Where's the E#?

[spike]

Would a persone with perfect pitch automatically compensate for this -
assuming they're playing an instrument where it's possible of course.
I beg to arsk - gruss - spike

 

[peedee]

old git wrote:

PeeDee wrote:
Hi Old Git
surely there is C#/Db and F#/Gb.
They're same note arent they?
We manage to get rid of L.s.d. so lets simplify music as well, give a letter to all notes including semitones and have a scale A - L if i've worked it out right, and do away with keys, must be simpler.
Good topic for whole new thread there. 😉

Sorry to have to reject your patent application but twelve tone scales were popular with 'classical' composers around the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century and I distantly recall that someone, possibly Gil Evans, wrote a twelve tone scale for one of Miles Davis's albums.

Shucks! beaten to it again!!

 

[peedee]

TomMapfumo wrote:
PeeDee Sharp!

Him Clever 😛

just thought I'd highlight it again, in case anybody missed it!!

 

[peedee]

Young Col wrote:
Tom and all
Who invented the octave?
A quick internet search has several answers. One goes into lots of scale divisions and theory that is literally, all Greek! I am inclined to accept the simpler view on www.easyduets.co.uk that an eight note scale was just a convenient chain of notes to sing - and presumably a bit richer than a pentatonic scale?
When I started learning electronics others on my course couldn't understand why the term "octave" was used to denote a doubling or halving of frequency; easy for musicians who understood the frequency difference from, say, middle to top C. In electronics you can specify things like the frequency response of an amplifier as having a gain of xdB (deciBels) per octave, or a filter as having a roll off (decrease) of xdB/octave.
Colin

When I stopped my radio activities I thought I had seen the last of harmonics problems or 'birdies' but now I get it on the lower notes.
:laugh:
Your comments above and Pete's "not all semitones are the same"
can you measure the frequencies of each note, and semitone to see the difference with your oscilloscope, if you have one.
If E# is the same as F, does that mean the frequental difference between the two is the same as a semitone?
When playing the scale it sounds right, when in theory E and F should sound only a semitone apart.
Phew, I'm giving myself a headache here, hope understand!! 🙁

P D

 

[old_git]

PeeDee,
Please excuse the lateness of these answers to your questions but at my age the memory can play.......What is this TV programme in front of me? Not very interesting, must be Open University...........some strange tricks.

What you need to do is contact a Mr. Schmidt in the USA. He is a motorcyclist, good! A racing motorcyclist, even gooderer! Makes saxophones and flutes with a fingering system that should suit you, even goodererest.
Raise the lowest finger and the pitch raises a semitone. So all you do to change key is to alter your fingering by the same number of semitones, which equates to lifted fingers, for each note. Basically notes A to L. There is a small problem, if you think that Mk lVs are expensive, wait till you see his price list and the three year wait. The latter is important at my time of life.

Another answer is electronics. Buy a MIDI equipped keyboard or Electronic Wind Instrument. On either, learn one Major scale and its related minor. Suggest C Major for keyboard and G Major for EWIs. Then simply use the instrument/sound module to carry out any necessary transposition.

 

[peedee]

Hi Old Git
thanks for the info. Was waiting for a reply from the other ham, young col, but like you, and me I guess age is having its effect.
Herr Schmidt USA sounds interesting but i think I'll stick with the traditional methods, too old for change now :S
re the keyboard, have a yammi keyboard with a MIDI output, so will have a play with that when I'm recovering from my hernia op next year, sax is out for 6 weeks! wife quite relieved I think 🙁
Why does man have to complicate everything? i think I'll just play what i want , how i want and bend the notes to buggery. Somebody'll enjoy it I'm sure.
CQ CQ CQ anybody???

 

[young_col]

G0JJI de G3YCR (sorry for the amateur radio telegraphese all others, but it's not much different to outbursts of Welsh and I promise not to do it often).
Pee Dee - I have got a 30 MHz 'scope but I don't know what I'd do for the frequency source. And if I knew the frequency I was putting in I wouldn't have to measure it!
E to F is a semitone, but we only consider E# and F as the same because of our equal temperament compromise. In physics they are not exactly the same but I don't know what the actual difference in frequency is. Does anyone know all the actual pitches for the 12 note chromatic plus enharmonics if you start at concert A =440Hz? I tried to do the maths, but it was hurting my brain too!

YC

 

[peedee]

Ok Young Col
Just wondered. I've just got Band In A Box, and might be able to get the info from that . Anyway, back to the instrument, and less of this mind boggling stuff :cry:

 

[old_git]

Nine and five, nine and five but my brain is too old to boggle.

Hmmm. Poole. Isn't that PW country? Up on the North Downs above the Croydon gap? Hope the water tables high, guys.

 

[young_col]

Well a bit of research found http://www.kayelaby.npl.co.uk/general_physics/2_4/2_4_5.html
which gives the frequencies of equal temperament scales, plus the ratios and maths. But its all a bit pure physics (how many cents do you bend a note before it sounds "right"?!). Still doesn't answer the point about what exactly the E# used to be, if it was ever exactly anything.

PeeDee in PW land - do you mean that magazine run by my old friend Rob Mannion that first got me hooked on radio in the 1960's?

Yup all the rain runs down the hill and off towards you in Croydon, OG! It was a right boggy route once. The Prince Regent must have hated coming through here on the turnpike to Brighton. Got his nice clothes all muddy, the poor dear.
Regards

YC

 

[old_git]

Young Col,
When I attempted to study for a licence, gave up with a hopeless tutor, a certain degree of familiarity with maths was a requirement as well as a need to tell the difference between dot dash and dash dot.
Is the Rob Mannion you are referring to, the head honcho of one of Camm's Comic descendants?
To avoid answering your frequency of E# question, it depended on what the instrument maker thought appropriate as well as the temperament in favour at the time. Modern usage is that baroque is played at 415 as opposed to the 440 that is ISO but until someone invents a time machine, we'll never really know. One of the problems, is it a problem?, is that if you increase the tuning pitch of string instruments, they tend to bend and then break owing to string pressure. Hey there's a thought, get rid of guitarists by substituting something like A=660hertz.
Just thought of a problem, all saxes will need to be re-classified as the next model lower.
Tight G5RVs everyone.

 

[young_col]

OG
I just thought there was a scientific explanation in frequency terms. My AB Guide to Music Theory (there's studious for you) has a footnote that starts "If the laws of physics are strictly followed...B# is not quite the same as C...." and it then goes on to explain about equal temperament. But I expect you're right about older instrument makers and temperaments. ET is so mathematically specified that there's no room for enharmonics being different.

You've got no chance of changing A=440Hz. As it's in an international standard it will take beyond our lives to amend. Watching paint drying isn't in the same league.

YC
[Practical Wireless could have been one of Camms. PW publishing also has the dull titled Falconers Magazine. I thought it used to be Raptors Monthly - much more exotic.]

 

[peedee]

Yeah, PW used to be F J Camms baby, now Rob Mannion runs it.
HQ used to be just off Poole Quay, now they share an office with Short Wave magazine at Broadstone, about 5 miles north.
Hey, getting a bit deep with this radio, sorry audio theory stuff, notice others keeping very quiet
:erm:
Time for me to bow out, too heavy for me, just about scraped through me radio exam!
Tight lip/tight G5 = higher note?
Morse code? No problem, but I had military training, i.e. a clip round the ear if you got it wrong :cry:
PW have Falconers magazine 'cos falcons can be taught to grasp the end of your long wire in their beaks and drop it over a tree, or next doors TV aerial :laugh:

 

[RiceBag]

Pete Thomas wrote:
Here it is

If E# were also F-flat? Should it be in between the E and F keys, maybe?

I thought it was a PhotoShop job, but just kidding.

Wonder what it would do to chords.