Musical tone...

[Externet]

Hi all.

Before the second was selected as time unit, before frequencies were measured, there were musical instruments that somehow, musicians brains selected what would a correct tuning of a note was, by ear.

 

Is there some fixed brain perception related to a 'correct' note ? Like if there was no modern Hertz reference ?
Is the musical reference scale based in exactly 440.000 Hz (for La / A) or somewhere nearby ?
Is that an arbitrary choice ? How was that particular tone chosen ?

 

If by 'magic' we could have a recording of 1000 years ago musicians; would it sound harmonically correct today ? For sure it would had to them.

Yes, japanese and others have their own 'crooked' scale by today standard.

[StringJunky]

This Wiki on concert pitch may help to answer your question. Prior to 1859 - when France set it at 435Hz - it was quite arbitrary within quite a large range of that. The act of tuning an instrument to itself, or with other instruments, is about minimising the sonically unpleasant destructive interference that can occur when out-of-tune notes are played together, so it can be done without a numerical standard, which started to get figured out about 1830.

Edited February 16, 2015 by StringJunky

[Enthalpy]

The pitch (or reference for A) is arbitrary, as tell its fluctutions over time. As well, it tends to be 444HZ in the US versus 440Hz in Europe, so instruments difficult to tune (xylophone, clarinets) are pitched at 442Hz.

 

Renaissance intruments were pitched as low as 415Hz (with bigger fluctuations than today) hence are hard to use today. That's a half tone lower. Tuneable instruments like stringed ones suffer a lot if asked to play at today's pitch.

 

Some musicians are said to have an absolute sense of pitch, needing no reference to tune an instrument. One of my violin professors claimed he did, the other not. I'm not quite sure whether they could tune a broadband instrument like a Theremine, or only a string instrument (the sound gets more brilliant when the string tension lets the sound become faster in it than in air, and this happens just below the proper tune), or only their usual instrument (they show many resonances, rather sharp).

 

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The equal-tempered scale has nothing magic and is really arbitrary. By chance, twelve equal half-tones fitted approximately the scales used before in Europe, and they ease playing and tuning. But they do not sound well nor avoid unpleasant beats. Violonists need to learn to play according to the equal-tempered scale, and it's neither natural nor easy. Fifths and fourth fit well, but especially small seconds do not; 2^3/12 does not fit 6/5 from the natural scale, and sounds really badly on a violin.

 

An other strong example is 11/10 and 12/11 that give 1.5 half-tone. You know, when hunting horns play so badly "out of tune", that's when they use the 11th harmonic. It's a perfectly natural frequency proportion and is used in Turkey for instance. But we're educated to find it "out of tune" because it's outside the equally-tempered scale. The 7th harmonic as well, say on a trumpet, sound "too low" for our habits despite being a natural tune. Traditional music from Greece, Romania, Hungary uses such intervals, as conventions differ.

Edited February 17, 2015 by Enthalpy