zbd1960

"Terra Incognita"

Hi, welcome

In my defence, I was very tired when I wrote that... 😴

Coltrane is a 'marmite' thing: you either him love or hate him. I've tried, but just don't get on with his music at all.

The way a violinist (or in my case, cellist) tunes strings is to bow the adjacent string at the same time and to adjust until the 'beats' are removed from the sounding fifth. This gives a lot of precision, since even a small difference is obvious.

I'd agree - there's no realistic way to make a fretted instrument that is "in tune" in all keys

Being fairly news to all things bass, and following trip to Midlands Bass Bash a few weeks ago, thought I would pop along to this. It's only a half hour drive to Crewe for me, so easy enough to get to. A few observations. I've not been to a guitar show before, so I was a bit surprised at how few basses there were on display (I realise there is a big national bass show each year). In a pretty large function room, the only basses on display were from Manton Guitars who are Shropshire based, about 40 minute drive for me. Robin exhibited at Midlands Bass Bash and is a nice guy... I visited his workshop the other week... The show was very busy but the demographic was interesting. I would suggest that the overwhelming majority of attendees were over 50 if not even over 60, some in 40s and very few younger than that. OK some of that is older people no longer paying off a mortgage or raising kids have more disposable income, but it can't be the whole story? I have to say that having been restricted for so long about mixing etc I did find the proximity of so many people somewhat intimidating.

I used to take hi-fi seriously, but gradually lost interest with the development of the powdered-unicorn-horn-will-improve-the-sound mob got control in the mid 90s. The issue in the vinyl days was that good well set-up hi-fi was very good. That wasn't what most people had - most people had poor quality kit and the turntables were often the weakest part of the sound chain. I had a lot of problems with early digital - it was awful. The sound quality was horrible, early CDs were excruciatingly bad (I'm talking classical here was that was all I listened to back then). It was if all the knowledge and experience gained from Decca and BBC sound engineers in the 50s and 60s was chucked in the bin. The standard set for CD with its 44khz sampling rate was poor. It was the limit of what technology could do in the early 80s and it just wasn't good enough for decent hi-fi reproduction. Back then, I bought a Linn Sondek LP12 in 1983. Over the next few years I tried many CD players and none were as good as my LP12. Some of the issues were the dire recordings with the mikes on top of the instruments to get 'up real and close' "Hear every detail" marketing blurbs were all the rage. Recordings were often extremely bright. It was ghastly. Slowly, recording engineers re-learnt how to record and guess what - readopted the techniques of the 50s and 60s and the recording sounded better. I did buy CD players, purely because classical labels stopped making new LPs very quickly - about 1985 or 86 or so. It wasn't until I bought my Naim CD player in 1999 that I felt I had a CD player that gave me a sound that was as good as my LP12. I still have the LP12 and it was recently serviced and it still sounds very good. Yes, vinyl has many inherent limitations, but digital isn't de facto better just because it's digital. Digital ought to be better. Recordings have improved a lot since those early days and the technology has improved a lot as well. The advantage to the average consumer is that even a fairly cheap digital system will be much better than a cheap badly set-up analogue system. That is why CDs took off so quickly.

I agree with @Stub Mandrel around 4 or 5 cents is the limit of what a person can discern as a tuning error referred to another pitch. Yes, you need to tune the instrument and depedning on the environment, that might be regularly needed. Something I see a lot of with adult learners when I'm playing in groups (and I classify myself as an adult learner in terms of playing, but I have done a lot of music theory etc over the years as well) is playing with a tuner switched on and constantly referring to it. This is not good, especially if you're playing with instruments that are not fretted or fixed pitch (e.g. violins and woodwind/brass). If you're playing a fretted or keyboard instrument, you have little choice than to play using ET for your tuning, but if you don't then you can adjust to get better tuning than ET... People need to 'develop' their ear so that they can understadn when they're in tune or not - meters don't help with that.

Because I come from a classical singing background, I wouldn't dream of even thinking any of that as I understand that you can't just play (or sing) something you don't know... I suppose the issue with some of these singers is they have no musical background and they're singing something they know, or they've heard, and all they have to do is sing the melody line...

I'll stick with my nearly 40 year old Linn Sondek...

Most people should be able to hear 1/20th semi-tone difference - which is 5 cents

I'm a very experienced choral singer, both accompanied and a cappella. A lot depends on the arrangement... but singing a cappella has a very high risk of going flat - end of story. Any singer who doesn't understand that, shouldn't be allowed to even think of singing unaccompanied IF accompaniment then has to join in, as it will be doomed. It is extremely difficult for an unaccompanied choir to maintain pitch. It can be done, I've sung in choirs that can do it. But, you need a well-trained choir that has worked on doing it - it doesn't 'just happen'. Even very good choirs with certain works will need some assistance to avoid drifting. John Taverner's works are a good example of this. Something like the Song for Athene requires a sort of bass drone which runs all the way through the piece. You need to be superhuman to not drift in pitch. Every performance I've done of it with various very good choirs, the organist has always put his left foot on a soft pedal so that there is a reference pitch to keep the basses in tune. It's usually the sopranos that go flat and then the rest fo the choir ends up adjusting to fit, but you can't do that with the Taverner. Interestingly, an interview with the MD of one of the country's best cathedral choirs said he always did the same thing - QED. The solution if they don't understand this is easy: piece in in G... you play it in G. If they've wandered south to Gb or further, then tough, maybe they'll learn a lesson when they come in out of tune.

I was worried about the border guards along Offa's Dyke, but it's been clarified... there are routes....

Looks like a great event. Wonder if an interloper from the northern Border Marches in darkest Salopia could sneak in next time? 🤔

Intonation is the likeliest issue as others have said. With equal temperament tuning, you are not going to have every fret in tune. All I can say is a set of strings for my cello costs about £300. The plus side is they don't need to be changed very often, but the top string is the one you tend to replace every 18 months or so and they cost around £40.

I haven't, but I know there are people that do. I did take my tenor viol to a community orchestra I used to play in and pretended I was a viola - right clef for the music and also the correct size for the pitch being played (viola's Achilles' Heel)

There are multiple issues here, some of which are common to the high street in general, others relevant to specific sectors. Music chain stores such as Dawsons (I think they originated in Cheshire about 120 years ago?) seem to have adopted the car sales methodology of 'incentivising' staff through sales commission. This is also an issue with photography shops. Management need to get away from this outmoded method - it doesn't work. Decent honest staff get shafted by grasping greedy commission hunters, and customers dislike being hassled. Pay people a decent wage and ditch the fake 'sales driving' methods. As I've said before, the model of business rates and taxes is broken. Big multi-national chains and internet box shifters are able to get tax breaks for opening a low cost warehouse out-of-town, with free parking. Multi-nationals can also play the tax domiciliation game to reduce taxes further. Meanwhile your small chain or independent is stuck with full taxes, outrageous high street rents from London-based absentee landlords, high business rates, and shoppers have to pay to park. It is not an even playing field. Specialist retailers, e.g. music, hi-fi, photography, are nearly extinct.

Worryingly... I discovered that @Manton Customs are rather close to home... as in about a 30 minute drive away. For someone living in rural Shropshire, that's tantamount to next door! I regard anything under 25 miles away as 'local'....

A relatively common example of just intonation still in sue is barbershop quartet singing - that's why the chords really 'ping' since for example the fifths are a 3:2 ratio. I play the viola da gamba (viol) and the frets are tied on - doubled piece of fret gut is used. You have to tune the frets. Good consort players (same is true of string quartet players etc) will adjust so that the thirds for example are more in tune. Probably because I listen to (and have played) a lot of early music, I do hear the ET major third as very out-of-tune. If all you've ever heard is ET, then it probably won't seem odd.

OP You've probably put some of the notes into 'just' intonation i.e. not equal temperament. That would give you better major thirds and purer fourths and fifths, e.g. a sharper C# or a flatter Db would be more in tune in some contexts than an ET enharmonic Db/C#

Proms....

As someone who is 'serious' about various genres of music... the situation about where you can go to look at sheet music or try instruments int he Shropshire / Cheshire / Merseyside / Manchester area is dire. By sheet music I mean more than the standard exam board stuff or tutor books. There's Forsyth's in Manchester (Rushworth's in Liverpool went over 25 years ago, the place in Altrincham went 10 or 15 years ago) and a place in Shrewsbury and they're the only ones I know of. For saxes, there's a shop in each of Liverpool, Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent, and Shrewsbury. For strings, there's only a couple of luthiers doing some stuff in Liverpool, there's a couple around Manchester etc. Guitars are somewhat better served, but mostly with generic stuff. And early music? It's either one of the two branches of the Early Music Shop (Saltaire and London) or from a maker.

NBD you say? Let's just say I was >extremely< disappointed to find a luthier there who is about a 30 minute drive away from home.... That could be detrimental to my financial well-being... 🤦‍♂️ It's not as if I don't have a music room that's got a piano, 2 viols, 2 cellos, 4 saxes, and 3 basses in it.....

Thank you to all those that organised it and hauled in their equipment.