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Topic: Tuning? |
Gil Berry
From:
Westminster, CA, USA
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Posted 9 Apr 2007 6:24 pm |
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I read with interest the posts to the "question for Buddy Emmons" topic above. I have decided to start a new topic rather than post to the buddy question on the off-chance he might just want to reply to a question put to him without wading through gobblegook from a novice (fifty years worth) like myself. I have been using Jeff Newman's tuning for years, as I'm sure many others here have. Let's see...Open 4th string "E" tuned to 442.5. Third string G# tuned to 439, and 5th string B tuned to 442. OK. This makes sense. The E major triad - E-G#-B would be third (G#) quite flat compared to the tonic, and the fifth B slightly flat compared to the tonic. But now, hit A&B pedals - going to the "4" chord A. Jeff says the A should be tuned to 441, the C# to 437.5 or so. Now the A chord triad A-C#-E has the tonic at 441, the 3rd (5th string) at 437.5 and the 5th (the 4th string E) is still at 442.5 (this guitar has NO cabinet drop)!! Now my 5th is sharp compared to the tonic. And unless my bar has a wiggle in it, there's no way I'm gonna make that E flat compared to the A string when playing 3-4-5- 'cause the E is in the middle BUT IT STILL SOUNDS IN TUNE. Now, admittedly, my hearing is not that of Buddy Emmons (or even my own musically-talented kid for that matter), but when playing with a band, I sound in tune TO ME. I think our hearing is forgiving of minor discordance and somehow or other our brain "forgives" to a limited extent. Except for those with perfect hearing whom I pity because they must be horribly annoyed with out of tune instruments.
Remember, the piano has MULTIPLE strings for most notes, and they are purposely not tuned precisely identical. This makes the string closer to the desired frequency for a particular chord dominate for our hearing. Anyway, I think I'm right there. So all said, Buddy has it right - TUNE IT BY EAR. Of course, it helps if you have Buddy's ear. I'll just have to use Jeff's tuning. It sounds fine to me.  |
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Eric West
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.
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Posted 9 Apr 2007 7:57 pm
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Well, our brains are really complex processors, and our limbs relate this "magic" quite well.
Anybody can tune any way they wish.
You either play acceptably in tune, or you don't. If you don't, you won't be playing with bands much, and certainly not for decades..
The only objections I have is when people start saying that it is improper, unacceptable, or somehow less than sophisticated to tune an instrument that plays a twelve note system exactly to those twelve notes.
Maybe it's because they never learned to expect the tension and dynamics of a precise twelve note system. They found an "easier, softer way", and figure that everybody else should relax their standards too.
Thanks to a few imaginative minds, even the most concise statements of people like Mr Emmons have been bent almost immediately to fit their own complex ideas, so it's really no use to post any of them. A quick read of even the last "tuning thread" will tell you of this.
Here's the example:
| Quote: |
| I do tune everything ET. Compensation is what I had to deal with tuning the old way but now it’s a thing of the past. I may go a cent or so flat in some cases but strictly to handle temp changes under certain conditions. -Buddy Emmons- |
Now.
Immediately, somebody jumps in and assumes that he "doesn't mean cents", and "must mean hertz".
| Quote: |
| I may go a cent or so flat in some cases but strictly to handle temp changes under certain conditions. -BE- |
I'm not reading ANY mention of ANY interval.
OK.
Now, it's immediately assumed that he is talking about his "Thirds".
Gee. I'm reading it again and still no mention of a "third" a 'sixth' or ANY interval.
Then, I refer to the first statement:
| Quote: |
| I do tune everything ET. -BE- |
Well, it's hard to make much out of that except that it must be acceptable to Mr Emmons to "tune everything to ET". Strings, pedals, and knee levers seem included.
I do that myself, and have for thirty years. Long before I knew there was "another way."
If a guy can play an acceptably averaged slanted diminished chord as in lap steel, theres no reason a guy that has been playing a few years can't average even a purposefully detuned chord.
I can believe it, as I've heard it again and again for years and years on the bandstand, and on recordings.
If nothing else, vibrato "cleans things up", and speed is the ally of the poorly tuned. Kind of a poor man's Sound Soap™
My only bone of contention is that there are more than one or two people that will tell a young, beginning player that they must use a complex, and nearly impossible to define system of detuning certain notes within a major scale.
They immediately note two things:
One is that is nearly impossible to make sure ALL of their positions and changer combinations include these detuned notes at the "proper interval.
Two, if they think at all is that unless they stay within a very narrow pattern, at least half of the notes they play in "accidental" substitutions are going to be at least 200% off to what the standard "detuning system" suggests.
Add to that, they find early on that except for "fiddles", NO other instrument on the bandstand is detuned that way.
There are more than a few Pedal Steel Players that "Tune Everything to ET".
Many like me don't really care how other people tune, but really take exception to being told "what our ears hear".
Especially when the Top Guy has made such a clear concise statement of how he tunes.
I say if you don't like intervals being based on an equal twelve note system, you are not alone. It's been fought over for 500 or more years.
In that period of time, there is one side of it that has learned to accept, like, and incorporate it into their playing over their lifetimes. Piano and guitar players for instance.
Not without notice too is that in none of Mr Emmons' posts has he written anything on how "other people should tune", or how "most of the top players tune".
Neither have I.
Objecting to other people doing it is my special sin I guess.
I do my pennance nearly every weekend.
God willing.
A few cents or even hertz one way or the other is not really worth quibbling over.
It's the PLAYING that's important.
Mr Doggett agrees with me.
Finally, though it happened in incriments..
EJL |
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Gil Berry
From:
Westminster, CA, USA
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Posted 9 Apr 2007 8:22 pm
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| Interesting, Eric. And I am in no way expert enough to tell ANYONE how to do ANYTHING. (well, maybe my wife - then again, maybe not). But what I was trying to point out is that this sophisticated instrument is IMPOSSIBLE to play perfectly in tune for more than one three-or-more note chord IF you use the pedals. When you play the lap you usually are hitting only two strings on slants, so a little "fudging" will get you darn close to perfect. My point was that unless our instrument had a computer hooked up to it that somehow could tell what our INTENDED chord was and would COMPENSATE all the strings to bring them mathmatically in tune what that chord, we will always be slightly out of tune. But, thank God, our hearing just isn't that good. Anyway, thanks for the response. |
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Mike Winter
From:
Portland, OR
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Posted 9 Apr 2007 8:26 pm
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Eric West
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.
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Posted 10 Apr 2007 4:52 am
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Well Gil, perfection is over rated.
The only glitch is that often you will see and hear a band that really sucks, and it is amazing that they don't know it.
It's kind of a communal thing that you either feel like fitting in to, or you don't.
Tuning is relative.
EJL |
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Charlie McDonald
From:
out of the blue
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Posted 10 Apr 2007 5:13 am
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| Gil Berry wrote: |
| But what I was trying to point out is that this sophisticated instrument is IMPOSSIBLE to play perfectly in tune for more than one three-or-more note chord.... |
I think Manfred Beezerstumpfer said the same thing when he got his first piano in the 17th century.
We can appreciate what the early pioneers went through.
It seems Jeff's approach was intended to counteract a generic amount of 'cabinet drop.' But to be left with a 5th that is 1.5 Hz wide of pure is beyond the bounds of either ET or JI. If you lower the E string to ref=441, you begin the process of having to rectify several more strings to this temperament, a process that eventually led to ET way back when.
The alternative is to install a compensator on str. 4 to simulate cabinet drop. A predictable result would be compensators on every string, a mechanical nightmare.
I quoted Mr. Emmons:
"I would tune the G# sharp to the E note first and then add the B. If the G# still sounded sharp in the triad, I would tune it down slightly until the sound mellowed out. Then I’d play the E and G# together again to demonstrate the G# was still sharp to the ear. Then I would add the B note again and the dissonance would disappear. It served as a fair compromise between the two tuning methods while cutting down on the nudge factor."
Something similar could be done with the AB pedals depressed. Piano tuners do the same--blending a chord--in extreme examples of inharmonicity, the inherent limitations of short-scale instruments.
I see no way that pedal steel can be tuned without some form of 'tampering' from one norm or another.
Thus, some experimentation is inevitable.
Good luck.
_________________
Those that say don't know; those that know don't say.--Buddy Emmons |
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Darvin Willhoite
From:
Roxton, Tx. USA
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Posted 10 Apr 2007 6:39 am
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Very well said Eric, I agree 100%. I learned what I know on my own, without a teacher or instructional material, and didn't know how to do anything but tune straight up. If it has worked for 35 years, why fix it.
_________________
Darvin Willhoite
MSA Millennium, Legend, and Studio Pro, Reese's restored Universal Direction guitar, a restored MSA Classic SS, several amps, new and old, and a Kemper Powerhead that I am really liking. Also a Zum D10, a Mullen RP, and a restored Rose S10, named the "Blue Bird". Also, I have acquired and restored the plexiglass D10 MSA Classic that was built as a demo in the early '70s. I also have a '74 lacquer P/P, with wood necks, and a showroom condition Sho-Bud Super Pro. |
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David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 10 Apr 2007 8:50 am
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| Buddy Emmons (Forum, May 2, 2002) wrote: |
| I tune my thirds to 438 just to compensate for a possible drift of that note a cent or two sharp. |
That is a very sensible in-between tuning, but technically it is closer to JI (436.5) than to ET (440).
For those who are interested, the Newman tuning was taken from the way Lloyd Green tuned a guitar by taking a single reference E and tuning the rest by ear (very close to pure JI with some automatic compensation for cabinet drop) which is the traditional way most top pros have always tuned.
I am perfectly happy to leave hero worship, vote counts, and the number of years one has played out of these discussions (if others will do likewise), and stick to the well known technical aspects of harmonic theory (do a Google search on Just Intonation and Equal Temper and you will get tons of easily accessible and easily understood information). I think people like Lloyd Green, Jeff Newman, and Paul Franklin have as many years experience as Eric and Darvin. For centuries in the classical music world JI has been considered the standard for intonation for strings, horns and voices, and ET has been well understood as a necessary compromise for fixed pitch instruments. The steel guitar is not a fixed pitch instrument. JI and ET have been mixed successfully on zillions of bandstands, and in zillions of orchestras, and zillions of recordings.
Also, for those who will take the time to check, it is possible to tune all the most common chords and scales of the E9 pedal steel to essentially perfect JI intervals with no conflicts (see how to in next post). That is no accident. The E9 tuning evolved to be able to do this. I can tune any of my pedal steels for perfect JI intervals for the chords (at the nut) E9, A6, A7, B, C#m, C#, F#m, G#m (and using the “chromatic strings” some of these are actually more complicated chords than I have given here). That takes care of I9, IV6. IV7, V, VI, and VIm. With the bar these can be taken to any fret to make any major, minor, 6th, major or minor 7th, or 9th chord in the chromatic scale. Other chords, such as augmenteds and diminished may not be perfect JI, but they are as close as any chord is with an ET tuning, in which all chords have intentionally out of tune intervals. Although the internal chord intervals are perfect JI, at the nut these will be off from the ET root pitch by half of my cabinet drop (1 Hz or 4 cents; and this would be the same whether I tuned JI or ET), except for the C# (the A/F combination), which is off by about 2 Hz or 8 cents. But when played with the bar your ear automatically puts them on pitch. Also, at the nut the entire E scale and the C# minor scale can be played with perfect JI intervals. And with the bar these can be taken to any fret to give any of the 12 major or minor scales, with all their modes, in perfect JI. If you want to go up any single string with the bar, the frets and your eye will get you approximately on any pitch of the chromatic scale and your ear will get you right on pitch, the same as any steeler plays, regardless of whether they are tuned JI, ET or somewhere in between.
Gil, the reason the Newman tuning sounds in tune to you, even though you know it is technically slightly off, is that it is close enough. A rule of thumb is that anything less than 5 cents (1.25 Hz) is passable when playing. I don’t believe there are any internal chord intervals in the Newman tuning that are as far off as the 3rds, 6ths and 7ths of straight up ET.
Last edited by David Doggett on 10 Apr 2007 11:09 am; edited 4 times in total |
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David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 10 Apr 2007 9:08 am
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The time honored traditional way to tune a pedal steel taking a single reference pitch and tuning by ear to a handful of open chords is given below. Although this may look a little complicated on paper, it can be shown first hand in a couple of minutes, as fast as it takes to play 3 or 4 chords. I can do this faster by ear than by reading a tuner. If you are only touching up your open strings, you only need to go through step 4. If you use this method, when you are done you can check what your pitches are with a meter, and write down your very own Newman type tuning that accomodates the exact cabinet drop (or lack thereof) for your instrument.
1. Take the root note of the tuning, E (strings 4 and 8 on E9), and tune that note alone to a tuning reference (tuning fork, electronic tuner, keyboard).
2. Now play an E chord on strings 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, and tune all the strings so that chord sounds nice to your ears, without changing the Es on strings 4 and 8.
3. Play a B chord on strings 1, 2, 5, 7. String 5 is the reference. You have already tuned it in the previous step, so do not change it. Tune the other strings so they make a nice chord with string 5.
4. There are multiple ways to tune string 9, but the simplest is to play an E chord on strings 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, and tune string 9 so it sounds nice as the 7th of the E7 chord.
5. Press the A and B pedals to make an A chord on strings 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10. Strings 4 and 8 are unaffected by those pedals, and have already been established as your reference strings, so do not change them. Tune the pedal stops on the other strings to make a nice sounding A chord with the unchanged strings 4 and 8.
6. Press pedals B and C to make an F#m chord on strings 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Tune the C pedal stops on strings 4 and 5 to sound nice with that chord, and do not change strings 3, 6, 7.
7. If you have an F lever (raises the Es ½ step), activate it with the A pedal to make a C# chord on strings 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10. Tune the F lever stops on strings 4 and 8 to sound nice with that chord without changing any other strings or stops.
8. If you have an E lower lever (lowers the Es ½ step), activate it to make a G#m chord on strings 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10. Tune the stops on strings 4 and 8 so that chord sounds nice, without changing any other strings or stops.
9. Any other pedal or lever stops are tuned by the above principles. Find the most common chord the change is part of, and tune the stops to that chord without changing any other strings or stops.
The F# on string 7 cannot be tuned perfectly with both the B chord of strings 1, 2, 5 and the F#m chord of B and C pedals. I tune my 7th string perfect for the B chord, which also makes it perfect for the E scale and E9 chord. For the BC pedal chord, I pull the E on string 8 up to F# on my C pedal, and tune it perfectly as the root of that F#m chord. |
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Eric West
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.
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Posted 10 Apr 2007 2:53 pm
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How many is a zillion?
Also, if I might help out Mr D, you might have started with "a" time honored method instead of the overly presumptious "The".
It starts the whole "polilloquoy" on a downward slant.
Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest.
EJL
Last edited by Eric West on 10 Apr 2007 7:00 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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b0b
From:
Cloverdale, CA, USA
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Eric West
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.
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Posted 10 Apr 2007 6:58 pm
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Alright..
I'm closing this...
(ALRFF)
EJL |
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Brint Hannay
From:
Maryland, USA
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Posted 10 Apr 2007 7:05 pm
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| Eric: ALRFF????? I've tried to figure out what that might be. I even googled "ALRFF" and got the strangest results I've ever seen (try it!), but none that threw any light on what you were saying, I'm very sure. A hint? |
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Eric West
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.
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Posted 10 Apr 2007 7:12 pm
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Angry Little Red F- Face...
It's kind of a private joke from "off topic"..
A couple of us clowns got him so mad one time he actually posted one..
EJL |
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David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 10 Apr 2007 7:55 pm
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| I think a zillion comes after kajillion...or maybe it's before. Anyway, it must be a very big number, because according to one of my old girlfriends, it was how many times I was wrong every day. |
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Charlie McDonald
From:
out of the blue
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Posted 11 Apr 2007 4:19 am
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| David Doggett wrote: |
| The F# on string 7 cannot be tuned perfectly with both the B chord of strings 1, 2, 5 and the F#m chord of B and C pedals. |
I was going to point out "And there's your comma..." but realized that I've gotten hooked on tuning discussions.
_________________
Those that say don't know; those that know don't say.--Buddy Emmons |
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Greg Simmons
From:
where the buffalo (used to) roam AND the Mojave
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Posted 12 Apr 2007 10:42 am
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a sage steelpicker might've once exclaimed...
"I can read a tuning chart, but not enough to hurt my intonation" 
_________________
<i>�Head full of this kaleidoscope of brain-freight, Heart full of something simple and slow�</i>
-Mark Heard
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