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I tuned my guitar with my Peterson strobo tuner, and I'm reasonably confident that it's in tune. Then I try to play along with something on the Internet and 90% of the time I am nowhere close to in tune with the song. I'll post an example but you can find several examples of Round Midnight and it's the same with all of them. It's in e flat minor, and I play an e flat and it's completely out of tune with the song I'm listening to. Check out Miles Davis's version as well. How do you guys handle this without going crazy? I keep spinning the tuners on my guitar trying to get my guitar in tune with this song on the internet.
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06-05-2024 03:07 AM
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The pitch can get altered during the film or video processing, especially in the case of older films like the one in the link you posted, those are practically guaranteed to be off. This is usually not true of CD and vinyl record tracks that are posted on YouTube.
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Those old recordings are analog recordings, any difference in recording and playback spinning rate will introduce detune.
Try tuning your instrument to the recording not to the tuner.
In the 80-90, when I started, I had a lot of compact cassettes that were copies of a copy.
When I wanted to transcribe-play along, I always had to tune to the CC.
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yeah, you have to just tune to the recording, the same as if you're playing with a piano that's not precisely in tune to A440.
I had the original CD version of Kind of Blue, which was infamously a half step sharp. The original master tape was played back too fast. Later reissues corrected it, but then those sounded slow to me.
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Only the A side was about a half tone sharp. There are many stories about this, but the real cause was that the 3 track machine used to record the stereo version was miscalibrated and ran too slow. Stereophile has published the correct story in a few articles, e.g. here. The most detailed explanation of the recording setup (from this 2006 article in Stereophile) is this:
Originally Posted by supersoul
“According to Mark Wilder, Columbia's practice at its 30th Street studios in 1959 was to use four tape decks simultaneously: a prime mono deck and a mono backup, for mono LP release; and a prime three-channel deck and a three-channel backup, for stereo LP release.”
The story of the pitch error is this:
“It was not until 1992 that Wilder discovered that the prime three-channel deck had been running slightly slowly during the first session, with the result that on the LPs and CDs made from it, the numbers on side A (the first three tracks) played slightly sharp in musical pitch. By the time of the second recording session, seven weeks later, the prime three-track deck had received some maintenance, so the numbers on the LP's side B were recorded at the proper speed.”
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When I run into this I use amazing slow downer to adjust the pitch of the recording.
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Clever solution. Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
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Even today, there are some that believe that one should tune to A=442 or even worse. Horn players and even some conductors. They say that prior to a concert A442 is correct as the horns tend to warm up when playing and that the tuning will drop after some playing. Only if a conductor insists me to tune to A442, I will do so after some discussion, but do keep it to 442.
their bad. Otherwise 440...
That is a sensitive subject. Most of my tuners can vary on the A frequency, but I also have one that knows A440 only.
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I'll look for that. Are you on a Mac?
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If you meant "the amazing slow downer", it is here: !Slow down and transcribe with Roni Music software - slow down the speed of music without changing the pitch Originally Posted by voyage
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Yeah ... there could be all kinds of reasons, especially for older analog recordings.
Analog recording and playback equipment can be operating at different speeds ... sometimes on purpose and sometimes not.
Artists may be using slightly different tunings because that's what they prefer or maybe they tuned to a piano that was just a bit off.
and more!
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Metal horns do enlarge a tiny amount as temperature goes up, and this lowers the frequency of the "sweet spot" for notes by a tiny amount. But if they start sharp in order to end up in tune with the rest of the orchestra, they'll be sharp for the first part of the program. If they tune to the rest of the orchestra, they'll be flat for the last part of the program. They'll never be in tune for it all unless they control their intonation with their chops, which they can do. Originally Posted by hotpepper01
Even today, there are some that believe that one should tune to A=442 or even worse. Horn players and even some conductors. They say that prior to a concert A442 is correct as the horns tend to warm up when playing and that the tuning will drop after some playing. Only if a conductor insists me to tune to A442, I will do so after some discussion, but do keep it to 442. their bad.
A horn player can actually control a note over a surprisingly (to me, at least) wide range - a half tone is fairly easy for good players to navigate purely with their embouchures, and they can control it well. The problem they cite is that each note has a sweet spot for tone (and also for efficiency), and that they play better when the natural resonance of the horn is perfectly on the desired note. If the horn is a little off and a player has to compensate with his or her embouchure, it takes a little more energy to play and tone is slightly compromised. But they're constantly maintaining their intonation anyway, so it seems like a bit of a non-issue to me.
Except for intermissions and natural breaks in the program, they don't want to have to tune during a performance - it's a bit of a distraction that they want to avoid if at all possible. I've always wondered why they don't use warming blankets or warm air blowers to bring their horns to playing temp and keep them there when not playing them.
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Fully understandable for horns to tune to 442. I play only bigband and IMHO it makes no sense when a conductor insists that my guitar and the bass are to be tuned to 442 whilst the E piano is 440, even after discussion... As a sub I have encountered that situation a couple of times. That - although minor - is out of tune per definition.
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I think Rouse would purposely play sharp as well..
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Why?
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Whether the horns tune to 440 or 442, they’ll be technically out of tune for a good part of the performance. And if they can hear the difference as it develops, they can correct it with their embouchure. So what difference does it make if the horn itself starts sharp or ends sharp? Originally Posted by hotpepper01
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That is not my point. It matters if the bass player and my guitar are forced to be in 442 and the piano is in 440. Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
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Of course I agree with you. I was making the point that it’s illogical to have any instrument intentionally out of tune with the rest. If all start at the same point, only the horns will drift and they can accommodate and correct for being 1 Hz off for the duration of one piece. Originally Posted by hotpepper01
A difference of 2 Hz at 440 is a difference of about 1 Hz at middle C and 1/4 Hz at C2. But pitch discrimination in the cochlea is logarithmic, and we don’t hear low frequencies as precisely as we do highs. So much of the guitar’s output and even more of the bass’s will be within playing tolerance either way for most music (with classical being the big exception). Even 1 Hz will affect the smoothness of a unison string or horn part in the middle registers, but it’s largely irrelevant in most other genres.Last edited by nevershouldhavesoldit; 06-06-2024 at 11:03 AM.
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I played a little clarinet and bass clarinet in high school and currently play in bands with horns.
Just like guitar fingerboards are not perfectly in tune, there are no perfect horn designs.
Playing consistently in tune for horns requires constant adjustment of your embouchure. I'm not sure if trombones really count, though ... LOL
Jazz horn players use this to their advantage, too, much like bending a string to change your note.
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Another consideration is some producers sped up recordings during mastering to give the song more energy.
I've also noticed some recordings are slowed down.Last edited by DRS; 06-06-2024 at 02:32 PM.
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But this, this one....
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