It is great to see someone who respects that equal temperament is not the be all end all, since a lot of the classical repertoire was not written for it. A great example of this Sweelinck's Fantasia Chromatica, which really emphasizes the unevenness of quarter-comma meantone temperment, where it starts with a decending chromatic line as its main theme.
@@tortoise74 Yes, definitely good. My favorite performance is by Christopher Herrick on an organ in Sweden with both D# and Eb keys as Sweelinck originally intended, but that is on RUclips as far as I know.
After being a professional musician for 40 years, you taught me things I have never heard before tonight! Ah well, I'm one of those ignorant first study pianists, I'm afraid. And at music college I had recorder lessons but not enough to get onto nitty gritty subjects like this. So a thousand thank yous! I have heard the 'difference' - and hated it - I thought there was something wrong with my ears! So, 2 questions: 1. My Helder treble claims to have all its harmonics in tune. What does that mean??? I thought harmonics were always in tune with the fundamental by definition? 2. My 10 year old recorder pupil was criticised for being out of tune in grade 1 ABRSM (which I thought a bit unkind - how is a beginner to stay in tune while observing dynamics?). So my response is to get her using a tuner now that she's working towards grade 3. That's what my oboist daughter was taught to do. But you say no. Well how would you go about teaching a ten year old proper tuning? What I just heard was interesting to me, but maybe not a child…
The harmonics of an instrument are not necessarily exact multiples of the fundamental: www.simonhendry.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/inharmonicity.pdf Inharmonicity is a particularly prevalent in pianos and its nature varies with the instrument's construction. For this reason concert performances of two-piano duets must be given using the same model of instrument. Richard Thomas
@@AnnFBug Ah, in Europe we must google that AMRWHATEVER... still cruel to expect miracles only. If he or she just noted it friendly, and told this girl she could work on that the next years, helped by her teacher, that would have been different. And you as a teacher would learn her that later, anyway. Not everybody is a Bach, Mozart or Paganini kid. Sounds like that examiner was a piano player by origin. Blowing the piano, that's an old jazz expression, by the way.
Piano player here. I have known about equal temperament for a long time but I assumed other instruments used it too. I really learned something here. I have a new respect for the versatility of the recorder. Also I used the knowledge from your breathing video and played a few hours last night and my recorder playing just went up to a new level. Thank you. I have always wanted to play recorder and make it sound the way it should. I’m on the right path thanks to you. Great work teaching us. Keep the videos coming.
Great summary Sarah. At the end of the day it explains how important it is to be totally "one" with each piece auditorially. "In tune" is ongoing and dynamic and "nearby" the place you're at in the music. Amazing that our brains can put the recorder exactly on pitch as temperament moves around.
One place where a tuner is really useful is when playing long tones, especially playing in a new instrument, to get a feel for how much you can vary on each pitch and what some of the tendencies are.
Having been in quarantine for about 4 weeks the time came to take out my recorder and see if perhaps I could finally learn to play it. I've learned SO many things from your channel I wish I hade known when I was I child. Grade 1-3 we played the recorder in music class. Plastic, one piece german style recorders. For three years I remember glaring angrily at my teacher with her big hands who could reach the lower little duble-holes at the bottom. Less than one hour in and I've already learnt so much. I'm especially grateful of learning more about what things are down to me as a player and what might be related to the instrument. So thank you
Wonderful and helpful video!! One nerdy quibble. The beat frequency is not how many cents the two tones are away from unison. It is rather the difference between the frequencies of the two tones. That is, playing one tone at 440 Hz with another at 442 Hz will result in two beats per second. But they are almost 8 cents apart.
Finally someone who got the question of temperaments right and explains it correctly and still simply! Most of teachers in music schools just ignore it and come with built up (simplified and wrong) theories stating that the comma is the 9th of a tone, while it is the resulting error of tuning in a certain way (as explained by Sarah taking as example tuning by going up in just thirds does not reach the octave but something higher and the difference to the just octave is the comma). I particularly found the explanations on how to practically put the theory into practice very useful. Congrats for this unique in its genre video, Sarah: a daring choice of subject, handled in a clear, sensible, and helpful way!
A few years ago I read this book by Isacoff : "Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization". It's about the history of temperament and the philosophical fights on it. Very interesting!
Take the study back to the monochord. You'll play with the primary-color equivalent of sound. Remember: Painting decorates Space. Music decorates Time.
She did a good job of explaining how to tune the recorder by adjusting its length and also on how to raise and lower the tone by the strength of your breath. She even talked about not using a tuner, which is what I was going to do, which gave me confidence in trusting my instincts
I did not understand much the first time I saw this. How do you tune a recorder? As I continued playing and practicing, (months later) with the help of your videos, I understand it now. It feels good to finally get it. Thank you for these in depth videos too. 💕
Fascinating. Not only re the importance of tuning and the flexibility of recorders re tuning, but also on the nature of pitch and the relationship of harmonics to pitch.
When I graduated from conservatory I realized that the more I learned about music the less I seemed to know about it all. I mean the more I realized how much there was to learn the less I seemed to know. I've never heard of so much of the stuff you were talking about! That was a really informative video. I didn't understand everything, but, my goodness, listening to you and watching your facial expressions is so much fun!
Wow! It's great to listen to all you have said, specially when you play with a lot of modern instruments that do play looking the tuner or say that you are always out of tune because the fifths are the ones who match with de keyboards or piano and no the pure ones.... Thank youuu!!! I was the first recorder player graduated from the conservatory... so you can imagine how was all around.
Great practical explaination ! I bought a plastic alto Woodnote from someone on Craigslist not knowing anything about it (or anything about or music in general). I was just tired of my son's $5 school soprano and wanted something less piercing. But I've had a heck of a time trying to play with any the piano or recorded piece. First I thought is was me, then I thought maybe I bought a cheap recorder then I thought maybe I bought a baroque recorder (415 hz). Now I know it really is just me. Which is great ! Now I can do something about it and keep my lovely recorder ! So much to learn ! Thank you Sarah. 😊
This is really helpful. I've been playing along with your other videos, and I kept hearing horrible beats when I tried to play in unison. So then I brought out my tuner, and I couldn't get the needle to hold still. So then I was adjusting _both_ joints on my recorder to get my recorder in tune throughout its range (like adjusting the intonation on a guitar), all the while wondering if maybe the reason the pitch varies so much with my breath is because I did happen to purchase one of the least expensive recorders I could find. But as it turns out, the simple solution is that _I_ need to get better.
My younger sister and I are from jamaica, she's in grade six and has a graded music presentation this upcoming week. Your point about slightly dettatching the recorder head to get a lower tone helped.👌🏼💓 The song is jungle bells btw lool
Wow! My original question was whether a tin whistle or recorder would have more accurate intonation right out of the box. What a stupid question. I had no idea recorders had such flexibility in tuning. Makes my fiddle seem easy by comparison, no need for breath control. Excellent video. One of the best explanations of different systems of tuning I've heard. And the suggestions how to train one's ear also excellent.
I started to accompany myself on cembalo first time. When I had mixed my alto part with the cembalo I was very frustrated, because it was so much out of tune. I am piano player and started with the alto during the first lockdown. I hope your valuable information will help me to get better. I am very grateful for your work.
I appreciate you so much. I love the deep dive you take into a variety of technical topics. I just had my piano tuned in the Prinz 1/5 comma well tempered tuning. It is such a huge topic, and I knew a few things from a piano standpoint, but this video gives me quite a so much more to go learn with my recorder. Thank you always.
Technically this can work with string instruments, since we have an "infinite" area to place our fingers on the string. Which is why intonation on string instruments like the violin, viola, and cello (for instance) is hard to learn and is very important.
Very well put! This is one of the reasons why I had such a hard time teaching recorder to a class full of thirty 10 year olds in the US (I don’t anymore). That... was... painful... Anyway, this will help my husband and I when we play currently. I HATE the grating but love playing with someone else!
Thank you Sarah for your take on this subject. I just recently started learning to play saxophone and I did try to use a tuner to help me keep in tune, but all that did was discourage me because my tune was all over the place! Thank you for your encouragement, I can't tell if I'm in tune or out of tune just by listening and so I'm sure it'll take me years to train my ears to hear the notes better just as it has you....
This is so exciting! I decided to learn recorder to improve my singing, specifically my pitch and rhythm, as well as master music theory. I am starting to grasp this technical stuff. This is really going to help my singing, but I am falling in love with the recorder and want to master it for it own's sake. I have started a list of songs I want to learn for recorder. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
Brilliant, Sarah. Just one additional comment. On a workshop with Philip Thorby, he suggested NOT tuning from the bass up but from the soprano down. Worth trying out some time.
It's been awhile, but I believe in band we called it Relative Tuning. Everyone centers on a single person and then the piece itself sounds good. Tuners are great if the source point isn't a fixed instrument like a piano, or you want to make sure you're hitting a guide note if you're playing alone. Like, you learn your instrument and know how to adjust to make it sound good when you play, so if you start with, for an example 'G', and you know that you're warmed up and that 'G' is in a good position and in tune, then you know you can adjust everything else so that it's good.
Are there ways to bend the pitch of a recorder while in the midst of a piece so as to bring it in tune using something other than wind velocity? For example, does mouth/tongue position make a difference?
My brain hurts a bit. Much is beyond where I am as a re-beginner but some good take aways to start with. And you made it light hearted enough that I will revisit. Thank you
Fascinating! You've just opened up a whole new world of tuning differences to me that I had no idea existed. This may explain one of the reasons I prefer harpsichord over piano. You really bring the theory to life by explaining a complex topic in accessible way ... thanks Sarah!
Very good video about the temperament topic! Just some remarks to the margins, not going into the recorder topic that is far your expertise than mine. :) Even in the romantic era, pianists used unequal temperaments, Brahms himself plays a piano about in a Kirnberger "1/3" temperament (as I measured it!) in the vax cylinder recording that you can hear anytime. Even Bartók used to think in unequal temperament at a point in his career: there are two versions of "For Childen", one from 1908 and the well-known one from 1945, there are local but important differences, and you can hear (really hear if you play in un unequally tempered piano) that the earlier version sounds bad at some places in molled meantone temperaments, but the 1945 revision is perfect in a half-wolf meantone! And the revision meant exactly to clean up the harmonies such way. I do not think Bartók intended a performance in a Corret's temperament, let's say, but he had experience with orchestration and to write for... wind instruments, and his ears were just (justly:) ) tranied. Another point, sound waves do not go up and down since they are longitudinal waves, very unlike rope waves or water waves but more like waves along a spring where the initial perturbation is a dislocation along the line of the spanned spring. So better to say, sound waves move in and out. Or, pressure values go up and down. Or, local velocity values go up and down, and in an opposite phase as pressure values does. Also, the number of beating = the off-tune cents role works only at a certain frequency, practically near C4. An octave higher, the number of beating doubles if you are off tuned by the same number of cents. I know why the fingering is different on a garklein recorder, this is really pure physics, but I think explaining it would take a too long time and not worth the possibly gaunt musical takeaways. :) But it is a beautiful, very relevant and useful physics in its own, I can assure. I also do not like equal temperament. My piano is NOT in equal temperament. None of them. I can also assure. :)
Not everyone has a good ear to tell whether or not a note is in tune, so they do have to rely on a tuner. I remember going to a concert about 10 years ago and I said to the friend that I had gone to the concert with, that the famous female singer was out of tune. My friend said that she wasn't.....I said she was, and it was so obvious to me that it made me cringe. Fortunately, the singer did get in tune fairly quickly. A very informative video - many thanks 👍. I've learnt quite a few things from watching this video.
You are soooo funny! I enjoy your videos so much. I recently started with the recorder to teach it to my elementary school children. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to take lessons with a professional recorder player. Boy! This is not easy, but I enjoy it so much . Thank you for your videos.
Wow that was a marathon! Appreciate the hard work you put into this video! And I learned loads and will have to see this over and over again to take everything that's there to take from it.
Thank you for the deep dive into tuning, I appreciate the lesson and look forward to putting it into action (being a violinist as well tuning in fifths is quite familia to me too) - all in all a great vid thanks for the time and effort, the quality of each is increasing in leaps and bounds
Great info! Some of which I had forgotten(?). I just discovered that my plastic Yamaha Soprano is about 5 to 10 cents sharp on the bottom root note. Thanks! Happy holidays! 🌞🎅🏻🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
Stuart Isacoff's 'Temperament' book has been mentioned. He appears to favour ET but there are twists and turns to his account. It is worth a read for sure. Others though are equally interesting. Ross Duffin's 'How Equal Temperament Ruined harmony (and why you should care)' is a nice argument through the different historical attempts to solve the issue and questions whether ET really was adopted by performers despite the hype from the 19th century (he examines old recordings, for instance.) A third book is Kyle Gann's 'The Arithmetic of Listening' which give the means of calculating the frequencies, intervals, cents, ratios, etc before looking at the history of the issue. Glad to hear such a good account of an essential subject. The difficulty of all this is actually hearing these tunings. I wonder if Pythagoras (or any actual historical person) had the means to hear and examine sound ratios or if it was largely theoretical, at least for a long while. When did musicians become aware of the actual practical difficulties of tuning?
Great content. My math background always found tension in the physics of the proportional frequency distance between notes and the doubling between octaves. Now I have my answer! Also relieved to know I should not be focused on trying to get my digital tuner to always show a green light. As always, informative and entertaining. Thanks again, and keep up the great work!
A cent is related to pitch; every semitone contains 100 cents no matter where it occurs on the scale. Two notes that are out of tune will generate audible beats - the number of beats per second corresponds to the number of Hertz (cycles per second) by which the notes differ in frequency. Difference tones are not generated 'in the air' as Sarah claims, they are a result of non-linearity (intermodulation) in the ear. Sarah's demonstration only works if played at high volume. If you hear annoying low frequencies when playing a recorder (or even singing) in a group stand further away and they will disappear. More on Tartini tones here newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/tartini-temperament.html Richard Thomas
Ah, this was so good. Finally, the clouds of confusion lift away, and the sunlight of understanding dawns. Thank you! But you know, we really should stop calling ourselves "nerdy" because we're interested in the details of important things. Or if that's being "nerdy", then may the nerds inherit the earth, I say! N.E.R.D. = Naturally expert, rigorous, and driven. 🌈🥰
This was so intimidating I had to pause it and take some cleansing breaths. You have great energy and clearly know your stuff, but for an adult beginner - even one like me who has a musical background (piano, clarinet, and guitar) - the technical info is overwhelming. I just wanted to know how to adjust the tone of my instrument. Maybe this would work better broken down into smaller bites for those of us less experienced with the instrument. I'm gonna forge ahead, though, even though now I feel like I'll always sound like a sick peacock.
Try 'How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care)' by Ross Duffin. With a sense of humor it explains much of what is discussed in this video. Very useful book .... and thank you for the video Sarah.
It was probably said. The perfect 5th has C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, and G, going up from C 7 standard notes in America. Thank you for the beginning demonstration. You know, what about warming it with a towel, or a case, lined in velvet? 😁
When playing alone it doesn't really matter if you are in perfect tune it will always sound good because you can't play chords you can only play a single tone different to guitar where you can play chords for example.
Thank you for this interesting video! I think you did a great job of explaining a terribly thorny topic. I guess it can be easy for people with a strong maths/physics mindset but for others... I'm still a beginner trying to learn all the notes and moreover I use a resin Yamaha YRA 314, therefore pitch is currently not my first worry: I just trust my recorder to be decently in tune and worry about putting the fingerpads on the right holes. As a singer, though, I'm a bit more advanced and pitch is of course a daily worry for me. As a (bad) habit, I tend to be flat but with time I've developed a sort of "ear" and correct my pitch thinking of singing with more strength and motion (the example you made about the seagull for the fifths). It's not very scientific but it kind of works.
This video is rather 'information dense' for lack of a better phrase, and therefore is a perfect example of why a tutorial in book form by Ms. Jeffery would be so helpful. It is far easier to reread a page then it is to replay the appropriate section of a video, or to look in an index to find what you are looking for than it is to rely on one's memory of "I know that she mentioned that, but just when and in which video"?. Another broad not terribly subtle hint in my continuing campaign for a Recorder Method&Methods by S. Jeffery. It would sell out quickly, I believe. Hint, hint 😀
Brilliant as always - watched twice and now I'm off to find out more about this fascinating subject. I want to know what the "Wolf" sounds like - knowing me I'd like the sound. In the meantime I think I'll just carry on playing out of tune - it's easier - lol!!
Otherwise you will be picking a Lot of armpit hairs out of between your teeth. Those hairs are NOT suitable for Flossing, by the way. Just throw them away, as they are of no use.
Hi, does anyone know of a public resource where I can check my fingerings? I am blind. Documents with charts and graphs won’t help me unless I can have someone explain them to me. Any suggestions are welcome. Love the recorder. Thank you.
Great vid. Two minor and super nerdy points: a.) The enharmonic comma you demonstrated (C-E, E-Gx, Gx-Bx) results in an octave too small, not too large. b.) In classical meantone, the "wolf" refers to the unusable fifth between Gx and Eb. Triads built on Fx, B, and Cx are plenty nasty with their enharmonic thirds; but a triad built on Ab is super nasty with an enharmonic third and a lousy fifth as well.
Keep it simple. Talk about tongue shape & breath control & how it effects intonation. To explain Equal Temperament in a few mins is difficult. This not a criticism, your presentation & enthusiasm is lovely. We never stop learning. Thank you.
I loved this video. I need someone to play with. :) I wonder who decides who's in tune if a recorder is playing with a cello or violin? Who leads or is it the blind leading the blind? Do you meet in the middle or does it depends on which chord is being played so that you keep your intervals perfect? A really interesting and complex topic! Your gliss is perfect and I'd love ro learn how to do that.
Thank you Sarah for this video. Can you please talk about enharmonic pairs on the recorder, and how (or whether) players might differentiate them? I know that violinist during the baroque and classical eras used to play F sharp a little lower than G flat, but I would like to know whether was this the case for woodwind instruments, and if so, can this be done on modern instruments?
Another great video, thanks Sarah. There is a lovely paperback book which covers some of this . It is not specifically for the recorder but puts some more background to tuning systems. It is: How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care) by Ross Duffin (ISBN: 9780393334203). I recommend it as a fairly light read for those of a slightly technical mind. I do not of course know if you have come across it or would recommend it?
4:31 it is the same thing as a drum fill.... too much odd, missing or off space in the sounding measure! 9:58 difference tones, sound resonance out of phase oscillations. this is engineering lingo... good job young lady...dont need this level of accuracy but it is nice to know! TY
Thank you so much!! I hope I can learn. I am a piano player (sorry), but I despise equal temperament... *sigh* still trying to figure it out, how to tune it differently without damaging the soundboard (on a piano i mean). Anyways... how do I learn to do this???? I am a recorder begginer, trained my whole life on equal temperament :'( Thank you for all this!!! You should do a longer video on this, with a recorder player friend to show every aspect of this (or a piano player too). Thank you Sarah!! :)
Thank you! I know this topic, but you are so interesting to tell me that I do not even understand English, and I use only subtitles of RUclips, I get some sense, and I hope to learn a little about oral English! Well, on the accuracy of the scale on the recorder - I do not like the note to the sharpest of the first octave on the alto recorder - with two fingers it is a little too high, and with three - it seems to be low, in long sounds I use one hole from the saddle, under the ring finger of the right arms... I do not know how much Google translate this text exactly, I hope it did not happen without ridiculous blunders.
The Tuning CD by Richard Schwartz is a great resource for learning tuning without a group. It's available from a number of different sources. Here's one: us.napster.com/artist/richard-schwartz/album/the-tuning-cd-a440
Echt interessant! I have to listen this a view times, to realy get what you are explaining. But listening at what you tell here, again i think, the recorder is underrated. Ahww, i am 44, and started to play the recorder! But, why not :-).
When playing together with a digital piano would you recommend to set the piano to something like meantone or pythagorean instead of equal temperament? Some models actually have that option. For me as a piano player this is fascinating because it is something you normally cannot do.
I see this question is a year old... So the writer will obviously not have been waiting for my answer, but here is what I can say as an amateur recorder and clavichord player: I'm not certain, but I suspect recorders are tuned in something closer to mean tone than equal temperament. Sarah says something like this when she talks of the thirds on the piano being "out of tune". So it depends on what your goal is: - if you're playing medieval music it should sound better in pythagorean. Maybe (haven't tried). - if you are playing baroque or renaissance music, then mean tone will sound more like the keyboard instruments of the period. Except for Bach - some people believe he tuned in equal temperament, some think he had his own secret sauce. (There are also "well" temperaments like Werckmeister III which are a bit like mean tone, but tweaked so it's possible to play in keys with lots of sharps or flats.) - if you are playing classical music, everyone expects the piano to be in equal temperament so there's probably less point in changing things. In any case, why not play around and see what you like the sound of?
As a recorder player in baroque ensemble Consort of Voices I always have problems with fine-tuning . We choose our temperament from the app Cleartune. However the violins, theorbos and harpsichord can 'easily' fine tune but I as a recorder player can't always realize the same air pressure (especially not in the progress of a life performance). Further difficulties arise from the kind of space you are performing in (in churches there are often temperatures below 16 C: too cold to get to the rigth pitch and than we have this problem with the tuning of specific notes. For instance I find c and d in the first register on e.g. the alto a bit too low, while f en g are a bit too high. The same goes without saying for other types of recorders: de b on my voice-flute is usually too low when we start performing. I took nevertheless counter measures to prevent the instrument dropping out of pitch. How do you solve this problem, Sarah? Maybe I propose tot the ensemble to play at 437/8 Hz, 412/3, (even 389/390) as a concert pitch. Iḿ very curious if there is a 'way out of this muddle In our Händel concerts we used A= 415 almost equal. Like to hear from you and keep up the good work.
Another point: adjusting the tuning to fit with other players is fine but what to do if you play alone i.e. is there a set of finger positions which will give you a particular historic temperament? Adjusting breath pressure seems a bit hit and miss without other players as a guide. How can one explore historic temparaments on the recorder with definite finger patterns?
Advice needed! Both Kung sopranos I’m trying atm have a super flat 2nd register C# (one is worse than the other & is only a smidge above the C!). I love the Kung sound but can’t buy an instrument where I have to use alternative fingerings all the time! Is this usual? Could I get that note/hole modified? Should I go to an actual shop & try many more? Thanks 😊
Holy cow! I recently found your channel because other folks I follow mentioned you. I'm a self taught musician and play several instruments, and recorder was my first instrument. I picked it back up a couple of weeks ago, and I've been trying to tune it to my other instruments, and I kept being distraught that it didn't work. Thank you so much for this video! I have a question or two though if you'd be so kind to answer! If pitch is dependent on force of blowing, can you do volume dynamics at all without affecting pitch? Also, I did check with a tuner, and I can get most notes fine and in pitch, but E and F are sharp no matter how I blow it, and I couldn't fix it by moving the tail piece either. I'm starting to think it really is a equal temperment bug because what I hear for myself sounds just like when I audiate it. My ear has been known to be sharp though...
The short answer is you get dynamics by using off-the-chart fingerings. If you use a flat fingering, you can blow harder for a louder in-tune sound. If you use a sharp fingering, you can blow less for a softer sound. Sarah has a video on it: ruclips.net/video/KVuFyMqD0oU/видео.html
@@reeser8 Thanks so much for the reply! Some days after I posted the comment I was going through her videos, and yeah, they're great, and answered most of my questions. I'm a bit intimidated by my little flute now haha. But it's given me renewed interest in playing, and I keep it on my work desk, always at hand, now.
Interesting video, thank you! So I was wondering - what happens if you tune to one note, and then as soon as you change note, the tuning is off? For example if embouchure changes, or if the instruments have different tuning tendencies?
You are fantastic! Can you tell me why you would need a patreon channel? I watch a LOT of gun videos, and they are ALL defunded by YT because, well, YT doesn't like guns(?). (I'm in the US) Are your music recorder videos defunded by YT as well?? Oh, me? I'm also a woodworker, and I began this journey by looking up making North American flutes, and after watching your video(s), I think I would rather make a recorder. More tuning, more holes, and more variations possible, maybe? Have you found any sites on where to put the holes for a 7 or 8-hole recorder? Which recorder (soprano, alto, middle, etc.) would be least likely to disturb my fellow apartment-dwellers?
Does one beating per second mean 1 cent off? That's about right for the A6, the high A on a soprano recorder. On A5, one beating per second shall be 2 cents off, and A4 be 4 cents off and so on.
Question Sarah , this might sound silly but I’m wondering how this might work because when you buy a recorder they can be in the key of C or key of G etc , what does this mean and how would tuning those work because they are In a certain key , bit confused on this , maybe I have missed something .
Actually it is possible to have perfect intonation but you'd have to tune your instrument for every key hence "we" decided to go somewhere in the middle :P
I've just started learning the recorder. (I played saxophone years ago... trying to not get confused on the fingerings.) My problem is notes G and above are in tune (-ish), but F through C at the bottom of the range are WAY sharp. What am I doing wrong? (I'm playing a $6 plastic Yamaha. I know that could be part of it.)
It is great to see someone who respects that equal temperament is not the be all end all, since a lot of the classical repertoire was not written for it. A great example of this Sweelinck's Fantasia Chromatica, which really emphasizes the unevenness of quarter-comma meantone temperment, where it starts with a decending chromatic line as its main theme.
Found a good example of that being played in meantone - ruclips.net/video/EHExcd6PYxQ/видео.html
@@tortoise74 Yes, definitely good. My favorite performance is by Christopher Herrick on an organ in Sweden with both D# and Eb keys as Sweelinck originally intended, but that is on RUclips as far as I know.
After being a professional musician for 40 years, you taught me things I have never heard before tonight! Ah well, I'm one of those ignorant first study pianists, I'm afraid. And at music college I had recorder lessons but not enough to get onto nitty gritty subjects like this. So a thousand thank yous!
I have heard the 'difference' - and hated it - I thought there was something wrong with my ears!
So, 2 questions:
1. My Helder treble claims to have all its harmonics in tune. What does that mean??? I thought harmonics were always in tune with the fundamental by definition?
2. My 10 year old recorder pupil was criticised for being out of tune in grade 1 ABRSM (which I thought a bit unkind - how is a beginner to stay in tune while observing dynamics?). So my response is to get her using a tuner now that she's working towards grade 3. That's what my oboist daughter was taught to do. But you say no. Well how would you go about teaching a ten year old proper tuning? What I just heard was interesting to me, but maybe not a child…
The harmonics of an instrument are not necessarily exact multiples of the fundamental: www.simonhendry.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/inharmonicity.pdf
Inharmonicity is a particularly prevalent in pianos and its nature varies with the instrument's construction. For this reason concert performances of two-piano duets must be given using the same model of instrument.
Richard Thomas
How cruel is that recorder teacher! Ambition is one thing, but how many children will lose interest in music, thanks to this BEEEEP?
Voor Naam
It wasn’t her teacher (me): it was an Associated Board examiner!
@@AnnFBug Ah, in Europe we must google that AMRWHATEVER... still cruel to expect miracles only. If he or she just noted it friendly, and told this girl she could work on that the next years, helped by her teacher, that would have been different. And you as a teacher would learn her that later, anyway. Not everybody is a Bach, Mozart or Paganini kid. Sounds like that examiner was a piano player by origin. Blowing the piano, that's an old jazz expression, by the way.
Piano player here. I have known about equal temperament for a long time but I assumed other instruments used it too. I really learned something here. I have a new respect for the versatility of the recorder. Also I used the knowledge from your breathing video and played a few hours last night and my recorder playing just went up to a new level. Thank you. I have always wanted to play recorder and make it sound the way it should. I’m on the right path thanks to you. Great work teaching us. Keep the videos coming.
Great summary Sarah. At the end of the day it explains how important it is to be totally "one" with each piece auditorially. "In tune" is ongoing and dynamic and "nearby" the place you're at in the music. Amazing that our brains can put the recorder exactly on pitch as temperament moves around.
One place where a tuner is really useful is when playing long tones, especially playing in a new instrument, to get a feel for how much you can vary on each pitch and what some of the tendencies are.
Having been in quarantine for about 4 weeks the time came to take out my recorder and see if perhaps I could finally learn to play it. I've learned SO many things from your channel I wish I hade known when I was I child. Grade 1-3 we played the recorder in music class. Plastic, one piece german style recorders. For three years I remember glaring angrily at my teacher with her big hands who could reach the lower little duble-holes at the bottom. Less than one hour in and I've already learnt so much. I'm especially grateful of learning more about what things are down to me as a player and what might be related to the instrument. So thank you
I was literally practicing long tones while staring my phone’s tuner app before I got here haha. I knew there had to be more to it! Thank you Sarah!
Wonderful and helpful video!! One nerdy quibble. The beat frequency is not how many cents the two tones are away from unison. It is rather the difference between the frequencies of the two tones. That is, playing one tone at 440 Hz with another at 442 Hz will result in two beats per second. But they are almost 8 cents apart.
Finally someone who got the question of temperaments right and explains it correctly and still simply! Most of teachers in music schools just ignore it and come with built up (simplified and wrong) theories stating that the comma is the 9th of a tone, while it is the resulting error of tuning in a certain way (as explained by Sarah taking as example tuning by going up in just thirds does not reach the octave but something higher and the difference to the just octave is the comma). I particularly found the explanations on how to practically put the theory into practice very useful. Congrats for this unique in its genre video, Sarah: a daring choice of subject, handled in a clear, sensible, and helpful way!
Thank you so much! ☺️
A few years ago I read this book by Isacoff : "Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization". It's about the history of temperament and the philosophical fights on it. Very interesting!
Thanks for this book recommendation Stella - I have just ordered a copy.
Take the study back to the monochord. You'll play with the primary-color equivalent of sound. Remember: Painting decorates Space. Music decorates Time.
That’s a terrible book.
@@cangjie12 :-) feel free to suggest another one. I'm curious about the subject and I'll be very happy to read it
I came here expecting to hear how to tune the recorder. Instead, I think I learned it's all about tuning yourSELF, and your own blown air. o_____o
She did a good job of explaining how to tune the recorder by adjusting its length and also on how to raise and lower the tone by the strength of your breath. She even talked about not using a tuner, which is what I was going to do, which gave me confidence in trusting my instincts
I did not understand much the first time I saw this. How do you tune a recorder? As I continued playing and practicing, (months later) with the help of your videos, I understand it now. It feels good to finally get it. Thank you for these in depth videos too. 💕
Fascinating. Not only re the importance of tuning and the flexibility of recorders re tuning, but also on the nature of pitch and the relationship of harmonics to pitch.
When I graduated from conservatory I realized that the more I learned about music the less I seemed to know about it all. I mean the more I realized how much there was to learn the less I seemed to know. I've never heard of so much of the stuff you were talking about! That was a really informative video.
I didn't understand everything, but, my goodness, listening to you and watching your facial expressions is so much fun!
Wow! It's great to listen to all you have said, specially when you play with a lot of modern instruments that do play looking the tuner or say that you are always out of tune because the fifths are the ones who match with de keyboards or piano and no the pure ones.... Thank youuu!!! I was the first recorder player graduated from the conservatory... so you can imagine how was all around.
Great practical explaination !
I bought a plastic alto Woodnote from someone on Craigslist not knowing anything about it (or anything about or music in general). I was just tired of my son's $5 school soprano and wanted something less piercing.
But I've had a heck of a time trying to play with any the piano or recorded piece. First I thought is was me, then I thought maybe I bought a cheap recorder then I thought maybe I bought a baroque recorder (415 hz). Now I know it really is just me. Which is great ! Now I can do something about it and keep my lovely recorder !
So much to learn !
Thank you Sarah. 😊
This is really helpful. I've been playing along with your other videos, and I kept hearing horrible beats when I tried to play in unison. So then I brought out my tuner, and I couldn't get the needle to hold still. So then I was adjusting _both_ joints on my recorder to get my recorder in tune throughout its range (like adjusting the intonation on a guitar), all the while wondering if maybe the reason the pitch varies so much with my breath is because I did happen to purchase one of the least expensive recorders I could find.
But as it turns out, the simple solution is that _I_ need to get better.
My younger sister and I are from jamaica, she's in grade six and has a graded music presentation this upcoming week. Your point about slightly dettatching the recorder head to get a lower tone helped.👌🏼💓
The song is jungle bells btw lool
Wow! My original question was whether a tin whistle or recorder would have more accurate intonation right out of the box. What a stupid question. I had no idea recorders had such flexibility in tuning. Makes my fiddle seem easy by comparison, no need for breath control. Excellent video. One of the best explanations of different systems of tuning I've heard. And the suggestions how to train one's ear also excellent.
I started to accompany myself on cembalo first time. When I had mixed my alto part with the cembalo I was very frustrated, because it was so much out of tune. I am piano player and started with the alto during the first lockdown. I hope your valuable information will help me to get better. I am very grateful for your work.
I appreciate you so much. I love the deep dive you take into a variety of technical topics. I just had my piano tuned in the Prinz 1/5 comma well tempered tuning. It is such a huge topic, and I knew a few things from a piano standpoint, but this video gives me quite a so much more to go learn with my recorder. Thank you always.
Technically this can work with string instruments, since we have an "infinite" area to place our fingers on the string. Which is why intonation on string instruments like the violin, viola, and cello (for instance) is hard to learn and is very important.
Very well put! This is one of the reasons why I had such a hard time teaching recorder to a class full of thirty 10 year olds in the US (I don’t anymore). That... was... painful...
Anyway, this will help my husband and I when we play currently. I HATE the grating but love playing with someone else!
Thank you Sarah for your take on this subject. I just recently started learning to play saxophone and I did try to use a tuner to help me keep in tune, but all that did was discourage me because my tune was all over the place! Thank you for your encouragement, I can't tell if I'm in tune or out of tune just by listening and so I'm sure it'll take me years to train my ears to hear the notes better just as it has you....
This is so exciting! I decided to learn recorder to improve my singing, specifically my pitch and rhythm, as well as master music theory. I am starting to grasp this technical stuff. This is really going to help my singing, but I am falling in love with the recorder and want to master it for it own's sake. I have started a list of songs I want to learn for recorder.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
Brilliant, Sarah. Just one additional comment. On a workshop with Philip Thorby, he suggested NOT tuning from the bass up but from the soprano down. Worth trying out some time.
It's been awhile, but I believe in band we called it Relative Tuning. Everyone centers on a single person and then the piece itself sounds good. Tuners are great if the source point isn't a fixed instrument like a piano, or you want to make sure you're hitting a guide note if you're playing alone. Like, you learn your instrument and know how to adjust to make it sound good when you play, so if you start with, for an example 'G', and you know that you're warmed up and that 'G' is in a good position and in tune, then you know you can adjust everything else so that it's good.
Are there ways to bend the pitch of a recorder while in the midst of a piece so as to bring it in tune using something other than wind velocity? For example, does mouth/tongue position make a difference?
My brain hurts a bit. Much is beyond where I am as a re-beginner but some good take aways to start with. And you made it light hearted enough that I will revisit. Thank you
Sara , anytime I see your video, I feel happy and enthusiastic. Thank you.
😘😘
Wonderful video. I could watch an hours-long video on this. Keep up the great work!
I wish she did do an hour long video on this subject. I am scratching my head trying to figure it out and I need more help.
Fascinating! You've just opened up a whole new world of tuning differences to me that I had no idea existed. This may explain one of the reasons I prefer harpsichord over piano. You really bring the theory to life by explaining a complex topic in accessible way ... thanks Sarah!
Very good video about the temperament topic! Just some remarks to the margins, not going into the recorder topic that is far your expertise than mine. :) Even in the romantic era, pianists used unequal temperaments, Brahms himself plays a piano about in a Kirnberger "1/3" temperament (as I measured it!) in the vax cylinder recording that you can hear anytime. Even Bartók used to think in unequal temperament at a point in his career: there are two versions of "For Childen", one from 1908 and the well-known one from 1945, there are local but important differences, and you can hear (really hear if you play in un unequally tempered piano) that the earlier version sounds bad at some places in molled meantone temperaments, but the 1945 revision is perfect in a half-wolf meantone! And the revision meant exactly to clean up the harmonies such way. I do not think Bartók intended a performance in a Corret's temperament, let's say, but he had experience with orchestration and to write for... wind instruments, and his ears were just (justly:) ) tranied.
Another point, sound waves do not go up and down since they are longitudinal waves, very unlike rope waves or water waves but more like waves along a spring where the initial perturbation is a dislocation along the line of the spanned spring. So better to say, sound waves move in and out. Or, pressure values go up and down. Or, local velocity values go up and down, and in an opposite phase as pressure values does.
Also, the number of beating = the off-tune cents role works only at a certain frequency, practically near C4. An octave higher, the number of beating doubles if you are off tuned by the same number of cents.
I know why the fingering is different on a garklein recorder, this is really pure physics, but I think explaining it would take a too long time and not worth the possibly gaunt musical takeaways. :) But it is a beautiful, very relevant and useful physics in its own, I can assure.
I also do not like equal temperament. My piano is NOT in equal temperament. None of them. I can also assure. :)
Not everyone has a good ear to tell whether or not a note is in tune, so they do have to rely on a tuner. I remember going to a concert about 10 years ago and I said to the friend that I had gone to the concert with, that the famous female singer was out of tune. My friend said that she wasn't.....I said she was, and it was so obvious to me that it made me cringe. Fortunately, the singer did get in tune fairly quickly. A very informative video - many thanks 👍. I've learnt quite a few things from watching this video.
Of course, use all the tools you can that work for you!
That is a amazing trick with pulling the recorder head slightly bit xD thx for it!
This is a brilliant presentation of hugely complex subject. Thank you so much!
This was VERY informative, for someone preparing for music theory classes
You are soooo funny! I enjoy your videos so much. I recently started with the recorder to teach it to my elementary school children. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to take lessons with a professional recorder player. Boy! This is not easy, but I enjoy it so much . Thank you for your videos.
Wow that was a marathon! Appreciate the hard work you put into this video! And I learned loads and will have to see this over and over again to take everything that's there to take from it.
5:54
6:08
14:22
16:19
20:53
Beat makers should sample these moments.
Andru Jorj 5:54 lol
Andru Jorj I looked at all of the mins I laughed so hard tysm lol
Thank you for the deep dive into tuning, I appreciate the lesson and look forward to putting it into action (being a violinist as well tuning in fifths is quite familia to me too) - all in all a great vid thanks for the time and effort, the quality of each is increasing in leaps and bounds
Great info! Some of which I had forgotten(?). I just discovered that my plastic Yamaha Soprano is about 5 to 10 cents sharp on the bottom root note. Thanks! Happy holidays! 🌞🎅🏻🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
Erm... yea.. I will just keep playing on my own.. Maar hartstikke bedankt voor al je videos! Ik heb al een heleboel van je geleerd. 🤗
Stuart Isacoff's 'Temperament' book has been mentioned. He appears to favour ET but there are twists and turns to his account. It is worth a read for sure.
Others though are equally interesting. Ross Duffin's 'How Equal Temperament Ruined harmony (and why you should care)' is a nice argument through the different historical attempts to solve the issue and questions whether ET really was adopted by performers despite the hype from the 19th century (he examines old recordings, for instance.)
A third book is Kyle Gann's 'The Arithmetic of Listening' which give the means of calculating the frequencies, intervals, cents, ratios, etc before looking at the history of the issue.
Glad to hear such a good account of an essential subject. The difficulty of all this is actually hearing these tunings. I wonder if Pythagoras (or any actual historical person) had the means to hear and examine sound ratios or if it was largely theoretical, at least for a long while. When did musicians become aware of the actual practical difficulties of tuning?
Great content. My math background always found tension in the physics of the proportional frequency distance between notes and the doubling between octaves. Now I have my answer!
Also relieved to know I should not be focused on trying to get my digital tuner to always show a green light.
As always, informative and entertaining. Thanks again, and keep up the great work!
If 2 notes are 3 cents out of tune, it won’t always be 3 beats per second. If they’re 3 hertz out of tune, yes, but not 3 cents.
bah I meant hertz!
Did you know this is actually just another form of that difference tone you talked about.
A cent is related to pitch; every semitone contains 100 cents no matter where it occurs on the scale. Two notes that are out of tune will generate audible beats - the number of beats per second corresponds to the number of Hertz (cycles per second) by which the notes differ in frequency. Difference tones are not generated 'in the air' as Sarah claims, they are a result of non-linearity (intermodulation) in the ear. Sarah's demonstration only works if played at high volume. If you hear annoying low frequencies when playing a recorder (or even singing) in a group stand further away and they will disappear. More on Tartini tones here newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/tartini-temperament.html
Richard Thomas
Ah, this was so good. Finally, the clouds of confusion lift away, and the sunlight of understanding dawns. Thank you! But you know, we really should stop calling ourselves "nerdy" because we're interested in the details of important things. Or if that's being "nerdy", then may the nerds inherit the earth, I say! N.E.R.D. = Naturally expert, rigorous, and driven. 🌈🥰
Haha I agree! 💕
This was so intimidating I had to pause it and take some cleansing breaths. You have great energy and clearly know your stuff, but for an adult beginner - even one like me who has a musical background (piano, clarinet, and guitar) - the technical info is overwhelming. I just wanted to know how to adjust the tone of my instrument. Maybe this would work better broken down into smaller bites for those of us less experienced with the instrument. I'm gonna forge ahead, though, even though now I feel like I'll always sound like a sick peacock.
Try 'How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care)' by Ross Duffin. With a sense of humor it explains much of what is discussed in this video. Very useful book .... and thank you for the video Sarah.
This is a very good video. One of the best explanations on temperament ive seen on RUclips and so much good advice.
That’s a really good explanation of the comma one of the best I’ve heard
Phew thanks! I broke my brain!
It was probably said. The perfect 5th has C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, and G, going up from C 7 standard notes in America. Thank you for the beginning demonstration. You know, what about warming it with a towel, or a case, lined in velvet? 😁
Well thank you im still a beginner at recorder and i thought my recorder was broken (lol) and when i saw this you save my grades
Thank youu
I'm just me in my room with my new alto trying to figure out if it is in tune of not but I loved ur vid still don't know though lol
When playing alone it doesn't really matter if you are in perfect tune it will always sound good because you can't play chords you can only play a single tone different to guitar where you can play chords for example.
@@marcol4208 thank you 🌺
Ook een goede les om te leren luisteren om de snaren van een gitaar te synchroniseren 👍
Thank you for this interesting video!
I think you did a great job of explaining a terribly thorny topic. I guess it can be easy for people with a strong maths/physics mindset but for others...
I'm still a beginner trying to learn all the notes and moreover I use a resin Yamaha YRA 314, therefore pitch is currently not my first worry: I just trust my recorder to be decently in tune and worry about putting the fingerpads on the right holes.
As a singer, though, I'm a bit more advanced and pitch is of course a daily worry for me. As a (bad) habit, I tend to be flat but with time I've developed a sort of "ear" and correct my pitch thinking of singing with more strength and motion (the example you made about the seagull for the fifths). It's not very scientific but it kind of works.
This video is rather 'information dense' for lack of a better phrase, and therefore is a perfect example of why a tutorial in book form by Ms. Jeffery would be so helpful. It is far easier to reread a page then it is to replay the appropriate section of a video, or to look in an index to find what you are looking for than it is to rely on one's memory of "I know that she mentioned that, but just when and in which video"?. Another broad not terribly subtle hint in my continuing campaign for a Recorder Method&Methods by S. Jeffery. It would sell out quickly, I believe. Hint, hint 😀
Something may be long term in the works ;) I can't include everything in a book, so what specific info would you be interested in?
Wow you are very generous with your hard earned knowledge!
Brilliant as always - watched twice and now I'm off to find out more about this fascinating subject. I want to know what the "Wolf" sounds like - knowing me I'd like the sound.
In the meantime I think I'll just carry on playing out of tune - it's easier - lol!!
I play "Mary Had A Little Lamb" with Wolf intervals on a phased and heavily-reverbed toy-piano sound. Definitely takes it to John Carpenter town.
Wonderful. Thank you. Released from the tyranny of the tuner!
Always make sure you are wearing a long sleeve shirt if you warm under your armpit!
Otherwise you will be picking a Lot of armpit hairs out of between your teeth. Those hairs are NOT suitable for Flossing, by the way. Just throw them away, as they are of no use.
Best video ever in your channel, Sarah. Thank you!
Hi, does anyone know of a public resource where I can check my fingerings? I am blind. Documents with charts and graphs won’t help me unless I can have someone explain them to me. Any suggestions are welcome. Love the recorder. Thank you.
Great vid. Two minor and super nerdy points: a.) The enharmonic comma you demonstrated (C-E, E-Gx, Gx-Bx) results in an octave too small, not too large. b.) In classical meantone, the "wolf" refers to the unusable fifth between Gx and Eb. Triads built on Fx, B, and Cx are plenty nasty with their enharmonic thirds; but a triad built on Ab is super nasty with an enharmonic third and a lousy fifth as well.
Keep it simple. Talk about tongue shape & breath control & how it effects intonation. To explain Equal Temperament in a few mins is difficult. This not a criticism, your presentation & enthusiasm is lovely. We never stop learning. Thank you.
Super video love the lighting!🙏🙏🙏
I loved this video. I need someone to play with. :) I wonder who decides who's in tune if a recorder is playing with a cello or violin? Who leads or is it the blind leading the blind? Do you meet in the middle or does it depends on which chord is being played so that you keep your intervals perfect? A really interesting and complex topic! Your gliss is perfect and I'd love ro learn how to do that.
Thank you Sarah for this video. Can you please talk about enharmonic pairs on the recorder, and how (or whether) players might differentiate them? I know that violinist during the baroque and classical eras used to play F sharp a little lower than G flat, but I would like to know whether was this the case for woodwind instruments, and if so, can this be done on modern instruments?
Another great video, thanks Sarah. There is a lovely paperback book which covers some of this . It is not specifically for the recorder but puts some more background to tuning systems. It is: How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care) by Ross Duffin (ISBN: 9780393334203). I recommend it as a fairly light read for those of a slightly technical mind. I do not of course know if you have come across it or would recommend it?
I’m glad you put your three cents in there...
You really know your material. Great Channel.
4:31 it is the same thing as a drum fill.... too much odd, missing or off space in the sounding measure! 9:58 difference tones, sound resonance out of phase oscillations. this is engineering lingo... good job young lady...dont need this level of accuracy but it is nice to know! TY
If you insert the headjoint into the middle joint slightly on soprano can make it Bb
Thank you so much!! I hope I can learn. I am a piano player (sorry), but I despise equal temperament... *sigh* still trying to figure it out, how to tune it differently without damaging the soundboard (on a piano i mean). Anyways... how do I learn to do this???? I am a recorder begginer, trained my whole life on equal temperament :'( Thank you for all this!!! You should do a longer video on this, with a recorder player friend to show every aspect of this (or a piano player too). Thank you Sarah!! :)
Thank you! I know this topic, but you are so interesting to tell me that I do not even understand English, and I use only subtitles of RUclips, I get some sense, and I hope to learn a little about oral English!
Well, on the accuracy of the scale on the recorder - I do not like the note to the sharpest of the first octave on the alto recorder - with two fingers it is a little too high, and with three - it seems to be low, in long sounds I use one hole from the saddle, under the ring finger of the right arms...
I do not know how much Google translate this text exactly, I hope it did not happen without ridiculous blunders.
How wonderful~~ Thank you！
Very well explained!
this is very helpful
Love your channel, Great video, thanks for posting.
The Tuning CD by Richard Schwartz is a great resource for learning tuning without a group. It's available from a number of different sources. Here's one: us.napster.com/artist/richard-schwartz/album/the-tuning-cd-a440
Yay! Tuning video!
I love this channel, Thanks you!!!!
Echt interessant!
I have to listen this a view times, to realy get what you are explaining.
But listening at what you tell here, again i think, the recorder is underrated.
Ahww, i am 44, and started to play the recorder!
But, why not :-).
Yay someone who's also not a big fan of equal temperament
Harmonics on My Soprano Recorder (A=442)
0= C4
1=C#5
2=G#5
3=C#6
4=F6
When playing together with a digital piano would you recommend to set the piano to something like meantone or pythagorean instead of equal temperament? Some models actually have that option. For me as a piano player this is fascinating because it is something you normally cannot do.
I see this question is a year old... So the writer will obviously not have been waiting for my answer, but here is what I can say as an amateur recorder and clavichord player:
I'm not certain, but I suspect recorders are tuned in something closer to mean tone than equal temperament. Sarah says something like this when she talks of the thirds on the piano being "out of tune".
So it depends on what your goal is:
- if you're playing medieval music it should sound better in pythagorean. Maybe (haven't tried).
- if you are playing baroque or renaissance music, then mean tone will sound more like the keyboard instruments of the period. Except for Bach - some people believe he tuned in equal temperament, some think he had his own secret sauce. (There are also "well" temperaments like Werckmeister III which are a bit like mean tone, but tweaked so it's possible to play in keys with lots of sharps or flats.)
- if you are playing classical music, everyone expects the piano to be in equal temperament so there's probably less point in changing things.
In any case, why not play around and see what you like the sound of?
I really enjoy your videos. They are funny also..
As a recorder player in baroque ensemble Consort of Voices I always have problems with fine-tuning . We choose our temperament from the app Cleartune. However the violins, theorbos and harpsichord can 'easily' fine tune but I as a recorder player can't always realize the same air pressure (especially not in the progress of a life performance). Further difficulties arise from the kind of space you are performing in (in churches there are often temperatures below 16 C: too cold to get to the rigth pitch and than we have this problem with the tuning of specific notes. For instance I find c and d in the first register on e.g. the alto a bit too low, while f en g are a bit too high. The same goes without saying for other types of recorders: de b on my voice-flute is usually too low when we start performing. I took nevertheless counter measures to prevent the instrument dropping out of pitch. How do you solve this problem, Sarah? Maybe I propose tot the ensemble to play at 437/8 Hz, 412/3, (even 389/390) as a concert pitch. Iḿ very curious if there is a 'way out of this muddle In our Händel concerts we used A= 415 almost equal. Like to hear from you and keep up the good work.
Another point: adjusting the tuning to fit with other players is fine but what to do if you play alone i.e. is there a set of finger positions which will give you a particular historic temperament? Adjusting breath pressure seems a bit hit and miss without other players as a guide. How can one explore historic temparaments on the recorder with definite finger patterns?
Advice needed! Both Kung sopranos I’m trying atm have a super flat 2nd register C# (one is worse than the other & is only a smidge above the C!). I love the Kung sound but can’t buy an instrument where I have to use alternative fingerings all the time! Is this usual? Could I get that note/hole modified? Should I go to an actual shop & try many more? Thanks 😊
Fascinating! Thanks for this.
yes its nice
Holy cow! I recently found your channel because other folks I follow mentioned you. I'm a self taught musician and play several instruments, and recorder was my first instrument. I picked it back up a couple of weeks ago, and I've been trying to tune it to my other instruments, and I kept being distraught that it didn't work. Thank you so much for this video!
I have a question or two though if you'd be so kind to answer! If pitch is dependent on force of blowing, can you do volume dynamics at all without affecting pitch? Also, I did check with a tuner, and I can get most notes fine and in pitch, but E and F are sharp no matter how I blow it, and I couldn't fix it by moving the tail piece either. I'm starting to think it really is a equal temperment bug because what I hear for myself sounds just like when I audiate it. My ear has been known to be sharp though...
The short answer is you get dynamics by using off-the-chart fingerings. If you use a flat fingering, you can blow harder for a louder in-tune sound. If you use a sharp fingering, you can blow less for a softer sound. Sarah has a video on it: ruclips.net/video/KVuFyMqD0oU/видео.html
@@reeser8 Thanks so much for the reply! Some days after I posted the comment I was going through her videos, and yeah, they're great, and answered most of my questions. I'm a bit intimidated by my little flute now haha. But it's given me renewed interest in playing, and I keep it on my work desk, always at hand, now.
Interesting video, thank you!
So I was wondering - what happens if you tune to one note, and then as soon as you change note, the tuning is off? For example if embouchure changes, or if the instruments have different tuning tendencies?
Thank you for this
You are fantastic! Can you tell me why you would need a patreon channel? I watch a LOT of gun videos, and they are ALL defunded by YT because, well, YT doesn't like guns(?). (I'm in the US) Are your music recorder videos defunded by YT as well?? Oh, me? I'm also a woodworker, and I began this journey by looking up making North American flutes, and after watching your video(s), I think I would rather make a recorder. More tuning, more holes, and more variations possible, maybe? Have you found any sites on where to put the holes for a 7 or 8-hole recorder? Which recorder (soprano, alto, middle, etc.) would be least likely to disturb my fellow apartment-dwellers?
Alto or lower is least likely to bother your neighbors.
I wish choir conductors explained it like this instead of force-tuning to piano keys and claiming thirds are "too low" etc. 🙄
Does one beating per second mean 1 cent off? That's about right for the A6, the high A on a soprano recorder. On A5, one beating per second shall be 2 cents off, and A4 be 4 cents off and so on.
Fantastic 👍
Question Sarah , this might sound silly but I’m wondering how this might work because when you buy a recorder they can be in the key of C or key of G etc , what does this mean and how would tuning those work because they are In a certain key , bit confused on this , maybe I have missed something .
"tchewning???"
Better than tooning.
Actually it is possible to have perfect intonation but you'd have to tune your instrument for every key hence "we" decided to go somewhere in the middle :P
I've just started learning the recorder. (I played saxophone years ago... trying to not get confused on the fingerings.) My problem is notes G and above are in tune (-ish), but F through C at the bottom of the range are WAY sharp. What am I doing wrong? (I'm playing a $6 plastic Yamaha. I know that could be part of it.)