[LAU] Piano composition - Lost Isle (& LV2 plugins)

Ralf Mardorf ralf.mardorf at alice-dsl.net
Sun Jun 26 18:03:58 UTC 2016


On Sun, 26 Jun 2016 19:45:46 +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
>Not long ago I watched
>"Pianomania", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano mania , tuning the
>grand piano by this documentation has less to do with A = foobar Hz.
>More important seems to be the consistency of the grand piano's
>mechanic and tuning within whatever is the chamber pitch.
>
>Apart from this, a friend of mine, Achim Jaroschek, a much praised
>German Jazz pianist and drummer, a while back owned 2 Bechstein and one
>Baldwin grand piano. All grand pianos were tune relatively good to his
>taste, but we were unable to do a good home recording, due to the
>missing microphones for this task.
>
>What ever the chamber pitch might be, more important is the consistency
>of the tuning, not necessarily regarding the pitch, but regarding the
>emotions of the piano player, regarding the consistency of the grand
>pianos behaviour and apart from this, as soon as you want to record the
>piano, much more important is the available gear.
>
>I really doubt that the tuning of the chamber pitch by itself does much
>affect the result of a performance.
>
>Indeed, decades ago, when I used the Roland MT-32, not with it's
>factory sounds, but with self edited sounds, that should emulate
>analog synth, I several times tuned it a little bit below 440Hz,
>because this added more warmth, while all the other analog and digital
>synth wer tuned to 440 Hz. However, when ever I tested pitches <> 440
>Hz nobody ever listening to the recordings, including myself, felt
>better at any pitch higher or lower lower 440 Hz.
>
>A tuning that differs to 440 Hz could be important for live performance
>of classic orchestras for several reasons, but is most likely is
>irrelevant when making music with electronically instruments. Apart
>from this the tuning usually is higher than 440 Hz, due to
>loudness/transparency/brilliant, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_p
>itch#Pitch_inflation .
>
>In rock music guitarist's, I'm one myself, sometimes tend to either
>tune in relation to 440 Hz all strings a half tone lower, I don't, or
>as several people from my generation (generation x, aka grunch) and I
>do sometimes, drop the low E string to D, IOW just one string a whole
>step lower, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_D_tuning , however, A
>still remains at 440 Hz.

PS: Consider a drop D tuning more like something compared to an open
tuning used for e.g. Dobro played on the lap or sometimes for
bottleneck played guitars. I prefer to play bottleneck without an open
tuning. Anyway, all tunings are usually related to A = 440 Hz, they
just fit to a harmony, Dobro played on the lap often is tuned to G
major, when played completely open. This at least was what a friend
always used and it seems to fit to most of the new and classic blue
grass music he used to listen too.


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