Use promo code BENNETT30 to get 30% off Entonal Studio before the end of September: entonal.studio/ 🎶

@klaxoncow

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, I made a comment on a Wings of Pegasus video, where he was using pitch analysis to work out whether auto-tune was being applied to a vocalist's performance - and he was comparing it to Freddie Mercury's vocals, who was infamously good at perfectly pitching his voice. And the point I made was that auto-tune - at least out of the box - will be "correcting" vocal performances to Equal Temperament. So, weirdly, what the software could well be doing is taking a perfectly pitched Just Intonation tuning... and then de-tuning it to be slightly wrong to match Equal Temperament. That auto-tune could, with the best singers, actually be making their performance worse. Adding in "beating" that actually wasn't originally there in the live performance. I mentioned this because I also noticed that - understandably so - his pitch analysis software (you can get it on Android, so I took a look for myself as well) analyses pitch in - you guessed it - Equal Temperament. So when analysing these vocal performances, you could see even the best singers seemingly being just slightly out. Being just slightly below or above the pitch lines. But, ah, this was why I commented. Was Freddie Mercury actually consistently pitching himself just shy of "correct" tuning, as per Equal Temperament, or was he, in fact, always perfectly hitting Just Intonation tuning, but because the pitch analysis software (and auto-tune, for the vocal performance he was comparing it to) is fixed to Equal Temperament, it's wrongly saying that Just Intonation is "slightly out of tune"? But, of course, the truth is that Just Intonation is "perfect" tuning, and what it's actually registering there is that Equal Temperament is the thing that's always "just slightly out of tune". But it is a mad thought - particularly with the prevalence of pitch correction / auto-tune in modern recording - that all these vocal performances are being forced to be "slightly wrong" to match Equal Temperament, when they could well have been (probably were, because, as you noted, this is how singers tune themselves, listening out for "beating") exactly on the nose in Just Intonation. That recording studios and labels are so obsessed with creating "the perfect product" that they are very possibly - with the best singers - actually degrading their live vocal performance to something worse than it actually originally was? (Except Adele. The pitch analysis software shows it - she never uses auto-tune or pitch correction. A shame, though, because probably only a singer of her quality and repute is able to carry enough clout with the record label to insist "no auto-tune". A surprising one, in the analysis by Wings of Pegasus, is that Michael Bublé - or Mickey Bubbles, as I prefer to call him - is actually pitch corrected on his albums. This is kind of weird, as the guy has done enough live performances - that are provably not corrected - to know that, no, he does not need that "assistance". But I don't know... do modern studio engineers just kind of automatically apply "auto-tune" to vocals without telling the artist? That it's now such a routine part of recording, it happens without thought to whether it's appropriate or needed to do so? Like, is Bublé even aware that they've done this to his performance? Or does he just "leave it to the engineers" and they just do it as a matter of course, out of habit, these days?)

@bernardthedisappointedowl6938

Жыл бұрын

Top quality and thoughtful content as ever David, ^oo^

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

@@bernardthedisappointedowl6938 thanks!

@noonehere0987

Жыл бұрын

@@klaxoncow It's unlikely to add beating unless there are multiple voices being sung at the same note with the same intonation. It's an issue in choirs because of so many people trying to sing the same note, but is less of an issue in a performance with just a single singer, and might actually fix beating that exists, particularly if the singer is doubling an instrument that is 12-tet tuned and they try to sing justly (unlikely to happen if they're singing / playing at the same time, but hey, you never know). And you seem to be assuming that just intonation is better or is "correct" when there really is no basis for assuming either of those things.

@afrosheent3arcmichael69

Жыл бұрын

I love your channel thank you!

My respect for instrumentalists using non-fretted instruments just went up massively

@sharp9150

Жыл бұрын

ngl ive been playing violin for 5 years and I've never even done this conciously

@randybrown8872

10 ай бұрын

Especially confusing learning where to put your fingers but if you know your music theory, have a good ear, and practice you can figure it out.

@mihailmilev9909

9 ай бұрын

Exactly

@mihailmilev9909

9 ай бұрын

My thoughts for years

@mihailmilev9909

9 ай бұрын

But wait, wind players do this too(?)

This is why in Indian classical music, each "note" is not a specific frequency, but a range of frequencies so they can be justly intoned in different harmonic contexts.

@QuintessentialQs

Жыл бұрын

And it's funny because obviously violin players in Western 12TET music do this instinctively. But it's not notated in any way by our musical system.

@placeholdier

Жыл бұрын

Care to share some example of indian classical music? :)

@QuintessentialQs

Жыл бұрын

@@placeholdier For an artist I would look to Ravi Shankar or his daughter Anoushka. But generally if you just search for raga composers, there are very many.

@eus8964

5 ай бұрын

@@placeholdier do you want instrumental or vocal? Some recommendations: Instrumental: raag bihag by Nikhil baneejee or Ravi Shankar Vocals: raga bhoop by Kishori Amonkar or raag nand by kumar gandharva. Hope this helps!

I'm a flute player, who has to learn early, how to adjust the tuning constantly. Even changes brought upon heat or cold of the room adjusted your tuning . Many wood wind players are always aware of "being in tune". Thank you for this video

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

Thanks!

@tanguydelooz2881

Жыл бұрын

Interesting. How do you adjust it on a flute ?

@clownpocket

Жыл бұрын

@@tanguydelooz2881 Embouchure

@michaelmeyer2725

Жыл бұрын

@@tanguydelooz2881 Lip position on the mouthpiece and air support are the 2 main ways.

@mikem668

Жыл бұрын

Thanks. I played trumpet. We'd play a note before a concert and the band master would tell us to push or pull part of the instrument in or out. Never even considered it would change during a concert unless I hit it by accident. Brass must be less susceptible than woodwinds. But then no one told me you could breathe into the horn slowly and the note would emerge. That probably means the note isn't exact.

I remember an interview with Tom Sholz of Boston, where he mentioned that he always tunes his guitar a bit flat (10 cents, I think he said) so that he can play with the temperament of the notes on the fly using finger pressure. So there are options even for fretted instruments.

@althealligator1467

Жыл бұрын

Open strings: "You can't do this to me... YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I SACRIFICED?!"

@noonehere0987

Жыл бұрын

That destroys open chords, and you can adjust the temperament anyways if you're playing because there is no preferred reference pitch.

@noonehere0987

Жыл бұрын

@ghost mall yea, it does make sense if you're playing barred chords or just soloing with fretted notes or something and you want to match things both above and below equal temperament. It just seems unwieldy to me, but hey, who am I to argue with Tom Sholz? Guitar isn't even my primary instrument and he's a famous (and fantastic) guitarist!

@tbird81

Жыл бұрын

Musicians always have BS tales like this. It's not likely to be true.

@FMEEvangelist

Жыл бұрын

Interesting. While watching the video I was wondering if a top guitarist could adjust their finger position within a fret to affect the sound. Does this mean that they could?

Coming from a math background, I never fully understood why the harmonic series was called that. Now it actually makes sense

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

😃

@joseluisblanco8074

Жыл бұрын

I'm an electrical engineer and we study harmonics in the voltage/currents (Fourier and all that stuff). I remember that in order to have even harmonics the function must be asymmetric. So if we have a tone with a fundamental and an octave higher harmonic like in the example, the sound wave form is not symmetrical. I wouldn't have expected this

@althealligator1467

Жыл бұрын

@@joseluisblanco8074 symmetrical in what way? I just had my first day of musicology, so I'm interested

@noahsan92

Жыл бұрын

not me thinking you meant math rock 😭

@joseluisblanco8074

Жыл бұрын

@@althealligator1467 It means that the positive and negative parts of the sound wave (which is a pressure wave),or, equivalently, the movement of the string in a string instrument,are not symmetric about the X (0) axis..

I’ve been trying to explain that to my students for years, but your video just nailed it. Thanks, David!

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

😊😊😊

For synths and DAW use, there is Hermode tuning. A adaptive tuning system that will tune every note on the fly. Hermode might already be in your DAW as Cubase and Logic Pro both have this standard available. Some synths (e.g. older Waldorf and newer Virus models) have this build in too.

@doinky4345

Жыл бұрын

is it cpu friendly or does it make ur pc a jet engine xd

@ezion67

Жыл бұрын

@@doinky4345 Its just midi data. Very little cpu power needed.

@tibitoth_hu

Жыл бұрын

@@ezion67 So does midi support microtonality? That's new to me

@ezion67

Жыл бұрын

@@tibitoth_hu If you look up Hermode tuning there is a good explanation of how it works online. Including a in depth discussion of the algorithm behind it all. And plenty of example audio files. The original version used pitch bend messages to achieve the micro tuning. Using the Roland interpretation of "OMNI ON, MONO" mode to "fake" polyphonic pitch bend. This uses a one voice per channel setup and was intended for controlling midi synths from a midi guitar. Not sure if the modern Hermode versions build into Cubase or Logic still use the same trick. An other approach would be to manipulate micro tuning parameters on the fly using CC.

@fretnesbutke3233

Жыл бұрын

So glad you brought up Hermode! I use it in my Logic Pro DAW. I'm a little oversensitive to Equal Temperament and I consider it a godsend. As a guitarist,I can't resist constantly tweaking the tuning depending on key..D Major drives me up the wall otherwise. The overwhelming number of alternate temperaments with software also,to accommodate ethnic instruments,is amazing. I'm sure Hermode and microtonal possibilities will be increasingly refined in the near future.

Something about that intro to Scar Tissue always sounded off to me. But not in an unpleasant way, or one I could put into words. Now it makes sense, and shows just how trained our ears are in the traditional tuning. Thanks for noting that song.

This explains why when I tune my guitar by ear and play whats sounds to me like an in tune e chord, but when playing some other chords after, my ears think a string is still out of tune. Great video!

@clipsmasterproductions7479

Жыл бұрын

Yes, guitar is interesting in that it’s not only using an imperfect tuning, but the fret intonation is also somewhat imperfect.

@MaestroKatProductions

Жыл бұрын

@@clipsmasterproductions7479 and that's why true temperament frets (the squiggly frets) exist lol

@HowardBaileyMusic

Жыл бұрын

This is something that fretted instrument players just have to learn to play around. You choose your intervals to match the song (like you said "playing Am at the 5th fret") and making slight string bends to justly tune chords & solos that use more than one string. Every time you bend a string in a solo you're most likely pitching it up to a justly tuned position. It eventually becomes second nature.

@bbyng7316

9 ай бұрын

It is rare to hear an in tune guitar, sadly. Or at least, if your ears are sensitive, you often feel guitar as the rough stuff.

Wow, the thought put into this and the amount of info crammed into this short of a video is crazy. I respect that and keep making videos because i learn so much about music because of it.

@chrishei3111

Жыл бұрын

Right?? I watched that Jacob Collier video from the start awhile ago and I was like "Ok this guy talks in music and i cant understand" but this was MUCH easier to grasp (parts at least, still learning the basics!)

Can I just say this is the best plugged sponsorship ever XD Great video as usual!

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

Thanks!!

A song that goes from one justly intoned key to another with smooth transitions would probably sound like a Barbershop Harmony arrangement. In Barbershop Harmony we often change the chord prior to one of those awkward shifts to another key into a transitional chord or inversion so that the two sections transition easily with it all being in just intonation. This technique is often called a swipe.

@clipsmasterproductions7479

Жыл бұрын

Wow good point

@dedemushi7824

Жыл бұрын

that's very interesting!

@polinanikulina

Жыл бұрын

I wrote of this exact concept but from my violin background.

@bbyng7316

9 ай бұрын

Ah, that wonderful "Barber of Seville"?

As a violinist who plays both guitar and piano, this is the video explanation I needed to help others understand the subtlety, thank you!

That last piece composed by David made me the same effect as when I'm having a conversation and suddenly we change room. The musical/conversational information is there, yet at the transition between chords/doors, it takes a very discreet and quick moment for my brain to re-adjust.

@brianmessemer3657

Жыл бұрын

Haha great analogy. Love it. The acoustical space literally changes mid-conversation

@bbyng7316

9 ай бұрын

Brilliant analogy because it lit. describes a mood change which can only happen through time and space.

12TET is all well and good but the "close enough for rock 'n' roll" temperament usually works for me.

Dear David, Your capability of explaining complex matters in a very simple and understandable yet thorough way is just impressive. Rarely have I seen a video bringing to the point the problem of temperament as easily as that one.

Excellent video! I’ve been into Microtonality since 1977, and since I recently got my Lumatone a few months ago, I’ve been (finally!) able to play in 31TET (31 equal steps per octave rather than the usual 12). It’s kinda wild for the M3 to sound rock-solid, dead-on Just, and the P5 to sound a little … unsettled. However, the 31TET P5 is ~2.5 better in-tune than 12TET’s M3, so it’s only slightly unsettled-sounding.

Yet again, a truly masterfully done piece of content. I'm beginning to wonder if this is all you or you have a large staff of professors and composers coming up with these things. Truly, I don't know how you could have explained it any better - I've seen others try. Of the many channels I've seen, it dawns on me that yours is the only one where I've gone back and listened a second and third time just for the enjoyment and not because I couldn't hear, see or understand the first time round.

This is so wildly helpful. My greatest struggle with learning about music is the inherent "why" of the choices and traditions that we have. Thank you SO much for making these, you make things so much more understandable!

Miss the video the weekend, thanks for all the amazing content!

To quote Science Officer Spock, "Fascinating." ...especially hearing the juxtaposed measures of different tunings. Brings to mind your compositions in 24-TET: suddenly, an unexpected pitch! As an experienced mandolin-neglecter, I can report that some fretted instruments, especially those with short scale lengths, love to self-adjust their own intonation right in the middle of being played. I call it the ill-temperament.

@peterkelley6344

Жыл бұрын

This is an interesting problem. I wonder how Spock, or any Vulcan, would have addressed the problem?

It is the best explanation I have ever heard and seen about tuning in my life! Thank you!

beautiful piece at the end as always, good job

Your explanations are always great. 👍

I'd heard about this before but never really grasped the full implications of equal temperament/just intonation until watching this. Excellent work.

This has blown my mind any you explain these highly complex ideas so clearly, thank you!

As others have mentioned you just have a knack for explaining things in a way that makes them very easy to understand

Thank you for shedding the light on one of the most fundamental and interesting topic of music theory and history! Awaiting impatiently for other temperaments! And please, more audio examples are desired 👍

@Vanguardsman

Жыл бұрын

Maybe there should be some kind of least-squares technology where you stick in the sheet music and it optimizes the temperament.

I absolutely loved this video! You’ve shed light on so many of the foundational aspects of music and sound. I found this incredibly informative and insightful. Thanks :)

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it!

To further complicate things, the harmonics on a string instrument are a bit higher-pitched than the actual integer ratios due to the stiffness of the strings. Since the sensation of consonance derives at least in part from two notes having the same harmonic frequencies, this would mean that consonant notes would not necessarily have simple rational frequency ratios.

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

That’s true. It’s called Inharmonicity and makes an already impossible task even harder!

@garethevans2650

Жыл бұрын

@@DavidBennettPiano Some early electronic keyboards had tones that were too pure to sound natural so effects like Leslie speakers or reverb were needed. Some ran them through guitar amps or effects like chorus to mimic flaws we're used to with traditional instruments. The physics of round instruments like gongs dictate that upper harmonics cannot be what Western music is used to from long thin sound generators like strings or organ pipes.

@garethevans2650

Жыл бұрын

Yes and it changes with ratios of string width to length or how the ends are held. It's why a Ukelele has different sound to a harp and why some guitar genres tune low to sound more deathly.

@simonkormendy849

Жыл бұрын

Not only that, but also the very act of plucking/bowing/etc a string actually makes the string go a bit sharp in tuning because the tension on the string increases a bit for a short time, and if the string-tension increases the tuning of the string goes sharp.

@bbyng7316

9 ай бұрын

Fascinating. Interesting how few folk have got this far. I hate being as sensitive to tuning as I am and I don't even have perfect pitch..

David Bennett's KZread channel is my favorite music theory channel BY FAR, and this video is a great example of why. I have been playing and studying music for more than sixty years and thought I knew just about everything there was to know about just versus equal temperament tuning. Boy, was I wrong. I learned more about it in twenty minutes watching David than I learned over the years from dozens of music teachers and books.

Your piece at the end was so strange to hear. Some of the chords were simply beautiful; more pure than any I've probably ever heard before. But then certain notes (especially the chromatic ornaments, as you said) were strangely off. I would have liked to heared it played in even temperament for comparison.

Excellent video, the best one I've seen on tuning.

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

Thanks 😀

I am an amateur when it comes to music and your videos not only open the world of theory understandably, it also teaches me how to play songs while recognizing patterns. Thank you so much David for helping me!

Best explenation on this topic on KZread! Took me a while to find it, but glad that I did 👌👏

The piece at the end is absolutely mesmerising, love it!

Thank you David for your videos. They are so clear and packed with information. You're a natural born teacher.

What a great video! Super informative. Answered my question and much more :)

Thank You for giving us all the research you've done. It's so great.

Absolutely beautiful! Excellent explanation. Beautiful graphics. Great examples. This is going to be my go to video to show my friends about just intonation.

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

Glad it was helpful!

@Hari2897

Жыл бұрын

@@DavidBennettPiano 🙏

best explanation of this topic I've come across, thanks David

I'm curious how you chose the key center for each of the pitches that weren't A (assuming you went with A440). Did you just use the 12TET frequency for each root note and then tune the rest justly? I wonder if you could make it sound less wonky by tuning the next key center based on the melody, even if that means starting and ending on a different tuning for A. I remember hearing about a looping vocal piece that is specifically written to get sharper and sharper when using just intonation between chords, but I can't for the life of me find the name of it.

@jajjfajsidjoigfe

Жыл бұрын

Are you talking about Bendetti's Puzzle? Adam Neely did a video on it.

@remicornwall754

Жыл бұрын

Don't string players and voice use Pythagorian tuning (5ths) for the melody (horizontal) and Just Intonation for the harmony (vertical)?

@wyattstevens8574

6 ай бұрын

Comma pump?

Actually, as a very seasoned guitar player myself, there are 2 ways to intonate your strings individually on a guitar, however you can only pitch up and not down. The first and most obvious way is just bending the strings but for harmonic purposes this may be much too inaccurate. The second way is one that most people dont know actually makes a difference and its something they teach you NOT to do when learning guitar, and thats pressing the frets down harder, or pressing them in different spots. If you bottom out a mid fret on the low E string it can amount to maybe a 30 cent change in pitch upwards. As well, if you slide your finger up and down a fret while playing a note, youll notice that it changes pitch up and down as well.

Really nice composition there at the end, David.

I was familiar with this content, but David, your explanation is a brilliant, college-level presentation. Bravo!

Great video, thank you for the knowledge : )

Another superb video David!

Thank you David. You are a mine of information. Stay well and safe.

I love learning the science behind this! When I was in college and mostly singing a capella choral pieces and then would come home to our just-tuned piano to play or sing along, I would always feel like something was slightly wrong.

loved the colours of your composition 😄

I’m so glad more people are talking about this recently.

Great video, very interesting. There is a trick to play in just intonation on a guitar with an adjustable bridge for intonation. You have to shift all saddles, or the complete bridge slightly to the right (or left on a left handed guitar), so all strings, when fretted, are a bit flat. Then you can bend the string to get exactly the pitch that you want. This is only suited for playing a monophonic melody. Playing chords will hurt your ears.

I was trying to explain this to my friend when he asked how a speaker can reproduce every single sound of nature if it is just a bunch if metal with a magnet inside. His question was very smart actually, it's amazing how perfectly a speaker can reproduce the sound of the sea, or some birds singing,to give and example.

@kurtjuday6937

Жыл бұрын

Perfectly reproduce the *vibrations* of the sea and birds *as we perceive them*. Speakers are amazing, but they are mechanically doing exactly what our eardrums do (in reverse). Plus speakers don't have to exactly reproduce the original vibrations, they only have to reproduce in a way that we will perceive as accurate.

@unacuentadeyoutube13

Жыл бұрын

@@kurtjuday6937 yes, just the harmonics that make the timbre iconic

@noonehere0987

Жыл бұрын

When you understand what sound is, it becomes a bit less amazing.

@unacuentadeyoutube13

Жыл бұрын

@@noonehere0987 not really. I know how it works, what amazes me is that in this day and age we don't bother to realize how many incredible things we use daily

Thanks for the explanation. I've been trying to get my head around this for years.

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

😃

David you are such a breath of fresh air. Thank you for explaining these concepts to us. I always fell like I’ve come away as a better musician after watching your videos!! MAY God richly bless you in all that you do.

Great. The example at the end is nice !

What a wonderful day, I learned something new. Thank you🙂

Great video! I've been using sweetened tuning on my acoustic guitar in studio recording for some time. I'll do multiple takes where each take favours a couple of chords that sound best, with the others sounding okay but a little off. Then repeat as necessary where another set of chords sound best. After all the takes are done, I'll comp together all the best bits where chords sound the best. The key is making sure one is really consistent with the rhythm of each take. I tried explaining this to my band mates who didn't really hear it at first (it drove me nuts hearing certain chords sounding out); this video is the best explanation I've seen! Cheers! 😃 👍

This is the perfect analogue to Andrew Huang's outstanding video on the Harmonic Series 2 years ago. Several of the specific points Andrew mentioned at the end of his discussion as things to look into further are addressed here in great style. Brilliant work David! Will be using this with my Music Theory students.

I gotta say I’ve been binge watching your videos which is crazy since I’ve always hated trying to learn music theory as a self taught guitarist. You’ve really made appreciating music theory possible, thank you for the outstanding content!

I learned a lot of interesting points of view on tuning. The way violinist have to play and the RHCP Scar Tissue guitar part. Very well thought out video on this subject.

Also i loved the composition at the end, it felt full and warm, like blanket on a rainy day

Very well explained, will try putting a wee guitr bend on blues minor thirds

Just amazing David, how you do these difficult music theory items. You knowledge on this is fenomenal. I have come to understand a lot more since watching your videos because you explain things so well with great musical examples. Perfect teacher.

@stephenpeterson7570

Жыл бұрын

Phenomenal

@adriankolsters

Жыл бұрын

@@stephenpeterson7570 yeah thanks, trying to juggle between 4 languages

Wow! Things here I had not thought of WRT to unfretted strings. Thanks heaps!

Excellent as always: a very clear presentation of a potentially confusing subject. If I were to quibble, I’d say that the title is a bit misleading, since while one could argue that an instrument is only “in tune” if it’s in tune with itself, thus requiring just intonation, the typical use of the phrase “in tune” means to be in tune with other instruments, and hence almost always in A440 12-TET. But I know it’s a constant battle with the KZread algorithm, so a bit of benign quasi-clickbait is understandable! It’s also questionable whether being perfectly in tune and free of beating is desirable. A single, pure, unwavering tone sounds flat and thin, so musicians, producers and sound designers use all sorts of techniques to introduce variation and richness, often through detuning: ensembles of players, double-tracking vocals, detuned analogue VCOs, chorus pedals etc. Also, while the harmonic series might be baked into mathematics, it’s not baked into the universe. It’s a simplified mathematical model of one-dimensional vibration, and works pretty well for thin plucked strings or vibrating air columns, but doesn’t quite capture the richness of many instruments. Even the bass strings of pianos are thick enough that their harmonics deviate noticeably from the integer ratios of the harmonic series, adding to the complexity that we know and love about pianos. Two and three dimensional vibrations such as those in bells and drums have highly inharmonic spectra, and I wonder whether that has led to some musical traditions (e.g. gamelan) being less obsessed with trying to fix the mathematical impossibilities of Pythagorean tuning than Western culture has been.

@gringochucha

Жыл бұрын

Thank you for this interesting comment.

Tremendous. I knew a few pieces of this information, but you put it together wonderfully. Using a good digital tuner for my guitars, now that I've become more serious, I realize that some of my issues might be unavoidable. I've seen advice where you go from the sixth to the first string, then check other strings against each other. Some people check using harmonics. But you seem to be saying there's no path to perfection. Very interesting. Thanks.

thank you very much for this information. i found this out the hard way by computing harmonics of instruments and comparing it to notes. i was losing my mind because the ratios of chords were being ever so slightly off. i now know what its all about thanks to this video. thank you greatly. much appreciated.

Well illustrated, excellent video!

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

Thank you!!

After playing a lot of funky-blues stuff, I discovered the harmonic series which led me into creating music using overtone singing, jaw-harps, overtone flutes. This video is excellent, super clear! Understanding the relation between harmonics and temperaments can unlock many doors for both musicians and listeners. Another good book I'd recommend is: Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization , by Stuart Isacoff (2001)

I thought I knew this but you brought a whole new depth to this topic. That said, I sometimes have a hard time hearing the difference.

Just about the the best video I've seen on this topic.

The "strange" chord changes in the sample piece meant beautifully spiced strangeness to my ears. Pretty satisfying.

Great video, especially cool to see the violinist adjust the finger position depending on context.

very well explained, thanks! I like the fact that you show perfect tuning as a physical rule only. it's an artistical choice to tune or tempere your instruments, knowing how physic works is just an inspiration and better understanding

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

Glad it was helpful!

I really like the piano piece at the end of the video. It almost seems like the chord changes are easier to hear and they resonate a lot more clearly

Nowadays, it is quite easy to fine tune our synths for each given tune we do. Depending on the synth/vst, this means importing scala files and such, or even tuning the divisions of the octave "by hand" to optimise the "justness" of our chords. (I personnaly like to start with Werckmeister III and tweak it depending on the chords I use for a given song.. ) Thanks maestro for this video. And I will surely try Entonal Studio!!!!!

Another brilliant video. Thanks! When I attempt to explain this stuff to a friend or customer (I'm a piano tuner/technician) they usually just get even more confused. ... An interesting followup might be about how a piano tuner tunes by ear. It's all about hearing the beats where the partials of two notes should coincide but they don't. Tuners use those beat speeds of all the intervals to arrive at equal temperament. To make things more complicated, piano strings are not perfectly harmonic and the tuner needs to compensate for that, which makes a piano even more "out of tune"!

David, thank you very much for such a great video! To put all the necessary information about TET and reasons for its implementation in a such concise and straight to the point manner is a super great work! I wish I could give 10 likes to this video!

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

Thanks Peter!

Great vid. Really great vid.

Good video. Tuning a guitar is always an exercise in "close enough." When you get the open strings perfectly in tune according to the tuner and 12TET, try playing a bunch of spicy chords, especially up the neck, and you'll find dissonance where it doesn't belong. The tuner is only a starting point. Using octaves, natural harmonics, and relating every string to every other string, you can usually make tiny adjustments to find a point where the average ear finds all the intervals pleasing and nothing sounds noticeably off. What the tuner says at that point will vary somewhat from one instrument to the next.

@arthurgordon6072

Жыл бұрын

I've been playing the guitar for over 50 years. When I was learning, there was no such thing as electronic tuners. One of the first lessons was how to tune your guitar by ear, by tuning, usually the 'A' string, with either a pitch pipe or tuning fork. I think it is too easy to rely on an electronic tuner.

@andersjjensen

Жыл бұрын

True Temperament guitars are fretted to maintain 12TET down to the 24th fret. In exchange for that you get a guitar that looks like the frets are made out of random twigs you found on the forest floor :P

@davidbstang116

Жыл бұрын

That's why it's important to adjust the neck and the bridge height so that the string-to-fret distance is according to specification. If the strings are too far away from the fretboard, when you press a string down the speaking length of the string, therefore the pitch, is a little bit off, and it gets worse the higher up on the fretboard you go. I have a cheap student electric guitar and it was amazing how much better it sounded after I adjusted the neck tension just a little bit.

@nettles89

Жыл бұрын

@@davidbstang116 Well, yeah. But that’s only part of the equation. What you found is that a proper set-up will make it much easier to achieve “close enough.”

@davidbstang116

Жыл бұрын

👍

That piece at the end sounds incredible. Maybe you could do a half tuning on the awkward transitions

great video David! thanks!

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

Thank you!

Thanks for telling about this tuner. I have an Irish harp in our home, which I end up tuning. This would help hugely. My ear isn't developed enough to tune naturally over 34 strings.

Great video! I wonder if this could be made adaptable for MIDI using some programming....

Cool video. Thanks. . . So glad I compose nearly everything in minor scales. . .

David, as usual, a fascinating video which had my brain mangled until, that is, you arrived at ‘tempered tuning’, then it all fell into place. Also, is it (at all) interesting that the albums that leapt out at me from the 08:00 frame(s) were ‘Buddy Holly’ and ‘The Chirping Crickets’ - even before ‘Sgt Pepper’, ‘Hard Days Night’ etc, etc. despite my being a (rabid) Beatle (and, of course, Buddy Holly) fan. Must be my age, I guess… old fart. 😬 Your videos are incredibly entertaining and thought provoking.

I was fascinated by this topic as a student of electrical engineering and music theory in college in the 80s. I've been programming synths as a hobby since then, on everything from 8086 PCs to modern DSPs. I've also programmed tuners, including piano tuners. If you take a step or two into the topic of temperament, you tend to be dissatisfied with limitations of fixed tuning and look for the purity of perfectly just tuned intervals. This will often lead one to believe that there is some kind of mystical magic that happens when you adhere perfectly to Pythagorean integer ratios of frequencies. As you approach that, some very interesting and psycho-acoustically potent things happen. This has been demonstrated beautifully by Jacob Collier and others. But digitally, you CAN make it absolutely perfect. When you do, you find that it sounds awful. This isn't because there's a mystical optimal very close but not exactly at integer ratios of frequencies. It's something else. 1. We don't experience musical frequencies in time. Our brains don't work that fast. We experience them in a one-dimensional space on the sensor element in our ear, the cochlea, in a way that's similar to the way we perceive light on the two-dimensional space of the retina. We can hear a tone going on and off about as fast as we can see a light flashing on and off. 2. When sound is produced by playing a single note with a real physical device such as a string, vocal cord or bell for example, the overtones are not at exact multiples of the fundamental. The harmonics of a single note on the best piano you can buy are out of tune with one another. In the case of a string, the shorter and fatter it is, the more pronounced this phenomenon becomes. 3. The pitch of the fundamental and overtones of a note played on a physical instrument typically depend fairly strongly on how loudly the note is played. This can be seen easily when tuning the low strings on a guitar using a strobe tuner or something similar. Generally, the louder, the sharper. 4. Beating occurs when two tones (i.e., overtones) with nearly equal but different frequencies are sounded. Since the overtones of a single note don't overlap with the fundamental or with one another, beats don't result from the overtones being out of tune relative to the fundamental. Harmonics that are out of tune, within reason, don't sound dissonant if there are no other harmonics from other notes or instruments being generated near that frequency. There is nothing for them to compete with or beat against. 5. When tuning a 12-string guitar, perfectly matching the frequencies of each of the string pairs will make it sound like a six string. Very slightly detuning them accentuates the richness, complexity and presence of the tone. It also increases sustain. Detuning them further makes it sound like a honkytonk piano. The key point: It's not the mathematical purity of just tuned harmony that makes it sound good. Although there's more to it, the way the overlapping tones/overtones from various notes, voices and instruments DANCE WITH ONE ANOTHER (interact with one another) produces much of the "harmoniousness" of a given harmony. If overtones are doing exactly the same thing (sounding at exactly the same frequency), they're not dancing, they're just speaking redundantly. When tones/overtones interact independently, with their own identity and information content, at slightly different frequencies, the brain's spatial interpretive mechanisms are engaged in ways that might not necessarily be perceived as position or motion in three-dimensional space but involve the activation of neural pathways used to interpret the physical/spatial presence of a sound source. In my view, we should understand this spectral dance of harmony in a quantitative way and design digital instruments to expressively exploit this understanding. This, I think, will lead to music that is liberated from the 12-tone scale yet even more richly harmonious with a broader range of chord structures, music that can be designed/composed in a purely mathematical sense, rather than being derived from the limited framework offered by mechanical contraptions and their legacy.

@bbyng7316

9 ай бұрын

Wow, extraordinary. What you say about harmony needing to dance makes SUCH sense. If it isn't dancing then, it actually feels dead; there is no musical conversation. Thank you SO much for your detailed and helpful response. We use Music to harmonise the soul (our ego) and so we naturally avoid unharmonious sounds because they fail to liberate the ego from an inner state of ego-dissonance. The ego is initially bodily, hence dance (or any human movement in response) is our 1st reaction to music in its role as soul-therapy. Music is temporal which means it must celebrate harmony as a life (not death) force. Harmonious perfection equals death. You can however so see why the so-called "perfect" intervals extensively used in late medieval polyphony, actually feel more joyously alive than a ghastly (ego upsetting) 3rd?

Good video. Can I share a tip? Microtonal tuning differences are much easier to hear with raw sawtooth waves than with a piano sound. Just thought I'd mention it...

Fascinating and well explained.

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

Thank you 😃

Great video! I always wondered to what extent violinists, vocalists, etc used just intonation. One thing I'll add is, during guitar solos, it's amazingly common to hit a major-3rd double stop on the G+B strings and then bend the lower note up slightly. It was a huge revelation to me when I realized this was effectively achieving just intonation on the fly.

@lets_measure_it

Жыл бұрын

slide players will often angle the slide to slightly lower the b string note to achieve the same result

One interesting aspect of the beating phenomenon is that it doesn't actually rely on physical interference between the two waves -- that is, if you stick one of the pitches in JUST one ear and another pitch in the other ear, the beating will emerge strictly in *your brain* (termed a "binaural beat")

Oh my god the piano piece at the end was amazing I love it so much

i love your videos. could you do a video about how some instruments are in a particular key, and what it means exactly? like a trumpet is in b flat. what does that mean exactly? thanks!

Another excellent video David. I have seen several videos on this subject and yours is by far the easiest to understand. I have a question. If I tune my Guitar with the E string using a tuner, and then all the other strings by eliminating the beating between two harmonics, will a) my guitar be out of tune compared to an electronic tuner, and b) will it the tuning be just tempered in E?

As a guitarist, a huge thank you for sharing your knowledge and talents with the musical community. This explains why slight note bends and dips on fretted instruments can sound much more tastful

I worked out equal temperament as a teenager back in the 80s. I grew up playing sax where you have to adjust constantly, but picked up guitar at 13. This was before digital tuners and you had to use your ears to find the best compromise. I also studied Bach and was introduced to the well tempered clavier, plus had a physics teacher who explained the 12th root of two!. I was truly in the right place at the right time. Understanding this has shaped my life as a musician and guitar tech. This is a great video, but also check out Howard Goodall's "big bang" episode about equal temperament. It is excellent. The piece at the end sounds so strange to our equally tempered ears. "Uncanny" is a great description. It actually made me feel slightly anxious! I wonder what JS would have made of it... Keep up the great content mate.

@glenndavid8725

Жыл бұрын

Digital tuners were around in the 80s may have been pricey though.

Great thoughtful video. One point, while the guitar is ostensibly fixed tuned the fact is you can raise the pitch by pressing harder or bending the string up. I have noticed when I tune intended to err on the flat side a couple of cents allowing compensation up as context demands.

As a player of keyboards and fretted instruments, I never realized how hard it truly is for string, wind and horn players I play with to be constantly adjusting pitches until this video. Hats off to you David for the wealth of info and that said, kudos to those non-fixed-tuning players!! 🙂