Talk:Musical tuning

Assessment

I rated this mid importance because it is like a "significant specific part of a musical instrument". Could possibly be rated high importance as an "article that is extremely important to the understanding of the subject." Class is C; needs work on referencing. Needs to be significantly expanded to reflect the possible High level importance. There is room here to include a variety of instrument tunings (hundreds) plus alternate tunings which are very important. Needs to cover 5-note tunings. Tunings from Middle East, Injury, Asia...

One article

Since a) most of the articles on tuning schemes are stubs and b) there seems to be contention over which name means which scheme, I suggest we keep all the descriptions of musical tuning schemes on this page, each one under its own header (for now at least). That way we can see at a glance the differences, compare them, and resolve ambiguities on this single talk page -- Tarquin 10:16 Aug 4, 2002 (PDT)

I think that's a very good idea as an interim measure - this is a massive subject, and it does seem a bit odd that we have individual pages on meantone and just and so on without having a really good explanation of why there are 12 tones (notes, pitches, whatever :) to the octave in the west at all. --Camembert 10:37 Aug 4, 2002 (PDT)

Tomorrow, I will combine all of these entries into one page and attempt to tackle this topic in a real and thorough way. Any objections, let me know. JFQ

Someone anonymous has just split the types of tuning back into articles. Has the issue of the names been resolved? Even if it has, I am starting to think that they would be better off in a single article permanently, so the reader can easily compare their differences. -- Tarquin 23:36 Oct 18, 2002 (UTC)

I was just starting to think about how to work this. I think them being in different articles is not such a bad thing really, although they all need a lot of work as they stand. Having them all in one article is probably impractical in the long-term, because the number of different tunings used around the world at various times is almost endless. Having them all in one article didn't seem to provoke the frenzied editing it might have done, so maybe them being split up again is not such a bad thing.

I think the issue of names was more or less limited to "perfect fifth tuning", which I'd never heard of and assumed was referring to pythagorean tuning. I don't think that any more - I was just misunderstanding the concept. Honestly, I am going to work on these articles soon, really I am... --Camembert

Everything gets done on Wikipedia eventually. I started an article today I'd been meaning to write for weeks. -- Tarquin

On the single / many pages issue, I bow to your expertise :-) I think the list of links on this page would benefit from a bit of padding out if a brief summary of each type is possible. -- Tarquin

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Would someone please put some sounds on some of these pages to give those of us who are tone-deaf at least one clue? -- isis 10:57 Oct 19, 2002 (UTC)

Yes, it might be a good idea to have a little sound sample of the same passage of music tuned in different ways to go alongside the brief summary of each system that Tarquin suggests. I'll put it on my to-do list. --Camembert

I was thinking you might play scales for the different systems, but a passage of music should work, either. I'd sure appreciate it, because nobody's ever been able to figure out, much less explain to me, what it is I don't hear about music that they do, but I might be able to hear a difference between the systems, and then I'd understand more about music. I think. I hope, anyhow. -- isis 11:46 Oct 19, 2002 (UTC)

It's a pity that PC soundcards don't seem to be able to play in different tunings. The Korg M1 synthesizer has several tuning settings. I think I found a sample somewhere once of major triads in diffferent tunings, but it was to emphasises how f# major can sound evry different in different C tunings. A scale might be best. -- Tarquin

It's possible to make a PC play in different tunings if you're talking about MIDI - you have to use the pitch-bend function. There are a few very handy programs that will take a normally tuned file and set all the pitch bends to fit any tuning you ask for. I think it's also possible to get programs that will do this retuning on the fly as you play a keyboard plugged into the PC live, though I've never tried that myself. Some old soundcards don't support pitch-bend, but my last computer had a very cheap soundcard bought in 1996, and that worked fine.

I was musing on this earlier today, and I think there are basically three ways to demonstrate different tunings in sound: you can have a simple scale; you can have a simple chord progression (something like a dominant seventh to tonic is not bad); or you can have a proper bit of music. All have advantages and disadvantages, but to pick on scales specifically: the problem is that the differences between the chromatic tunings are really quite subtle, and very difficult to detect if you just have a scale to go on - it's much easier to hear the differences when different notes are sounded at once (at least that's how I find it). Unless there's a reason not to, I'd like to try making examples of all three (scales, chords, and music) for each tuning. --Camembert

No reason why we can't have all three. I hadn't thought of pitch bend. Maybe there are midi files out there that demonstrate it that we can play & record into OGG. What I wonder is: I have perfect pitch (on and off): I can name a note I hear. But which tuning do I hear in? -- Tarquin

There are quite a few MIDIs around the place demonstrating different tunings, but I thought I'd try to make some .oggs from scratch - I've done complete pieces like this before, so we should be OK. I might do the chord progressions using simple sawtooth waves rather than a MIDI instrument - that way you can hear the upper harmonics buzzing against each other quite clearly. As for perfect pitch... hopefully all will be revealed in time... --Camembert

Wow, I've been away a lot longer than I thought I had. Things are looking much better around here now, and I'm jazzed up to start tackling things again. What are the places that aren't on your to do lists that need some work? I'm a little out of the loop. JFQ

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.oggs

Well, I've done .oggs for equal temperament and Pythagorean tuning. I decided to do them as harmonized C major scales to try and kill several birds with one stone. I've thrown a couple of squiffy chords in there (a supertonic major seventh and a diminished seventh) so we have a variety of intervals. The differences are quite subtle, but audible - the third in the pythagorean scale is clearly sharper than the equally tempered version, and the whole thing is not quite so "busy" to my ears. I'll do the other tunings some other time. I will probably also do different versions of these files with an instrument with a simpler timbre. And I still like the idea of retuning a snippet of a "proper" piece of music, something by Chopin or somebody, as alternative examples.

I'm not entriely happy with the quality of the files - they're 100 times bigger than the MIDIs, and don't sound so good. Can we upload midi files? Is there any reason to avoid them? Any comments? --Camembert

I don't see why we can't have MIDI alongside the OGGs. Those are about 30Kb each, which is tiny (and I'm on a modem, so I appreciate these things!). These are great, by the way. The wolf fifth really howls, it's painful! -- Tarquin 20:32 Nov 1, 2002 (UTC)

We actually can't upload Midi's right now. See: Wikipedia talk:Sound. Hyacinth 19:16, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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Removed

"Ray Van De Walker, a wikipedian and amateur musician, has cut wind-chime bells in both pythagorean and equal-tempered tunings. He reports, "The pythagorean bells were cut on simple-fractional ratios. They were arguably in tune, because there were no beats to the pythagorean bells when they rang together. However, to my modern ear, and even my unsophisticated relatives, they sounded dramatically out of tune, like primitive non-western music." However, wind-chimes do not produce harmonic tones, and thus may be a poor example of music in just intonation."

I removed this paragraph because of the following reasons:

• The length of two otherwise identical windchimes one of which has a length double the other, unlike strings, does not create a pitch twice as high. This leads me to question the accuracy of Ray's tuning.
• Relatedly, the spectra of wind chimes is not harmonic, thus the overtones of each justly tuned windchime, unlike strings, do not coincide, thus they will arguable not sound tune. This leads me to question Ray's tuning as he states that the chimes did not create interference beats when played together.
• I also question the validity of information on wikipedia being referenced to the personal experience of wikipedians.

The last sentence is my original attempt at handling my objections.Hyacinth

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Proposed reorg

Here's a proposal for re-organizing the presentation the topic of intonation and tuning of notated Western music:

An intonation is an assignment of a frequency to each note in the piece (as in, the C#4 in the first measure has frequency X). Just intonation is a system for assigning such frequencies.

A tuning is an assignment of a frequency to a note independent of the piece (as in, C#4 has frequency X). Thus tunings are a subset of intonations.

One of the principle challenges of tunings is to trade off the desires for closeness to perfection between 5ths and 3rds. At the extremes are Pythagorean and 1/4 comma meantone tunings.

A 12-tuning, or a tuning of a traditional keyboard instrument, has the additional challenge of using only 12 frequencies per octave. One of the principle challenges of 12-tunings is to trade off the desires for closeness to perfection in individual 3rds and 5ths, as in, "which intervals should we penalize to make which other intervals close to perfect?". At the extremes are 12-meantones with 11 quite good 3rds and 5ths but a bad set of wolf intervals, on the one hand, and equal temperament on the other.

By "12-meantone" I mean an idealized meantone tuning truncated to have only 12 notes per octave. This is frequently what people refer to when they use "meantone" but I think this distinction is useful. For example the flat 5ths of 1/4-comma meantone come from the 5th/3rd tradeoff, whereas the wolf fifth does not exist in the idealized meantone, it only exists as part of the tradeoffs needed to fit 12 frequencies per octave.

--Ben Denckla

You bring up at least one good subject, fifths and thirds (!), but not all, and possibly not most, tunings systems are "intonation systems" in the sense that they assign specific frequencies to specific notes, nor do any of them have to be. Tuning is based on relative pitch, not absolute pitch, most especially just intonation.Hyacinth

I think a good way to deal with the relative vs. absolute issue is to say that there are relative and absolute tunings and relative and absolute intonations. Usually we only care to discuss relative tunings and intonations, but my definitions above use "tuning" and "intonation" as synonyms for "absolute tuning" and "absolute intonation." The definitions could be amended to refer to "frequency ratio (to an undefined reference frequency)" instead of "frequency" and then they would be definitions for relative tuning and relative intonation. --Ben Denckla

Name of page

I found "Musical tuning systems" on the "List of encyclopedia topics" (which is a list of articles that an encyclopedia probably should have, but which are missing on Wikipedia). Therefore, I made a redirect from Musical Tuning Systems to Musical tuning. However, I think that "Musical tuning systems" would be a better name for this page. Then we could avoid the disambiguity with the actual process of tuning instruments vs. the tuning systems. Any comments? --Tbackstr 09:49, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

Introduction

I visited this page about a year ago (2004?) hoping to find out some information about the why of tuning systems. I felt at that stage (and until today) this page was missing the high level information that I was desperately after. The article mentioned concepts like "nice" and "perfect" without any real grounding of what this really meant.

I've since learnt a lot about this, particularly from the referenced Mathieu text (which is great!). To fix the articles short comings, I have added to the introduction of the article with the hope that it will give the reader a deeper understanding of what is going on in tuning systems, before they are hit with the details of individual tuning systems. I tried to keep this separate in content to the "Comparisons and controversies" section, while providing the prior-knowledge necessary to really understand it.

I have also removed the "nice" adjective and used the term "natural", since niceness isn't always the goal of musicians - seeing as harmony is often built on tension and dissonance. I tried to convey that there are various ways to find "natural" tunings, only two of which I mentioned. Anyway, hope this helps. Something like this sure would have helped me when I first came here :)

History of tuning (and links removed)

I removed the links to history since they did not exist and I found no evidence of them on the website. In general, I think a history of different tunings would be useful. My father used to be quite obsessed with various tunings. He built his own harpsichord, in part so that he could play it in different tuning modes. - Open2universe 00:26, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

The adoption (or indeed superimposition) of modality by your father's Dolmetch generation was something of a fad attempting to force vernacular music into a classical corset. Certainly, the tuning scale of the Highland Great Pipe is not merely scordatura, but positively irregular, as is that of a number of other bagpipes - the Northumbrian pipes, for example, have music written as if in the key of C but actually played in D, such is the drift in pitch since the instrument was first made. Part of this is because the HGP cannot play a direct scale because of conflicting inharmonics, and is therefore forced to pass through intermediate notes on the way, the roots of gracing. Equally, some attention should be paid to the harmonic identites between this and Arabic music, also in the use of pentatonic scales.

For further reference, the work of Erycius Puteanus and Vincenzo Galileo on the work of Hucbald (c880) about 1600 is an incontrovertible waypoint in the subject, completed by Athanasius Kircher some years later. I think you may find this is about the point at which pythagorean theory is understood and reintroduced into tuning, although I could be wrong - see Vincenzo Galileo's 1584 24 Dances as an example. It was this that drove Bach into his Wohl-temperierte Clavier studies, as his thesis is that a particular tuning not only sounds equally in tune in all keys, but also in modulation between them - the problem is nobody seems to know what that tuning is. Pythagorean equal temperament it most certainly is not, nor any musical temperament, as any violinist will tell you. Perhaps the great Johann Sebastian had spent too much time with his head buried in organ harmonics to realise he was seeking the impossible. The Concert pitch page contains much detail for later periods.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.129.84.66 (talk) 21:46, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Check out the French version

Whoa. Anyone want to translate some of that and bring it in here? It's fantastic.

Proposed merge

I'd like to see Tuning merged with this page and replaced with a disambiguation page, on the grouds that they are both "Musical tuning", and the lack of a distinctively different name is confusing. Please comment on this over at Talk:Tuning. Here is a proposed draft for the new page to appear here: User:Rainwarrior/TuningMerge. Rainwarrior 20:22, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

That is a bad idea. These are two different concepts, and cause problems with the interwiki's. I propose to undo the merger. — Zanaq (?) 18:18, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

After twelve years, this will not be easy to do. First, it will be necessary to determine what two distinct concepts we are talking about.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:52, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

First that is not necessary. The article is clear about the concepts:

“ In music, there are two common meanings for tuning:

• Tuning practice, the act of tuning an instrument or voice.
• Tuning systems, the various systems of pitches used to tune an instrument, and their theoretical bases.

”

And the article is divided in two nicely cut/pastable sections. — Zanaq (?) 02:09, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps, but how does this deal with the interwikis? As far as I can tell, the current interwikis link either to articles like the English one (dealing with both concepts), articles dealing with just one or the other, or articles that do not make the distinction.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:08, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

The germans have an article about Tuning systems. The dutch have both. — Zanaq (?) 17:00, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. And the Czech Wikipedia, like the current English Wikipedia, has one article for both senses of the word. What point are you trying to make?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:37, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

It is always better to have different articles for different subjects. This will be beneficial for the reader, and will make interwiki linking easier. — Zanaq (?) 10:40, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree! Of the universe (talk) 04:04, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Sound

I've created a Category:Tuning examples on wikicommons (see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tuning_examples). Have a look and feel free to use some of it! --84.151.133.24 00:02, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Piano Technicians Guild

Ummm, can someone tell me why my adding of a link to the Piano Technicians Guild article was reverted? Thanks. --TrustTruth 15:13, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

My guess is that you put it in the links for Tuning Systems, and it belongs to Tuning Practice (which doesn't yet have a links section). Even still, I don't think it's directly related to tuning, so probably doesn't deserve a link anyway. (This is my guess as to why Hyacinth reverted your edit.) - Rainwarrior 18:59, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

It belongs at piano tuning, where it is prominently featured. Hyacinth 19:06, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Sound examples of musical tunings

I have recently uploaded Bach's Prelude #1, played in different musical tunings, see , , , , , . --Pete

They are pretty good. I suggest using them within the article in order to illustrate each tuning's section.--Isacdaavid (talk) 01:23, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

For some reason the Werckmeister/well temperament one was never added, so I just did it. For consistency I labeled it as "Prelude No. 1, C major, BWV 846, from the Well-Tempered Clavier by Johann Sebastian Bach. Played in well temperament." but it might be a good idea to describe Werckmeister temperament in particular and how this was the well temperament Bach refers to in the title. 65.34.183.218 (talk) 02:38, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Tuning to a telephone

Does this really have a place on this page? It seems quite trivial to me. Why give a detailed description of how to do something that can no longer be done? It's interesting that people would have ever practiced this, but I don't think there's an appropriate place on this page for trivia. Perhaps if we had a detailed history of tuning practice at some point? - Rainwarrior 16:18, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Other scale systems

The reasons for my cleanup of this section are the following:

1. Removing the technical terms "hemitonic" and "anhemitonic" which are obscure and relevant only to pentatonic scales.
2. If Pelog is a fusion of three pentatonic modes (is there a source for this?), that information belongs at the Pelog page. (Again, it's technical detail which doesn't really belong in a links section.)
3. Removing the "Longitude" nickname, this just seems silly.

I also have a question about the following: this system was first promoted by al-Farabi using a 25 tone scale. What is a 25 tone scale, and in what way does it use quarter tones? Should this not be 24 tones? (Was the octave counted by mistake?) - Rainwarrior 18:00, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not that technical, but my PC-Tuner allows me to choose for 1/4 meantone, Kirnberger, Werckmeister and Kellner temperament. However, these are not mentioned in the section of the article. Don't ask me why they should, ask AP Tuner. Ciao --Selach 00:28, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Tuning theory merge

I'm suggesting we merge Tuning theory to this page. It currently has little content, but its purpose is not significantly distinct from "Tuning systems" outlined on this page. - Rainwarrior 23:19, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

With no objections after several weeks, I have done this merge. - Rainwarrior 05:46, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Stopper Tuning

Should Bernhard Stopper's tuning system be listed here? I don't know much about it, but he sells products based on this special tuning. Is he and/or his tuning system well-respected? Dallasvaughan (talk) 21:46, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Impossibility of perfect tuning

The article states: "It is impossible to tune the twelve-note chromatic scale so that all intervals are "perfect" - I'd be very grateful if anyone knows enough about the subject to explain why it is impossible? Or if such an explanation exists elsewhere? Joeflintham (talk) 11:47, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The simple answer is that 2^(7/12) is not exactly equal to 3/2, but instead is 1.4983... Yet BOTH of these are the "correct" definition of a perfect 5th.

Yes, BUT: if one were to say "because my dog doesn't like the sound", such an explanation would be unsatisfying -- though technically correct -- if the definition of "perfect" were to involve whether my dog found the sound pleasing... What seems to be missing from the simple answer above is an explanation for why 2^(7/12) and 3/2 are relevant to the issue and why "BOTH of these" make any sense for being a "correct definition". It would be much appreciated by many of us if some sort of explanation could be given in sufficient depth so as to be understandable as making sense... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.125.235.136 (talk) 18:14, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

On the one hand, we have the harmonic series (nodes on a single string) with frequencies f,2f,3f,4f,5f...corresponding to C,C,G,C,E,G,C... Thus quite clearly a perfect 5th is a factor of 3f/2f i.e. 1.5. We also have the octave as a factor of 2. Now, by using the "cycle of 5ths", going repeatedly up a 5th and down an octave, we can get all the notes for a chromatic scale.

Unfortunately, such a chromatic scale isn't self-consistent. The size of a semitone varies depending on the key (so we can't modulate), and if you keep on with the cycle of 5ths for long enough, you *don't* get back where you started! --RichardNeill (talk) 07:18, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

That's true, but the tempered fifth is quite close to a pure 3/2. So, depending on the timbre and musical context, it might not be that noticeable, just a slow beating sound. A better example, because more extreme is to look at pure major thirds. In the twelve tone system three major thirds stack up to make the octave 2/1. But if you use the fifth harmonic just intonation 5/4, then three of them stack up to make 125/64 which at 1158.9411 cents is a long way away from an octave, nearly a quarter tone away from it. So there is no way to have the octave and the major third even close to just intonation in the twelve tone system. I'll put this into the article, it would be good to have something to explain that comment which won't be easy for a newbie to understand. Robert Walker (talk) 19:56, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Just made that edit. Also ended up rewriting the just intonation summary as well. It's a little longer than the other sections now, but I think perhaps it is worth doing it like that as the issues involved in just intonation help to make the motivation for the other tunings clearer. Robert Walker (talk) 20:45, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Some audible examples

Sox (in Linux) makes it very easy to synthesise some chords in the different tunings.

5ths (first in equal-temperament, then in just-intonation). They sound quite similar.

 play -n -c1 synth sin 440 sin 659.255 fade q 0.1 3 0.1
 play -n -c1 synth sin 440 sin 660 fade q 0.1 3 0.1

3rds (first in equal-temperament, then in just-intonation). These sound VERY different.

 play -n -c1 synth sin 440 sin 544.599 fade q 0.1 3 0.1
 play -n -c1 synth sin 440 sin 550 fade q 0.1 3 0.1

--RichardNeill (talk) 07:18, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it depends on how demanding and permissive you are in and of your ear, as it opens the question to what extent perfect pitch exists. It tends to be an instrumentalist's psychosis, as they become increasingly sensitive to pitch beat over years of tuning - particularly with fixed-interval instruments like woodwind, who can only change their root tuning by adjusting the length between the mouthpiece and key-holes. For example, I tune my harp that way - which can generate the kind of circular recursion you talk about above working on half-length harmonics to generate fifths above and below, iteratively to cover the entire scale. At least that way the beast is internally consistent, until some joker plays an A-440 which is about A-440.85673 or whatever and expects you to retune fifty-odd strings in musical in twenty seconds - the answer is to slip the oboist a pint beforehand! Some very popular bands are quite wild (for no particular reason André Réus springs to mind, probably quite unfairly) because they can get away with it by their stage presence. The key is keeping the customer satisfied, not yourself, as if you pursue that route you can get into some almost Gouldesque introversions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.129.84.66 (talk) 22:06, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Why A?

I came here to find information about a simple question, but couldn't. Why is the most frequently use reference for tuning (and for instance the one used to define the international standard concert pitch) the "A above the middle C", which is also the pitch of the vast majority (at least in my experience) of tuning forks. Of course the answer could be that one needs to choose some note, and this one is no worse than any other. Maybe it has to do with the way violins are usually tuned; this would at least explain why it is not the middle C, which in other respects seems to be a more common reference point. (But then D seems a good candidate as well.) I think if some reliable information on this is known, this article would be a good place... Marc van Leeuwen (talk) 09:33, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Stringed instruments must tune open strings. Violins (and double basses) could therefore settle for G, D, A, or E, but have no C string. Violas and cellos have C G D and A, but no E string. Of the three notes they have in common, the A is the highest (for the violin, viola, and cello) and therefore in a slightly more favourable range than G or D for the ear to discriminate pitch. All this is purely Original Research, of course. Perhaps a source can be found to confirm this, and it could then be added to the article.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:15, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Tabla: pitched or unpitched?

Are South Asian drums such as the tabla or mridangam considered pitched or unpitched? I'd like to mention them in the subsection on percussion instruments. These drums are "tuned" with an added mass, the syahi, in the middle of the head. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 15:00, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

According to Randel, Don Michael (2003). The Harvard Dictionary of Music, p.864. ISBN 9780674011632: "The conical right-hand drum (tablā or dāhinā)...is tuned to a definite pitch. The kettle-shaped left-hand drum (bāyā)...is tuned to a lower but indefinite pitch." The right hand drum appears to be tuned to Sa. Hyacinth (talk) 23:27, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Looking further, it seems that the black spot is more about timbre, and is applied when the drum is made. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 04:20, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

The black spot is about timbre but is also connected to pitch, in that it suppresses the inharmonic overtones, making it possible (and important) to tune the drum to a degree of the scale. See vibrations of a drum head. Andrewa (talk) 06:49, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Link to Spanish wiki is wrong

The page in the Spanish Wikipedia this article points to is about absolute tuning and corresponds to concert pitch, as opposed to the tuning systems used to define intervals.

I couldn't find a similar article page covering musical tuning systems in Spanish, so the link should be removed. I'm posting this as a warning before I delete it, just in case that someone comes up with a better idea. --Isacdaavid (talk) 01:18, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Are you going to add it to Concert pitch? Hyacinth (talk) 03:05, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Wrong alias

Tone system and musical tunings are two different things!

I changed the alias link. An entry "tone system" should also refer to the Ancient Greek and various other tone systems used since Byzantium until today. It is a completely different subject, because its structure is not a direct subject of intervals (only in a very eurocentric concept of music theory). Any objections? Platonykiss (talk) 13:29, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Rewrote Syntonic Tuning to Regular Diatonic Tunings

I've rewritten the syntonic tuning section of Musical tuning#Systems for the twelve-note chromatic scale along the lines of the new Regular Diatonic Tunings page for the reasons discussed in the talk page of that page. Robert Walker (talk) 01:49, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Piano is certainly NOT even tempered.

Where do you get this idea that a piano is even tempered? What nonsense. Play a tune on a piano, then transpose it up a semitone. Aas well as obviowsuly being a semitone higher, it actually sounds "different". Why - because the frequency ration of the semitones is different - that is, it is not equitemepred. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.175.43.237 (talk) 01:06, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

I think we have a case here of psychological "key characters" run wild. To be sure, once there is a reference key, a melody can feel more dissonant in the large-scale sense if played in the Neapolitan instead of the tonic, but in the absence of such an existing reference any key would serve equally well as a tonic, because pianos are specifically tuned by counting beats to give equal temperament. Double sharp (talk) 09:00, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps your piano is not tuned the same as 101.175.43.237's? Can you recommend a good piano tuner, perhaps?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:00, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

I think Google can easily help with that. ^_^ (For simplicity I am ignoring octave stretching, as it is essentially negligible at a distance of a semitone.) Double sharp (talk) 03:27, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Octave stretching also has little if anything to do with equal tempering. The stretched octaves are still, in theory, divided into twelve equal semitones. If you tune a piano in quarter-comma mean tone, or in Ptolomy's syntonic diatonic, or are just plain sloppy about tuning, then obviously it won't be in equal temperament, will it? If we were to enlist the opinions of a few experienced piano tuners, we would probably find that at least some of them skew equal temperament slightly in one way or another. This is of course wholly separate from the issue of fixed resonances in the piano body, which will give distinctive colours to different keys even supposing the instrument is tuned equally.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:06, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Regarding the resonances, if we are talking about a tonal phrase played on the piano in different keys, I would imagine that the differences in resonance would be mentally ironed out as they have nothing to do with the musical language being employed, just like we mentally tend to ignore the decay of notes struck on the piano. Furthermore, these differences could arise even with pure equal temperament, so clearly this is irrelevant to the actual tuning. I haven't seen anything about piano tuners today altering equal temperament in any way other than stretching the octaves; it would be useful to know if any reliable sources claim that this is still done, and to know the details. Double sharp (talk) 08:47, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

We "mentally iron out" all sorts of things when we listen. This can be a problem if we are expecting one thing but are given something else. This does not mean, however, that we cannot learn to turn off these filters and hear what is actually there. You are quite right that the resonances have nothing to do with the tuning system; what I was trying to say is that the piano does not come from the factory with equal temperament built in, but it does come with those fixed resonances, which we are free to notice or to ignore. However, we should not confuse the one thing with the other. I cannot say about "today", but I recall hearing a story back in the late 1970s about a piano tuner at the music department of a major state university in the US who confessed to slightly favoring F major when he tuned the pianos in the teaching studios, and got complaints when he once tuned one of the pianos in straight equal temperatment, just to see if anyone could tell the difference. The complaints were that that particular piano was not in tune, as all the others were.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:59, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Are beats used in tuning?

This article claims: "Interference beats are used to objectively measure the accuracy of tuning." Are beats really used in tuning? Other articles related to instrument tuning like electronic tune mention nothing about it. Expert articles about tuning on other sites also don't seem to speak about beats. It is hard to be sure since I am not a musician and this article has virtually no references. Keministi (talk) 21:22, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Beats are certainly used in tuning, at least by piano and organ tuners. Players of other instruments and singers tend more to use a lack of beats as a criterion, though this gets into the muddy waters of just intonation. References are vital on Wikipedia, and we need to find some on this subject. Thanks for bringing this up.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:26, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

The article piano tuning has a clear description of the use of beats and contains pertinent references. −Woodstone (talk) 05:33, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Dynamic tonality

A section "dynamic tonality" was added that is almost completely unintelligible. It either needs much better explanation or needs to be removed. The claim that it was copied from another WP article is rather disingenuous, because the same editor just created it there.−Woodstone (talk) 15:30, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

It looks like promotion of a novel concept by one of its inventors, hence WP:COI. Linking Dynamic tonality in "See also" might be appropriate, if reliable sourcing can be shown for its acceptance in a wide enough context. It may be interesting, but I've got my doubts about its notability. Just plain Bill (talk) 17:33, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Section removed, "See also" link added. Just plain Bill (talk) 13:11, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Since then, User:JimPlamondon has restored the section, trimmed into a form which gives a general overview of his invention. Until it becomes widely accepted by enough composers or musicians that it attracts notice in third-party reliable sources, I believe this section to be WP:UNDUE, with an aroma of promotion of yet unrealized future possibilities. regards, Just plain Bill (talk) 17:14, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

User:Just Plain Bill: I appreciate your attention to this article, and to other articles that mention Dynamic Tonality. I have every confidence that, working together, we can improve Wikipedia's treatment of Dynamic Tonality. 🙂

I respectfully submit that, in this case, you appear to be applying a standard of notability to Dynamic Tonality that you are not applying to the other tuning systems mentioned in the same article. I further submit that this is neither fair nor neutral.

Dynamic Tonality was novel when it was first described in 2007, but its novelties have since been documented in proper peer-reviewed articles in credible, mainstream scientific journals -- which I trust you will agree are proper secondary sources, and which I have (I believe) cited properly. The fact that I am a co-author of many of these papers does not diminish the fact that they were properly peer-reviewed, and hence are acceptable secondary sources. Furthermore, these papers have been cited by other researchers far more frequently than is average for scientific papers in this domain. Therefore, I submit that deleting Dynamic Tonality from this article on the grounds that Dynamic Tonality is "novel" is inaccurate, unfair, and not neutral.

The article starts by defining a tuning system as "the various systems of pitches used to tune an instrument, and their theoretical bases." The theoretical basis of Dynamic Tonality as a tuning system is well-established in the aforementioned peer-reviewed articles. Furthermore, the valid tuning range of Dynamic Tonality's syntonic temperament includes many of the specific temperaments that are already listed in the article, of which some were shown in the figure that you deleted. Just intonation (at 5-limit, 7-limit, and 11-limit), Pythagorean tuning, the various meantones, Well temperament, 12-tone equal temperament (12-tet), slendro, Partch's 43-tet, the quarter-tone scale, 19-tet, 22-tet, 31-tet, 53-tet -- all of these are embraced by Dynamic Tonality's syntonic temperament. Even the Miracle and Schismatic temperaments -- mentioned in this article -- are embraced by Dynamic Tonality (although not by its syntonic temperament). To include so many specific tunings (such as the various N-tets, which are tunings, not tuning systems) but to exclude the one and only tuning system that embraces so many of them -- in an article on tuning systems! -- is illogical, in addition to being unfair and not neutral.

Many of the tunings listed in the article have not been used except within academia or by their inventors (e.g., the Bohlen-Pierce, Partch's 43-tone, Carlos's various scales, Carrillo's Thirteenth Sound, Secor's Miracle Temperament, etc.). Despite this, you are imposing -- on Dynamic Tonality alone! -- the unique requirement that "it becomes widely accepted by enough composers or musicians" before you will allow it to be included in this article. How many is "enough"? Does this composition by John Moriarity qualify as "enough"? Do the 328 videos on YouTube that include the phrase "Dynamic Tonality" (of which only a few are mine) qualify as "enough"? Who decides? Imposing this unique requirement on Dynamic Tonality is arbitrary, unfair, and not neutral.

Finally, the article is not a list of the top 10 currently most-widely-used tuning systems. If the article were based on usage, then only Just Intonation would be included, as all other tuning "systems" have an insignificant number of users by comparison, such that even mentioning them would be "unbalanced" (with the possible exception of pelog and/or slendro). The article is, instead, about "the various systems of pitches used to tune an instrument, and their theoretical bases." Dynamic Tonality objectively meets this definition, even though many of the included tunings do not. Therefore, excluding Dynamic Tonality from this article based on its lack of current popularity is objectively unfair and not neutral.

That said, Just Plain Bill, I agree that my truncation of my previous section on Dynamic Tonality -- to avoid being labelled as "unbalanced" -- made the section less intelligible. This balancing of concision and clarity is a core function of Wikipedia's editors, and I appreciate your pointing it out. 🙂 I would be happy to take another stab at producing a clear and concise description of Dynamic Tonality in this article. For which purpose I will shortly restore the Dynamic Tonality section of this article as a basis of further editing, on which I look forward to your editorial criticisms.

Thank you again for your attention to Dynamic Tonality, and for your efforts to improve Wikipedia for all of its users. 🙂

Respectfully,

--JimPlamondon (talk) 04:53, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

… we can improve Wikipedia's treatment of Dynamic Tonality.

That begs the question of whether Wikipedia needs to treat Dynamic Tonality at all. For now, it is mentioned in this article's "See also" section, which will point interested readers in that direction.

My objection to giving dynamic tonality a section in this article does not stem from its novelty, but in great part from the preponderance of sources so far offered listing you as a co-author. For example, as far as I know, Harry Partch did not come to Wikipedia offering his own papers as evidence of his notability. Others, recognizing the extent of his musical contribution, created and edited an encyclopedia article on him and his work.

Publishing peer-reviewed papers, even in journals with a high impact factor, is not necessarily evidence of notability in the encyclopedic sense used on Wikipedia. Being mentioned in YouTube videos carries no weight in this context. While wide acceptance by composers and musicians would be persuasive, serious discussion by otherwise uninvolved music theorists would be even more so. The onus of finding that evidence is on you, and on anyone else interested in bringing the news of this way of handling a wide palette of interrelated tunings and timbres.

This thread is about whether dynamic tonality is notable enough for space in a general article on musical tuning. The notability of other systems has no bearing on this discussion. Until there is consensus on this talk page to add that section back into the article, doing so is unlikely to be productive, and likely to be considered edit warring. Regards, Just plain Bill (talk) 15:06, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

make paragraph: fan tuning = fan tuning (music) (all piano tuners/people who tune do it)

You tune the bass strings lower, you keep the middle as they are, and the high-frequencies higher.

These deviations are small (no bigger than 25 cents).

Fan tuning is performed because the strings of the instruments do not generate a single sinusoidal waveform when analyzed with Fourier analysis; each plucked string generates many harmonics which does not match any musical system. Thus a professional tuner tunes the sum of the harmonics and not based only on the fundamental frequency displayed by the tuning organs. Each harmonic has a different volume; in most instruments the fundamental harmonic is louder, but in some wind instrument the second harmonic is louder.

Practically what you do as a guitarist: You tune the bass strings lower (a puny bit), you keep the middle as they are, and the high-frequencies higher (a puny bit). And you do that with other musicians to find the best compromise (no ideal tuning exists).

It's described in WP article Stretched tuning.−Woodstone (talk) 07:31, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Reading Culture

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 January 2022 and 11 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ritte230 (article contribs).

Proposed Split

This article is clearly about two separate topics. I propose we split to "Musical tuning (practice)" and "Tuning systems." Note that this has already been discussed with no consensus reached at Talk:Musical_tuning#Proposed_merge. --Of the universe (talk) 04:08, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

@Zanaq, Rainwarrior, and Jerome Kohl: Of the universe (talk) 04:13, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't feel connected to this question. The comment I made in 2006 was about a proposed merge of content that existed then, which was carried out at the time. The responses to it are from more than a decade later and not relevant to the state of things in 2006. If you want to split the current version of this page I've got no opinion, sorry. - Rainwarrior (talk) 08:44, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Jerome Kohl (†Aug 2020 RIP) will not comment here. He is still missed. Just plain Bill (talk) 15:13, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm very sorry to hear that. My condolences. Of the universe (talk) 02:03, 18 December 2023 (UTC)