What JVKE got wrong about A440
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- Опубликовано: 15 сен 2024
- Exploring what Jake got wrong (and right) when talking about A440, A432, Golden Hour's tuning and the history behind western pitch and tuning standards. Wanted to give you guys a brief overview of tuning theory history, including efforts made by the likes of Johann Scheibler, and Instrument manufacturer J. C. Deagan in standardizing A440, our modern pitch anchor. Through developments in locomotion, manufacturing practices and general industrialization of the modern world, there is a long history behind where we find ourselves today. I'll also clarify some finer points on tuning theory including temperaments, pitch anchors, different octave divisions, and what actually makes something microtonal.
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You found the clip!!!
Great concise explanation of pitch standard history
I always love hearing about tuning references and how they count or not as microtonal.
As Levi said, a single piece in not-A440 like Golden Hour can't be considered microtonal in itself; all the notes in the piece are a whole number of equal-tempered semitones apart. However, listeners constantly exposed to A440 music might notice a "microtonal shift" as they switch from "normal music" to this piece (or any other that's not in A440, obviously). It's like the modulation to G-half-sharp thing all over again, but instead of being between two sections of a piece, it's experience between two pieces. You could say there's a microtone between the last note of the previous piece you've heard and the first note of Golden Hour, and a microtone between the last note of Golden Hour and the next piece you'll hear.
If you think about it, it's the same technique used between the orchestras in the "great European tuning war" (2:14); you listen to an orchestra pitched at, say, 440 Hz, and so the next orchestra chooses to be pitched at maybe 442 Hz in order to sound brighter than the other orchestra. It's not "microtonal"... but when you first listen to the orchestra, the impression of brightness is not totally unlike the effect that can be experienced by listening to microtonal music.
In the end, maybe it's just a different order of microtonality. It's... macro-microtonality? 😂
I like this way of rationalizing it!
i suppose he confused equal temperament with keys, dunno
homie uses the transpose button live 😅
Here in Finland the classical and traditional music standard is actually A = 442. Don't know exactly why, but most pianos, harmoniums and accordions are just tuned that way. In the trad. scene I recall hearing something that fiddlers prefer the acoustic resonance of 442 (might be completely false though) and also that tuning forks in Finland's Central Ostrobothnia were historically in 442.
I'm from Finland and I had no idea!!! I have perfect pitch but still haven't noticed, I guess I don't listen to enough Finnish music
@@romeolz Yeah I friend of mine also has perfect pitch but she can't tell the difference really. But it's the conservatory standard and so try checking a grand piano anywhere with a tuner and you'll probably find it's in 442.
I would struggle to dig up my sources for this, but the piano makers resisted the change to 444, because it messed up their stringing scales.
Thus, 442 as a compromise in Europe, in US it ended up at 440.
I've found that I like tuning to C 261.62 which is basically the same as tuning to A 440 except that with the anchor over on that side of the circle of fifths it brings the flats in 31 equal or other meantone EDOs more in line with their 12 equal counterparts, letting me play along in most keys while still giving me access to all the seventh harmonic related stuff over in the sharps.
Of course ideally you'd tune to the key centre of whatever you're playing along with, but it makes a good default when I want to jam along with some random RUclips video or something.
Pitch standard mysticism is just classic internet crank stuff, to the extent that it's popular it has nothing to do with any reality it's just because if you explain it to someone who doesn't understand it it sounds wild and kind of conspiratorial (these are the pitches THEY don't want you to hear)
None of the people that believe in this stuff could pass a properly conducted A/B comparison test unless they had perfect pitch, and my understanding is people that do have perfect pitch tend to dislike when you go outside A-440 since everything sounds out of tune
that ending got me😂 but thank you for the video, it was very educating.
I'm wondering though, if tunings could vary as much as up to a third, then perfect pitch was just not a thing back then?
More like relatistic perfect pitch, relative to what tuning the indivual grew up with and can idenify the notes depending on what theyve engrained into their brain.
arent very verstile considering all the tunings around the world but might have been good enough because people didnt travel that much back then
Yes! and I might add this, the music is not tuned to 440cps, the instruments are tuned to that.
440 Hz
Tuning is such a fascinating thing. Do you think the resonant frequency of our different body parts can influence the tuning or keys we're drawn to? I guess that only really works when you play music loud but could it be an influence?
I would imagine only your ears could make a difference. Our body parts thankfully don’t resonate very much
If it would there would be waay too many variables to determine it. Weight, damping due to body fat genetics etc.
I think there are certainly some psychosomatic effects of music, but I doubt it's related to any "special" frequency. Probably just general highs, mids, lows,... High noises can energize and enliven, or annoy and aggravate. Low frequencies vibrate our chest cavity possibly soothing or invigorating us. But as we notice here, the mood of the person in the first place seems to play a large role in their perceiving.
Alternatively, he could've meant "infinite keys" as in infinite possible keys along the pitch spectrum. Want a key in between A and A#? Use a different reference pitch. I don't know if he has perfect pitch or synesthesia, but as someone without those two but with good pitch memory, different keys sound different to me, and so could a 12edo key outside of A=440 Hz. So with this interpretation, "infinite keys" doesn't mean infinite different intervals or infinite possible 12edo modulations, but literally infinite keys to pick from for your tonic pitch.
Thank you for calling out that guy. Nothing gives him the right to spread misinformation. Trying to be entertaining is not an excuse.
No way is this a boring subject. It is so interesting. If you want a good read, check out "How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony". This book actually gets into the "infinite number of keys" Jake/JVKE inaccurately tries to talk about.
Why is this portrait. This isn't tiktok
I have an A= 440 fork from 1920 reads"Deagon chicago" " official pitch A.F. of M. 1917. Adopted by us govt 1920"
i htink my music teacher when i was in highschool had similar misunderstanding or rather inaccuracy. they said different key have different emotions, even when scale and chords are exactly same just transposed to different keys, when its more about the context the key is in . well to be fair they were classic player(musician) rather than composer so they might have confused tuning system and maybe about instrument sounding "different" in other keys with modern electronic musics🤷♂i tried to argue that its not how it works on modern 12 Equal Temperament but did not work i guess im geniuely under experienced
I feel this. I think a lot of older composers made these associations. Chopin comes to mind. I think he had one or two keys he deemed "sad keys", and others he deemed happier. Something like that. Don't quote me on specifics. I, like yourself, have to believe they're just imagining it.
This is an old idea from before we tuned to 12TET, iirc. Or the idea of how those might be voiced on a certain instrument. On my guitar, I find d minor to feel more sad than e minor based on how everything stacks on guitar.
This is an old idea from before we tuned to 12TET, iirc. Or the idea of how those might be voiced on a certain instrument. On my guitar, I find d minor to feel more sad than e minor based on how everything stacks on guitar.
He wouldn't be a buzzkill. He would discern the fans worth keeping around.
I'm only half-joking
what about 436hz
Yeah man he's tripping, his song is just in E major if you play it on the piano haha. People get this mixed up all the time.
One of my piano students wanted to learn it and I transcribed by ear and it's just in E major.
great video but why is it in portrait mode?
Import from my TikTok
@@LeviMcClain a 6 min long tiktok?! idek that that's possible xD
He didn't have to talk about tuning theory in order to not lie to anyone
I never got the whole "different keys have different emotions" thing. I don't have anything close to perfect pitch, and to me, major pretty much just sounds major, with only subtle differences in brightness depending on the root. Now, modes, to me, make a difference. The difference between major and lydian, while only differing one note, is emotionally profound. So yeah, playing around with scale degrees (within our outside 12tet) have a bigger effect to my ears, than playing around with the pitch center does. It seems people with perfect pitch have a different relationship with this though...
Equal temperament has around 30 keys. There’s the standard thirty and others that happen in rare circumstances. for example in fugues, the second instance of the subject always happens in the dominant, so when Bach wrote his fugue in c-sharp major, he had to use g sharp major, a a key outside of the 30 standard keys
The collective term for those keys outside of the 30 WRITTEN keys is "theoretical keys". But I would argue some of the WRITTEN 30 keys are also theoretical, as they are enharmonic. Because there are only 12 pitches in the 12-TET system, there are only REALLY 12 major keys. Now, because the idea of a "KEY" is a concept dreamed up by tonal harmony (a separate harmonic ideology that utilizes 12-TET), I will certainly grant the minor keys, as they are conceptually different than their relative major keys (through their allowance of the natural 6 and 7 as part of minor key harmony).
So 12 major keys and 12 minor keys, after that the other enharmonic spellings and key signatures merely become a writing convention. Don't get me wrong, writing devices are important, but they aren't actually REAL. In the 12-TET system, F# and Gb are literally just one single sonic key, only the way we use written and spoken devices changes based on how we want to juxtapose those notes against other keys/harmony. So I'd say, in the system of tonal harmony (keys), and in 12-TET, there are 24 sonic keys.
if you tune to 432hz you still have the same keys you had before but just like tuned down a bit
Yeah, hearing him failing to explain what he thinks he's doing makes me cringe. He thinks he has discovered some microtonal universal theory; instead he just played everything normal, but just a teeny bit flat.
This statement by JVKE makes him sound like an absolute dunce. Golden hour is a pretty song but I’m not convinced he can even play it. He definitely confused the idea of pitch anchor and temperament but even that doesn’t explain his “infinite possibilities” of keys. On the piano, there’s still only 12 distinct keys. Also, it seems like every time he plays that song it’s in a different key but his fingers don’t change and they never sound like anything different than equal temperament. This whole thing reeks of Dunning Kruger syndrome
I think you give him a little too much credit. Underlying the concept of “pitch anchor” is the more fundamental (pun intended) concept of “frequency”, as you well know. IMO if he truly understands the concept of frequency he wouldn’t have made such gross misstatement. Furthermore the statement that “each key evokes a different emotion” is ridiculous. Major keys, minor keys, or otherwise, “evoke the same emotion” regardless of root pitch. He sounds like a New Age fool to anyone with basic science and musical understanding.
Tbh that song is mid at best