In a message dated 6/12/98 6:03:07 AM Central Daylight Time, rscott@wwnet.net writes: << >if one could take a rosined bow and draw it across the sharp >edge of a bell, you would expect the sound to be quite different >and a more identifiable tone to be heard. ... I ran downstairs and got a bell and a violin bow and tried it. ...it was totally lacking... in that usual jumble of inharmonic partials that you associate with... bell sounds. It almost sounded like a flute - hardly any harmonics...>> I'm glad you were interested and tried it. This reminds me of when I was a kid and if we were a group in a reastaurant waiting for our meal to arrive, we would dip our fingers in the water glass and rub the rim with them. This produced a high-pitched tone that was far different than the sound you would get by striking the glass with a spoon for example. A series of glasses set up with differing amounts of water in them for different pitches makes a "glass harmonica". This is one of the things kids could do when bored before there were things like TV's and computers. Remember this next time your power goes out in a storm. The kids will be fascinated. As to this: >if a reed has no inharmonicity, then how could my SAT pick up >the difference between the fundamental of a G2 reed and the >same reed as read on G3, G4, G5, and G6 and show an increasing >difference of 6¢ at the highest partial that was measured? <<...I would suggest the following double check of your measurement method... >> >When I play the G2 button and push the bellows normally, the >other 4 reeds sound in octaves that are apparently beatless. >When I push forcefully, they go out of tune with each other. >You can hear beats within the octaves. <<This is a different experiment from the previous one, right?>> Yes. Actually, when I get the time, I want to try to measure the difference between the fundamental and higher partials on all the reeds, low, medium and high as well as the effects ofhigher air pressure on them. I am trying to determine whether a "stretch tuning" might be appropriate for these reeds as it is for piano strings or whether stretching the octaves would make them go outof tune even worse. Lance La Fargue is from the area and culture where these accordians are made and has an accordian similar to mine made by a now deceased maker. He has said that he will try to see how his was tuned and also if it has "inharmonicity" as I had observed. He toldme that he never questioned *how* it was tuned, just accepted it as it was. Here is an excerpt of one of my private posts to him: Lance wrote, << I know the younger, more contemporary performers would be interested [in tuning improvements or innovations] (Daigrepont, Toups, etc.)...I will also take a listen to my accordian with the SAT. >> I would appreciate very much anything you have to offer. I went through this with Larry Miller [the accordian maker] as I did with Susan Kline on the List. Something about whether 1¢ or 2¢ differences would really matter. Isolated and out of context, no, they wouldn't matter one hill of beans. That is on the order of a casual error and the amount that an instrument might slip out of tune natturally, to say the least. My goal would be to give the intrument a kind of "shine" and ear-piercing and appealing quality that amplifiers alone cannot produce...My hypothesis with accordéon tuning is much like mine with pianos but with a different understanding. I believe that people have tuned the instruments the way they were told by someone else to tune them but with little or no concept of why or how and without questioning the authority of this information. One believes that a note is "correct" because a tuning device says it is. Helmholtz divided the scale into 12 equal parts 150 years ago and everyone bought the idea and stomped every other idea into the mud, so to speak. But the accordéon does not have 12 notes to the octave and certain other intervals that remain in the 7-tone scale are not even possible because of the "push-pull" nature of its structure. Therefore, the whole reason to have a -2¢ tempered 5th does not exist at all. The 3rds would indeed sound harsh if they were tempered as widely as they are in ET or even more widely as they are on the harsh side of the HT's, but I see absolutely no reason for them to be 1½¢ narrow! [The notes E & B on my accordian are tuned at -15¢, 1.4¢ narrow of theoretical Just Intonation]. The "Cajun Intonation" as I have come to think of it, uses mostly very wide intervals. This is the "wailing" sound that you describe. I do not think of it really as being "out-of-tune" but merely being a different kind of intonation. This is the same view as I have of the HT's. The wide 3rds that occur in them do not sound "out-of-tune" or "sour" to me but have a different kind of sound that excites ones feelings. ET removes the extremes that a 12 tone keyboard can have and "homogenizes" everything in to one kind of neutral sound that admittedly, the large majority accepts. I do not believe that lovers of Cajun music would be pleased if its typical kind of intonation were henceforth "corrected" and everyone who sang Cajun songs suddenly sang with a smooth, sweet vibrato in a medium voice range. A high pitched, raw, unrefined sound is what makes a Cajun singer sound like one. It has its own beautiful quality to it and does not need to be changed. Cajun music will probably never appeal to the large majority and for it to do so, would have to adopt the English language and undergo other transformations that would rob it of its uniqueness. The accordéon however, as I see it, has fallen somewhat victim to this "mainstream" way of tuning in that its makers use the "Helmholtz solution" but knowing that it is not quite right, throw in a couple of radical deviations without really knowing how far to go or when to stop. Its tuning actually falls in opposition to the kind of intonation the performers want. This is not unlike a piano tuned in ET. The piano has its own homogenous intonation that is unlike any intonation of any other instrument (except fixed pitch tuned in ET) or voice. The piano, tuned in ET, literally "fights" with all other instruments. In summary, the 3rds, although they need to be tempered very little, if any, are tempered in the wrong direction. The 5ths need no tempering at all but could be tempered on the wide side and enhance the natural tendency ofthe "Cajun intonation" towards wide intervals. If the 3rds were tempered just a bit to the wide side but still sounded pleasing to the ear, they would help carry a melody better. This, I know very well from my experience with many temperaments and tuning of pianos. If octave stretching is used, it appeals to the natural demand of Inharmonicity (if it or a something which mimmicks it is really there) but also to the natural desire that the ear has to hear the high end of a scale sharper (if not MUCH sharper) than the theoretical frequencies offered by our good old friend, Helmholtz. To effect such a change (and it still would be a subtle one), the instrument maker would have to have a good and thorough understanding of why this is being done and to pay attention to the details. Otherwise, it would end up just being another "sloppy" tuning. This is no different than applying the same thinking to piano tuning. Accuracy and consistency are absolute musts. But the reward will be found when a musicians face perks up and he/she says, "WOW! Now, I really like THAT sound!" The musicians might never be able to describe what it is they like, but it will appeal to their musical sensibilities and that is what will really matter.>> I have a lot of experimenting to do before I make my suggestions to the accordian maker. I will go to see him again in mid-August. My working hypothesis now however is that I will want to stretch out the octaves, probably only on the reeds which play octaves 5, 6, & 7. I will also want to change the -2¢ tempered 5ths to +2¢ tempered 5ths and change the -15¢ 3rds to -10¢ 3rds. Any opinions on these wild, radical ideas are welcome. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin
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