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Post by andy3sheds on May 24, 2013 6:52:09 GMT
Recently I was in a session with a Northumbrian piper whose pipes were tuned to F. This is the original key for Northumbrian Small pipes Apparently concert pitch has changed over the centuries and what we now consider to be G was originally the equivalent of Todays 20cents sharp of F If I want to tune 20 cents sharp what do I want to calibrate the MHz setting of my tuner to? Hope this makes sense
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ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on May 24, 2013 8:09:02 GMT
Hmm. Concert pitch has been all over the place throughout the centuries, from a fair bit lower than now, to a fair bit higher, up to several semitones. So, as the "space" between adjacent notes is 100 cents, and you want to be 20 cents sharp, I would guess you need to be 1/5 of the way towards the next note. Current Concert pitch A is 440Hz, A# is 466.16; the difference is 66.16; 1/5 of that is 13.23. So I suppose you set your tuner to A=453.23, or 453 near enough - this is equivalent to the 19th century old philharmonic pitch I believe.
All of which is well and good, but why not just tune to the pipes? Mind you, they aren't likely to be in tune with themselves if my experience is anything to go by!
Keith
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Post by scripsit on May 24, 2013 10:22:46 GMT
Keith is right about the variations in concert pitch. I was surprised to find out that 'A' wasn't always 440 'A', too. I believe that there are still orchestras (German?) that choose to tune down somewhat today in accordance to some perceived proper 19th century procedure. My daughter is a baroque musician, an accomplished recorder player, and always has to enquire ahead of time what tuning the harpsichord continuo player will use when doing small group stuff. Annoying, too, because you actually have to use different recorders for the old 'baroque' tuning which is a long way south of modern pitch.
And of course Hendrix looked like he was in B but sounded B flat. And Black Sabbath are usually down a full tone because of Tony's missing finger joint.
I think Keith's idea of tuning directly to the pipes is better than trying to nut it out mathematically. I use the clip on tuners for convenience, and they are fiddly to calibrate, but there are some extremely accurate tuner apps for iphones and ipads (I've got 'Cleartune' that I drag out if I'm being super careful for recording) that, on ipad at least, allows you to designate the pitch name from an external audio source, and then adjust all tunings around that. These apps are cheap (less than $10) and I think have crossover versions for Android and the like. If you don't want to do it by ear, that might be the way to go.
Kym
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Post by andy3sheds on May 24, 2013 19:23:12 GMT
Tuning to the pipes is of course the best option you just need a cooperative piper who's prepared to wait for others to tune up!
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