Dear All
After leaving my bag in a motorway cajé with papers some music and
Korg OT12 tuner, I was forced, while waiting for it to be sent on to
me. (There are some honest people about!), to use my equal
temperament Zen-on Chromatina 331 tuner. I bought this 20 years ago.
Yes I know I should use my ears more, well I do both (belts and
bracers).
I was actually surprised that the needle reading is much more
pleasant than the Korg's digital read out, it is intuitively right,
and furthermore, perhaps because it is less accurate, it has
absolutely no problem with gimped bass strings. The Korg seems always
completely unable to 'extract the fundamental' and goes all over the
place. The needle on the Chromatina seems to behave much closer to
how the ear does.
Any slight lowering in string tension(what ever the string) sees the
needle move down (and vice versa).
I wonder whether it is because the Zenon is less accurate, less
sophisticated, or has a better algorithm. Perhaps, it has no
algorithm but functions on some much more basic principle.
Oh for a cross between a Peterson a Korg and a Zen-on: a completely
programmable tuner, but with a needle reading.
Any ideas about this. Yes I know you are going to tell me to swap my
gimped for wirewounds!!!
and that the Korg is telling me that the string has gone false
One big problem with the Zen-on is that batteries don't last, and of
course it is equal temperament.
Regards
Anthony
Le 20 nov. 07 à 11:34, David Tayler a écrit :
A must read.
Just say no to Valotti.
http://music.cwru.edu/duffin/
dt
At 03:56 PM 11/19/2007, you wrote:
In case someone doesn't know it, there's an enjoyable paper by Ross
Duffin online:
"Why I hate Valotti (or is it Young?)":
http://music.cwru.edu/duffin/
Regards,
Stephan
Am 19 Nov 2007 um 18:03 hat Stewart McCoy geschrieben:
Dear David,
The temperament known as Valotti was presumably invented by the
eponymous
Valotti.
If keyboards are tuned to Valotti, one should tune one's theorbo
to 6th
comma meantone, which will mean that all the white notes sound well
together, but the black notes won't sound so good on the
keyboards. As long
as you avoid dodgy enharmonics on the theorbo, the plucked
strings will
sound sweeter than the same notes played on the keyboards.
Asking players to switch from A=415 to A=411 and back in the same
concert is
plain daft.
If you have to play chords of G# major and C# minor at A=448, is
there any
mileage in tuning your theorbo a semitone lower? It would mean
those chords
would then be played as A major and D minor. If that creates more
problems
than it solves, forget it.
One of the problems of tuning one's theorbo to a higher pitch
than normal,
is that there is an increased strain on the neck of the
instrument. My
theorbo is tuned at A=415, and is not designed to go up to A=440.
However,
if I need to play at A=440, I get round the problem by turning
the 14th
course (G) down to nothing, and the 12th course (B) down to G.
That takes
the strain off the neck, and enables the other strings to go up
to A=440.
The disadvantages are that I lose a low B, which is no great loss
most of
the time, and the low G is rather weedy played on the 12th course.
Best wishes,
Stewart McCoy.
----- Original Message -----
From: "LGS-Europe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2007 11:41 AM
Subject: [LUTE] tuning blues
Bad tuning karma weekend. Saturday Alexander's Feast by Handel.
Baroque
orchestra at 415 Valotti. Who invented Valotti? Not a lute player I
presume. In the break we had to move to another part of the church,
unheated, to play a Handel organ concerto. At 411. After the
break back to
415. Actually we managed to remain stable, but there was lots of
complaining in the orchestra. Understandably.
Sunday, other church, other orchestra. Buxtehude, Hollanders and
Charpentier at 448. Baroque string players were struggling,
strings didn't
break, but were not stable. Organ in ET. Cello was way of in his
sharps.
He just couldn't match it. Perhaps because of the high pitch,
perhaps of
the ET. But some of the music was in C# minor (how does one
play G#-major
chords on a theorbo in A?), so there wasn't really another
option than ET
anyway.
Next week Maria Vespers at 440. 1/4 comma MT, presumably. Should
be fine
again.
David
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
