Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Stiamh]

[Lars]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43eGgGyquSc

[Falseknight]

I'd  have thought a quint box would have been more suitable for non-equal tempered tuning.

[Theo]

Yes, and Cajun tuning is pretty much as you describe it Lars.

I have tuned boxes in1/4 comma meantone, in fact I have just completed tuning a 20 button anglo concertina in that system.  I also normally flatten the thirds in all the major chords on the bass end of any boxes I tune, which sweetens up the chords considerably, and does not seem to cause any noticeable clash with the melody notes.

1/4 comma meantone works well if you only play in a small number of keys, which is certainly the case in Irish music. 

[Theo]

I'd  have thought a quint box would have been more suitable for non-equal tempered tuning.

I think it depends more on what you play.  If you are playing Irish stuff that is mostly in D with a bit of G and A then there would be no problem.  All the mistuning is pushed into one interval, typically, between  Eb and D where they are out of the way in those keys. 

[Falseknight]

I'm probably not thinking o this in the right way - as a frets player, I'll alter particularly G and B strings (on guitar) to best suit the keys I'm playing with.  Given that most Irish style players play chromatic systems, I can see nothing but confusion in having a 2.5 row with alternate tunings on the half row.

[Stiamh]

[TomB-R]

Sounds interesting. Just because the history of "keyboard" instruments is littered with efforts to achieve just intonation etc. which came to nothing, doesn't mean it isn't worth a try! 

How about a Streb with a pitch bend wheel? (Or does it have one already?)

Did the discussion on acoustic pitch bending for boxes not long ago have any relevance to this?

As you say Steve, "Might it sound horribly "wrong" on a box in a way that it doesn't on a fiddle?"
Would it be possible to edit a recording of a normal box to bend the relevant notes, just to hear whether it sounds okay or odd?

It's certainly nice to have access to those "blunt" notes (and all shades in between) on the fiddle. Also tunes where it's nice to try to imitate that Uilleann pipe "squawk" as a note bends up to almost-pitch.
(You know, decent fiddles can be had for less money than boxes..... A year of hell, a few years of hard work.... Oops, I'm forgetting where I am!)

Good luck!
Tom

[Stiamh]

You know, decent fiddles can be had for less money than boxes..... A year of hell, a few years of hard work....

I played fiddle for 30 years Tom. I no longer can, satisfactorily, thanks to a baffling problem diagnosed (after ten years of something close to hell) as focal dystoniaGeneral description here. There is a link to "Several sets of instructions for tuning instruments by ear, or with electronic devices...." at the bottom of the page.

[Theo]

Inter

But I find the idea of the system developed by harpsichordist Bradley Lehman intriguing. He claims to have come up with a "well temperament" that allows him to play in all keys. Each has its own colour. Would you be up for attempting to tune a halfstep box according to his method? General description here. There is a link to "Several sets of instructions for tuning instruments by ear, or with electronic devices...." at the bottom of the page.

Like anything to do with temperaments this page has a multitude of options!  I failed to find any actual instructions of how to implement the tuning scheme he describes, but it does sound like an interesting idea.

[TomB-R]

I played fiddle for 30 years Tom. I no longer can, satisfactorily, thanks to a baffling problem diagnosed (after ten years of something close to hell) as focal dystonia. Otherwise I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be playing box at all. 

I'm very sorry to hear that Steve.
(Fiddle is still my main instrument, but I partly started playing box to put a few eggs in another basket.)
Tom

[BruceHenderson]

(snip) The special notes on the half-row would be for use in particular tunes,

   Steve, sorry but I'm pretty ignorant about theory.  But, for ordinary tuning, if you have C-D-E-F-G and you want to sharpen the F for the key of G, is it C-D-E-F# (which is *"about"* 50% between F and G)-G?  If the "ordinary" sharp is 50% between the two naturals, where is your "1/4 comma"?  Or do I have the 50% thing wrong, too?  (Yeah, I know about the "split" black keys on Bach's keyboards to give "true" A# versus Bb, but take the above for simplicity's sake, please.)

[Stiamh]

[Pushpull]

Does it come from the Pythagorean system where the scale is not tempered and the error or comma of 24 cents (almost 25 - which is a quarter) is all in one chunk at the end of the circle of fifths?

Lots of good stuff, most of which I haven't read, at
http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory27.htm#tempresources and
http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory27.htm#calculator

Roy.

[Theo]

One of the big disadvantages of the squeezebox, for Irish music anyway, is that it's always in tune. 

Just re-read this Steve, and its not really true.  The trouble with any fixed pitch, equally tempered instrument is that is that it is nearly always slightly out of tune! 

When the fiddles shade the F#  they are bringing the D to F# major third more INTO tune.   Of course that is not the only way that fiddles play with tuning, they can bend into or out of a note to add interest.  Martin Hayes is a master of this technique, which is one of the reasons I'm now struggling to learn the fiddle.

[Stiamh]

One of the big disadvantages of the squeezebox, for Irish music anyway, is that it's always in tune. 

Just re-read this Steve, and its not really true.  The trouble with any fixed pitch, equally tempered instrument is that is that it is nearly always slightly out of tune! 

We are saying the same thing, Theo, however much a literal interpretation of our words might suggest otherwise. We agree that there is trouble, anyway!

[Theo]

I agree, we are saying the same thing, but I thought that point needed clarifying.  ET is so prevalent today that its quite understandable that many people assume, wrongly, that anything that is not ET is somehow less in tune. I've realised quite late that one of the great joys of Swedish fiddle music is that they have lots of thirds in their harmonies, and they are in tune!

[Falseknight]

Don't forget that even the pianoforte is not tuned to strict equal temprament, being flat in the bass and sharp in the treble.  Piano tuners make lots of money getting the instrument to sound right, when "right" is not mathematically defined.