yeah, I think I've even heard it.
> >>> OK, you've got a one-piece repertoire.
>
> >>Ah, so all these 18th cent. pieces by Chedeville, Baton, Corette etc,
> >>to name but a few, are figments of my imagination. That probably
> >>explains why they're so difficult to play!
>
> >I didn't mention these because they were over 200 years old.
>
> Which makes them pre romantic-era-classical. Like I said above.
> Thanks for the confirmation, Mr. Hackman.
>
What you also wrote -- see your quote above -- was that the instrument wasn't used in post-medieval
"classical" music, which is either a tautology, given what "classical" means in the technical sense, or
was politely corrected by the examples offered above. Less politely, last time I checked, the 1700s
weren't considered part of the middle ages.
GSS
Glenn S. Sunshine
> http://www.medieval.org will get you to a web-page for which
> Margo Schulter has written extensively on Pythagorean methods of
> scale-note generation & the various remedies for correcting what the
> Pythagoreans took to be defects in their system (such as reconciling
> what you get by climbing by 5ths with what you get by climbing by
> octaves).
>
> (The address was originally given out to be
> http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/harmony/pyth.html in order to get you right
> to the Pythagorean-stuff section but the whole address didn't work last time
> I tried it.)
>
> As far as I can tell from the last time I read any of this, the
> trick with Pythagorean tuning is to manipulate 5ths, octaves & 4ths
> (which last are derived from manipulating 5ths & octaves)
> in various ways so as to generate your other scale-values.
> The rules of the game don't allow you to use any interval you can't
> get by some manipulation of the permissable intervals, but I believeany new intervals you do generate
> under the rules of the game can be used to generate newer ones.
> Also check all & any articles by msch...@value.net on rec.music.theory
> for lots & lots of elaboration & detail regarding actual pieces of music
> composed along these (& other) lines.
I'm glad you know Ms. Schulter's work. She qualifies as an early music scholar, classically trained, of
the sort you've disparaged (if memory serves) as being musically inept, tasteless, ignorant of "real"
music, etc. Or have you changed your views on early music scholars and HIP?
GSS
ghost
>I'm glad you know Ms. Schulter's work. She qualifies as
>an early music scholar, classically trained, of the sort you've disparaged
>(if memory serves) as being musically inept, tasteless, ignorant of "real"
>music, etc. Or have you changed your views on early music scholars and HIP?
Nope. I've never heard Schulter sing or play so will reserve my judgement
of her doing that unless & until I can hear her, but in general
early-music scholars are no scholars at all (Schulter seems to be a
big exception in the scholarship dept). Schulter expresses an interest
in various forms of trad music but has never claimed to be an expert on
any of them, which right off the bat make her an exception to most of the
others in the early-music camp.
Peter Hughes
ghost wrote:
> In article <7gahh4$jo0$1...@nntp3.u.washington.edu> dark...@u.washington.edu (Alden Hackmann) writes:
> >>> Yeah, I think I've even heard it.
> >>> OK, you've got a one-piece repertoire.
>
> >>Ah, so all these 18th cent. pieces by Chedeville, Baton, Corette etc,
> >>to name but a few, are figments of my imagination. That probably
> >>explains why they're so difficult to play!
> >I didn't mention these because they were over 200 years old.
>
> Which makes them pre romantic-era-classical. Like I said above.
> Thanks for the confirmation, Mr. Hackman.
>
Of course. I was simply responding to the ill informed comment about having a one-piece repertoire.
Ghost also states 'hasn't been used in classical music since medieval times', so being baroque, I
thought they deserved a mention.
Peter.
Jeri Corlew
>In article <372b9d7f...@news.tds.net> jeri...@tds.net writes:
>>On 30 Apr 1999 11:34:43 GMT, j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) wrote:
>
>>I suspect fiddling is a tradition which is into note-names.
>
>American old-time fiddling traditionally wasn't. Now that its mostly
>been taken over by people from other backgrounds, it is (into note names).
Do you have references for this? I've met few raised-in-the-tradition
(US) fiddlers, and they knew note names. Perhaps learning was
different in various Celtic traditions than the US.
>>You're more concerned with the way you think things should be, rather
>>than the way they are.
>
>No, I'm concerned with the way things *were*, & why you
>classically-oriented players & singers felt you had to go reorient them
>to your way of thinking.
Did you just resort to calling me a Bad Name? It's a mystery to me
why anyone would want to reorient things to their way of thinking. Or
believe that they could do so.
>
>Most old-time musicians, whatever their tradition, were into orienting
>to intervals & fairly-complicated overlapping rhythmical aspects,
>not note-names & time-signatures.
I'd rather not take your word on this, but my theories are based on
what I believe, not what I know. I'm more than willing to listen to
facts.
ghost
>On 30 Apr 1999 13:19:32 GMT, j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) wrote:
>>No, I'm concerned with the way things *were*, & why you
>>classically-oriented players & singers felt you had to go reorient them
>>to your way of thinking.
>It's a mystery to me
>why anyone would want to reorient things to their way of thinking. Or
>believe that they could do so.
The classical world has reoriented just about everybody to their way
of thinking, it sometimes seems.
Just about everybody tends to reorient alien concepts to their way
of thinking, though; it makes them easier to deal with. This is
why the New York Times spelled the capital of China "Peking" until
in a grand gesture of concilliation they decided to spell it "Beijing"
instead. Probably a lot of native Chinese don't pronounce it
either way. (Mandarin & other forms of Chinese are tonal languages,
for one thing, & English isn't; we use tones for emphasis, but not to
change the lexical meaning of words).
What gets really weird is when the reorientors expect the native-speakers
(or singers or players) to join the reoriented way & when they criticize
the native-speakers etc when they "slip up".
>>Most old-time musicians, whatever their tradition, were into orienting
>>to intervals & fairly-complicated overlapping rhythmical aspects,
>>not note-names & time-signatures.
>I'd rather not take your word on this, but my theories are based on
>what I believe, not what I know. I'm more than willing to listen to
>facts.
When you were a little kid, learning nursery rhymes, did the people
teaching them to you make sure you had the
absolute-value classical-note-names fixed in your head before they
taught you the songs? Did they drill you on time signatures before they
taught you the songs? Did they tell you the names of what intervals to sing
along on that were OK to them (providing you couldn't match their pitch
exactly, & as a little kid you probably couldn't), or did they smile when
they liked what you did & grimace when they didn't?
And to get back to the topic on hand, fiddle-playing, do you suppose
that if you'd picked up a relative's fiddle at a really young age
& they hadn't minded, that they'd have drilled you on the above stuff,
providing they knew it, before showing you a few tunes?
Remember that *they* would have already tuned the thing by the time
you picked it up.