Pythagorean stuff

[tris]

Arrr as in so much to type....


When I was 15 I had listened to and played so much Hendrix that off intonation was the norm! It is like a race car driver. Speed is a way of life to them so that it becomes the norm. It's guys like Bird, Trane these guys were not playing fast. To them was a normality.

Purple Haze by Hendrix is a case in point. How many really good versions have you ever heard? Not a lot I guess as if the intonation is not just so (ie wrong in all the right places) it is flat.


I think it all comes down to what you are used to heariing.

 

[Bobby G]

"I think it all comes down to what you are used to hearing".

I agree partially, but I think it also depends on your attitude, whether you always listen within your chosen musical comfort zone or whether your ears are open to new and interesting or moving sounds.

Personally, I have no problem with people who only listen to what they've always listened to and balk at anything new, especially if it's a bit challenging, but I like to hear new music - not necessarily brand new, just new to me. As I've said before, a lot of the music I experienced in my formative years was experimenting, creating new sounds and musical structures, out of its mind on loco-weed etc as well as a lot of more straightforward, or whimsical, or whatever-it-felt-like music, so my ears are used to, and open to, what may be considered a bit unusual. Which is not to say I can't get down 'n' boogie as well.

Re Hendrix - some of his stuff sounded flat because it was; didn't he used to tune his guitar to Eb? Incidentally, the first time I heard Voodoo Chile, aged about 13-14, I was physically scared of it, it was so out there - not just the playing itself, but also the place Hendrix was coming from. Scared, yes, but I loved it too. The only other record to scare me like that was Fleetwood Mac (the real one, with Peter Green) doing Green Manalishi.

What do you suppose are the Pythagorean ratios between the pitches in a 16-note scale? :laugh:

Cheers, Bob

 

[tris]

Bob,

Hendrix wise when I meant flat as in 99% of the renditions of Purple Haze that are lifeless.. I did not mean to imply flat in pitch. My poor word choice there...


For me, in my playing, intonation is another tool that I employ. But it really depends on the context and the rhythm section. Play out of tune with the right players and it sounds amazing, play it with duffers and that is how it sounds... ie like you do not know what you are doing.

It is not that I am tiring of these discussions as such but there is so much discourse about note pitch and harmony when it is such a small and relativity unimportant part of music.

I am a bit of an artist on the side and I think about music using artists terminology. Colour, texture, transparency, density, rhythm, balance, shading, highlighting... etc

I am sorry but for me these terms are emotive and inspiring. Ratios and numbers do not get my juices flowing in the same way! 😉

 

[Bobby G]

I agree Tris, the numbers may be necessary and inescapable (does a house-builder need to know the chemical structure of a brick?), but it's the human part of the music that we want and respond to. Although I'm not an artist so can't think in those terms so much, my primary response to the music is emotional (sometimes though I find music evokes certain colours/textures), although sometimes following on from that may be a phase of 'rational analysis' but in terms of how the music has affected me.

Maybe Hendrix intonation 'problems' were part of his musical language, he definitely used the thousand-note scale discussed elsewhere! (Incidentally, I see the thousand-note scale almost as a tongue-poke to the hard rational analytical interpretation of music, what it seems to be saying to me is that you can find your own pitch between the notes to express yourself musically) Also, because he was pushing the physical limitations of the guitar some strange things were going on - if you tune down to Eb, then give the bottom string a good whack, it has a tendency to drop slightly in pitch while it's vibrating before returning to true pitch. Obviously there's a mathematical and physical explanation for this phenomenon, but just feel it, man!

Obviously we can dance this mess around for ever, and it's interesting to see how different people relate to music; I watched a programme once about the continuing popularity of the song 'My Way', and one of the people explaining it was doing it from the analytical point of view. You see, the first part of the melody, 'and now' is sung on a rising sixth, which expresses longing, and nostalgia etc. I found all this totally fascinating, especially when set against other people talking about the song in terms of how it made them feel, what in their life it reminds them of, where they were when they first heard it etc. All valid, for sure, but t is reinforces my point that you respond emotionally to a piece of music, and then maybe analyse what the comser has done to elicit that response. The analysis of producing a response isn't always going to work though, because the first thing about a tune is that it somehow has to engage you, and no amount of rising sixths is going to counter what the listener feels is dull piece of music.

Anyway, my analysis of the enduring popularity of 'My Way' is this - everyone thinks they can sing it when they've had a few beers.

Cheers, Bob

 

[chrisshaw]

I did like the quote maths are the universe. But the harmonic series is very colourful and musical naturally and it remains a fundamental influence in musical composition . But it was great for Pythoagoras to delelop his tuning (and the works of Theobald Boem, Henry Arnold De Zwolle, Beucher and of course Sax, to be here today.)

I remember learning years ago to use fingerings to play the sax in meantune in most of the keys. Unresonant and dull, if not pointless, unless using the fingerings for double densities. I think I'll stick to the equal temperment and enjoy the story of tunings through the ages. But to me it is nature that is beauiful

 

[chrisshaw]

it is maths that have made me post twice by accident.

 

[Jimmymack]

Poor old Py, cracking the universe of musical harmony only to find that some of it is frankly a bit flat. Actually quite a few of the notes don't fit exactly, or they do but people will insist on hearing them wrong. Then you've got large sections of the globe that don't use anything remotely like Pythagoras's tempered scale and insist on using quarter tones and who knows what else, microtones even. Then no sooner have you achieved dominance of the "civilised" world when they start looking for discords and before you know it you've got "blue" notes everywhere. I don't know, you do your best. At least pop music's under control these days.

 

[Throckmorten]

Nice one James.

My teacher remarked that the history of western music could be seen as the gradual acceptance of dissonance.

I would only add that if so, it has probably accelerated in the past 50 yrs.

 

[chrisshaw]

The history of western music, or rather the history of tuning is more based on the desire to be able to moduate through the keys.

In the older tunings the beats between notes in some keys became so great that they created "Wolf Notes". Nowadays the eual temperement kicks out around 3 beats per second between the notes and I don't see what's wrong with it. Even many of the
asian countries, nowdays either make western instruments or listen to western music.

If anything it was escaping dissonance.

There is a lot of romance around natural or pure intervals, but nobody wants to go back to speaking in grunts, ancient greek or Latin instead of speaking a modern language.
(Stargate fans do not reply to that comment) 😛

 

[JohnB]

"and most of the rest of us wanna know if he's the new coach of Panathinaikos?"


brilliant! :laugh:

 

[old_git]

Just discovered this thread and suspect that the famous assume, spelt ass of u and me, might apply.
Does anybody actually know what Ancient Greek music sounded like? Stand up the boy who said Zorba the Greek. All we really know is that the pentatonic scale is accepted worldwide and appears to be naturally appealing.
All the mathematicians were able to do was to justify what was common and that was probably the pentatonic scale. Everything to do with equal temperament was a later invention, mainly due to the requirements of keyboard instruments.
Bobby G's point about glissandos being used for expression and that the brains might not have known about them, suggests that they were unable to whistle or sing.
Accordions that are vibrato tuned, always have one bank of the M reeds slightly sharp to achieve the beating effect, some 'mussette' tuned have a third bank tuned slightly flat but not normally selectable with the concert pitch bank only. The best accordion shop in London has a pro Egyptian customer and he needs to tune to quarter tones for him. Always wonder what one would notice on playing or attempting to play it?
Someone far more versed than I in musical history and theory, not a difficult task, please volunteer to put us all straight on these points.

 

[charlie_parker]

The reason the pentatonic scale is prevalent is that it is constructed from the harmonic series.
The 5th is the first harmonic that isn't the same note.
A 5th above,and again,and again=pentatonic scale.
C,G,D,A,E.
Closed:C,D,E,G,A,(C).