# Music Theory



## flash_fires

This thread is for music theory enthusiests who want to gain musical knowledge and/or pass it on to others.


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## Edward Elgar

I have been wondering about intonation in strings.
Isn't it wierd that we play in free temprement, yet modulate up and down using the tempered scale?

Maybe it's just me who's wierd, who can say?!


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## Frasier

As they say or as my string teacher early on said to me, a violin/viola/etc player never plays exactly the same note twice. It's the minor discrepancies in intonation that give a body of strings that full sound compared with a soloist. 

It was possible to simulate the effect (as distinct from the timbre) on the old analogue synthesisers by unison-ing about 8 vcos (oscillators) to play something - the volt/frequency conversion was never exact - so the result was a very full, satisfying sound. The "digital age" undid all that and reduced the sound to sterility. No amount of flanging could make up for it.

As for equal temperament/keyboards, it's important to understand the difference between, yes, enharmonic equivalence being the "same note" in isolation but different when writing diatonic harmony. So F# and Gb are the same notes on a piano, but if a written piece is in D major, Gb is a chromatic note and has to be dealt with as such because it does not exist in the scale of D major.


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## Saturnus

I am a great supporter of just intonation, or natural intonation. Probably because how I stumbled upon it. I was practicing an etude in C-major beginning with a long e (note) and I took notice of that I always had to start again when I was playing the edute for the first time each day, or make the key clear with playing some scales before I started, because that e became so ugly (it was too sharp I later found out, I have never conciously thought about intonation) in context with the next notes (f- h - c). So I began searching for text about this matter and read about how the frequency proportions that make up western musical scales and intervals don't fit into the equal temparments so popular on pianos today.
I have an electric keyboard that has the option of adjusting temparment (I can flatten or sharpen all the notes at will) and I have spent and always spend a lot of time experimenting with temparment on that otherwise crappy keyboard. What I have found out (heard) is for an example: that a major third on an equal temparment produces a diffraction frequency that equals a note halftone over the lower note of the interval while the diffraction pattern of just temparment simply produces the lower note, giving the interval greater clarity. (In the correct (just) major third interval the higher note is 5/4 of the frequency of the lower, while the equal maj. third is a little distorted).


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## tutto

problem is that octave 2:1 ratio is a kind of dogma


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## zlya

I did a study on this in college. I adjusted several short fragments of music (some written for strings, some for piano) to make versions in both equal temperament and just intonation. I then played these different versions for people, and asked them to write down which they preferred, and also what they thought the difference was. I found that about half of the people showed a marked preference for either equal temperament or just intonation, but most of these didn't know why! (Most thought the difference was timbral). I also found that keyboardists tended to prefer equal temperament, while string players tended to prefer just intonation.


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## flash_fires

I play trumpet, and have a hard time keeping in 'perfect' tune. The lengths of tubing to lower the sound by a semitone, produce notes that are sharp in the lower range and flat notes in the lower range. Is there anything I can do about this.

Also the diuscussion with strings being crappy in equal tewmperment on a computor. I have found a music program that takes that into consideration. When you set up a string ensemble track (MIDI) to play a G, the computor plays a G, A few notes just above G, and Few notes just below G. None of these "extra" notes are even 1/10 of a semitone, so You get a tuned G, but a fuller sound then just a G. Strings have become my favorite instrument to use when writing songs, just for this fact.


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## zlya

On the trumpet, can't you adjust your tuning with your embrousure?


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## Saturnus

zlya said:


> I did a study on this in college. I adjusted several short fragments of music (some written for strings, some for piano) to make versions in both equal temperament and just intonation. I then played these different versions for people, and asked them to write down which they preferred, and also what they thought the difference was. I found that about half of the people showed a marked preference for either equal temperament or just intonation, but most of these didn't know why! (Most thought the difference was timbral). I also found that keyboardists tended to prefer equal temperament, while string players tended to prefer just intonation.


Of course, piano players have grown to like the equal becaue they are used to it. String players (and wind players) use just intonation without knowing it, because the just intonation is natural. Bach thought a lot about this matter, he spent his whole life finding a good temparment for keyboards (for he prefered the just, but you can't play really complex piece on a just keyboard...) and found finally what he was searching for when he invented his Well-temparment for which he composed the "Well tempered klavier book" (many "well-temparments" were invented in the baroque era, well-tempered really means homebrewed-temparment  ). But his temparment is lost today...

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And yes, trumpets can bend their tone as all orchestral wind instruments.
I know trumpets, oboes and flutes need to adjust their tone because the harmonics trumpet uses are not in equal temparment and correctly tuned oboes and flutes are very very rare.


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## Saturnus

And yes, trumpets can bend their tone as all orchestral wind instruments.
I know trumpets, oboes and flutes _need_ to adjust their tone because the harmonics trumpet uses are not in equal temparment and correctly tuned oboes and flutes are very *very* rare.


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## flash_fires

I know trumpets can bend their tone up and down, but I heard somewhere about lengthening the tubing jut slightly while playing to get better intonation. Have any of you heard of that? If so, how is it done?


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