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Re: Tuning slides?

To: brass-band@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Tuning slides?
From: A Myers <am@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2000 11:59:43 GMT
In-reply-to: TheAcrobat8@aol.com's message of Wed, 1 Mar 2000 15:36:10 EST
Priority: low
Reply-to: brass-band@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

ROB wrote (1.3.00):

> The main problem with tuning pianos is the harmonics,
> as you go hirer the harmonics within that note get flatter.  The opposite
> happens when you play lower, the harmonics within that note get sharper.

I fear this is likely to be misleading, since he is really talking about
overtones, not harmonics.  The well-known phenomenon in pianos (indeed
all plucked and hammered strings) is inharmonicity.  That is, the
overtones are NOT harmonics.

However, with sustained notes on brass (and all wind) instruments, the
overtones are harmonics.  The frequencies of the spectral components
(overtones) of a sustained note are EXACT integer multiples of the
frequency of the fundamental.

Of course, most players of brass instruments don't hear the separate
components of notes, they perceivea note as having the pitch of the
fundamental with the timbre given by the overtones.  But the harmonic
overtones do affect the tuning of chords.

If a brass band chord is tuned with stretched octaves, it will be to
give an effect such as brightness, not beacuse of inharmonicity.

			 Arnold Myers

Edinburgh University Collection of Historic Musical Instruments,
Reid Concert Hall,  Bristo Square,  EDINBURGH  EH8 9AG,  U.K.
E-mail:  euchmi@xxxxxxxx
Web URL:  http://www.music.ed.ac.uk/euchmi/


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