Just Intervals?

[Susan Kline]

Dear Bradley --

You have so many false suppositions embodied in what you are saying
that I am at a loss where to start.

It can be boiled down to one basic question: is your "just" major third
narrower than an equally tempered major third by about 14 cents or so?
Or is it wider? My ears tell me that Hilary Hahn is playing her major
thirds and major sixths wider than tempered, and MUCH wider than the
official "just" beatless major third found in meantone. While I am
always ready to find myself mistaken, I find it hard to imagine being
mistaken to the tune of 20 cents or so! Not on such familiar ground.

You note in a previous post (which I am too tired at the moment to fish
back out ...) that Hilary's semitones are very small -- just as in my
mental model of string intonation.

Now, Bradley, follow closely here, and tell me what you think --- IF
Hilary, in that little excerpt which you measured, was playing a "just"
minor third, which is way wide of a tempered minor third, her G# would
have to be quite low to the B above, wouldn't it? and then she resolves
it upward to an A, using that skimpy, tiny little semitone. Are you
then telling me that her A is as low as this scenario would indicate?
How COULD it be????? Low G#, to allow for the wide "just" minor third; even
lower A, because of the tiny semitone -- how big does that make the major
second between A and B? HUMONGOUS!!! Do you HEAR that? I DON'T. I hear
a small minor third, with a high G#, followed by a slender semitone,
and an A making a pleasantly just major second with the B. Yes?

What good is all your hardware if you aren't using your ears as well?

You never seem to come right out and say whether your "just" major
third is wider than tempered or narrower than tempered. Since this
little difference amounts to 20 or 30 cents, it does seem crucial
to understand this, doesn't it?

By all means send along the Hertz data -- I'll try to plug it into
the formula so I can convert the intervals to cents.

Susan

P.S. A cellist's "job" is to provide a bass line with intonation so
impeccable that wandering upper strings with several varieties of
intonation can somehow make peace with it. And to shift in modest
and unnoticeable ways when the upper strings are so far out that to
be stubborn would make them sound glaringly wrong. Have you noticed
what happens to a quartet's intonation when the other three practice
a passage without the cello? If your cellist plays out of tune, I
pity you. Rehearsals must be hell.

Okay, I'm really rubbing it in ... but I do grow tired of your
supercilious tone, when you provide so little substance to back it
up.

At 11:40 AM 5/10/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>Yeh, things are too easily misunderstood. I did not intend to say that
>cellists couldn't tune thirds, that was not the point. Generally everyone
>tunes from the cello upwards, in other words, the rest of the group adjusts
>to whatever the cellist is doing. Inversions have nothing to do with playing
>thirds; everyone is still adjusting to the bass. A cellists "job" generally
>does not involve tuning thirds, that is something that is generally left to
>the 2nd violin or the viola.
>
>Since I really don't like the Juilliard String Quartet, I don't keep track
>of them so much. They do have personnel changes, but they are not really
>permanent, nor are they really that young.
>
>Susan, I was using Sound Forge 5 (it is recording software). It has a
>feature that finds the average of a selected sample, but you can also select
>a single millisecond for analysis. Vibrato is not such a huge problem: it is
>not sooooooo wide. Yes, results are given in frequencies. By all means, find
>another way to measure those just interval, but if you do you will need to
>talk yourself out of that data as well! "The evidence is out there," but you
>don't seem to like it for whatever reason.
>
>SUSAN, you really must learn what just intervals are. Just intervals are the
>starting point: they always have, and they always will. Stop talking about
>movements from tempered intervals (that really speaks of nothing). Things
>have changed since you finished your schooling. Standards are much higher,
>and there is now an emphasis on excellent intonation.
>
>We are obviously part of different musical generations; at least I can say
>that what I do is part of current performance practices.
>
>Bradley M. Snook