Temperaments

[Robert Wilson]

--- "Evoniuk, Gary E" <gee19685@GlaxoWellcome.com>
wrote:
> >Hmm, that is some trick. According to Howard Rosen,
> horns and reeds are
> built to play in ET, so you have an entire orchestra
> adjusting their
> intonation on the fly, arriving together at Just
> intonation? This beggars
> the imagination. ( at least, my beggarly
> imagination). 
> 
> Well, imagine it, because that's just what happens. 
> I am constantly amazed
> at the ability of top-flight orchestral musicians to
> accomplish this on the
> fly, but accomplish it, they do.  God help the 2nd
> trombonist who doesn't
> drop the F# in the final D major chord of Brahm's
> 2nd Symphony into a
> perfectly pure major third (I've heard it when it
> doesn't happen, and it's
> not pretty, believe me).  Okay that's not a great
> example (the trombone is,
> after all, one big tuning slide).  I read a quote
> from Dale Clevenger, the
> legendary principal horn of the Chicago Symphony
> about how a really fine
> horn section plays the opening of Tchaikowsky's 4th
> Symphony.  The same
> written E (sounds A) that repeats over several
> measures is adjusted slightly
> as it goes from being the tonic, to third of a
> chord, to something else
> (can't remember).  
> 
> Absolutely amazing but absolutely true.  It takes a
> fine musician to do it
> but they exist.  Just about any note on an
> orchestral instrument can be
> "lipped" or otherwise manipulated flat or sharp by
> 50 cents or so.  
> 
> Gary Evoniuk
> Durham, NC 
> 
> 
Absolutely right! - and herein lies the difference
between good professional musicians and their amateur
counterparts.  Have you ever noticed that amateur
bands always sound out of tune?
Be it brass bands or school bands etc., they never can
match the sound of top professionals.

Bob Wilson.
London.

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