Yes, but pitch is not absolute. What middle C even is has changed over the years.
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Things that surprise you about other musicians...
- Thread starter glocke1
- Start date
Again: I believe you are confusing pitch with the name of the note. The pitch of 440 is always the same - your ear hears the same tone - no matter what note you name it - A, D or X, or even if you don't give it any name at all. The same applies to all pitches/TONES/Frequencies - they are mathematical and physical and those laws determine their sounds and relationships to one another, regardless of what names we choose to call them for our own musical convenience.
If you start calling 415 "Concert A", what you've done is changed your frame of reference to a lower pitch - as if you down-tuned your bass a step but still referred to your strings as E/A/D/G: You're giving the same names to different pitches - the pitch you used to refer to as the note "D" you now refer to as "E", etc.
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When did this become a duck waving contest? I did some music theory exams once!!!!
fwiw, I have a friend who insists that Perfect Pitch is a disease, a malady that needs to be overcome in order for the person to have healthy musical interactions with the world at large.
:::hairy eyeball:::
Which is bigger, an augmented fourth or a diminished fifth?
That they would buy a pedal that didn't come in a box.
Not sure what you mean by "bigger": They are both 6 semi-tones from the root, so they have the same pitch in a given scale - in that respect they are "the same size".
But one could say that an augmented 4th is still a 4th, while a diminished 5th is a 5th, which is a larger interval than a 4th. Harmonically speaking they will have different relative impacts, depending on their context as 4ths or as 5ths - an augmented 4th could sound "bigger" - a longer distance than expected with a perfect 4th - than a diminished 5th, which is a shorter distance than expected with a perfect 5th, although their absolute pitch is the same. What's significant in that case is not just the absolute pitch but the musical context in which it is used/heard.
What is your point? That pitch is meaningless without context? Certainly true. But the notes of a major triad have their context and relationships to one another that make a major triad, regardless of their absolute pitch as single notes.
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You mean you will play it differently - get into micro-tones that have no formal notation? If so they are two different pitches and the names are just a general convention but have no clear meaning to the musician - just a guideline left open to interpretation (Which is fine - one can argue that all notation is just that.)
But I don't see how the way someone plays a notated interval differently because their instrument allows it is relevant to anything.
A pointless point IMO.
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Actually one musician (infatuated fan) type I can't stand, and I have looked myself into the mirror, to really be sure I am not that type and has never been, are those so called Anorak types. Whenever rehearsal, and whenever on a gig they are maybe huge nerdy geeky fans of a special music style, say, blues, and wants just to talk about if Muddy Waters farted while recording "King Bee" in 1954 and such crap. It has really nothing to do with their musicality as such, but they think automatically that someone else should be equally interested in this as them. It's ok between two such types, but as it slow down rehearsals, setting up time on stage, and afterwards I find that sort of things very annoying. Same if one's trying to socialize with audience or girls afterwards, and forth comes a "blocker"....
"do you know that SRV played with one string broken at..."
Granted, it can show up in any other topic as well, like film, movie nerds, but there's I've never met someone "at rehearsal" or at "gig". Not even computer geeks are like that, like "Do you know that Bill Gates farted in 1975 while discussing with IBM..." and there comes the real killer... "exactly at 11.32 PM".
You may think this is made up but it's not. Some musicians in bands, are like that. Too much, and too often, and always at the wrong time.
"do you know that SRV played with one string broken at..." Granted, it can show up in any other topic as well, like film, movie nerds, but there's I've never met someone "at rehearsal" or at "gig". Not even computer geeks are like that, like "Do you know that Bill Gates farted in 1975 while discussing with IBM..." and there comes the real killer... "exactly at 11.32 PM".
You may think this is made up but it's not. Some musicians in bands, are like that. Too much, and too often, and always at the wrong time.
yeah, this is actually an example of the Nasville Number System:
1⁶ . . . | 2⁷ . 5⁷ . | 1⁶ . . . | 2⁷ . 5⁷ .
I get to use it on a regular basis with one of my singer/songwriters who did real time in N'ville
I'm surprised you did not know that
The name has settled on 440. The pitch of 440 has never changed.
No, the name has settled on A. The frequency (not pitch) has always been 440 Hz. You can't say 440 without saying Hz afterwards. 440 what ?!? 440 litres? pounds ?!? Decibels? You know what? Way back there wasn't any name for the color brown, it all went in shades of grey or dark, or black. We didn't have names for colors although their light wave frequency was always the same. We just gave them names. And it just happened to be one that was in the 345 K range or whatever you measure it. This with 440 Hz as a yardstick was settled in the western world, after second world war in 1940's, 50's or something. And lo and behold, that came from .... nazi Germany! The U.S had adapted the 440 around the 1920s already, but the rest of the world had to comply. Hertz didn't have anything to do with that yardstick.
And to infuse a lot of even more confusion. In Sweden, Germany and some other anglosaxian countries, we still have the note H. And use it. It's something you don't have. Ha ha, it's one more note, just for the privileged! Just kidding, it's instead of B. Still. After all these years we haven't changed that. What's even worse than that is that yours Bb is our B. We call Bb B, and B H! Suck on that for a while. Suck even for that for a while that the guy HERTZ lived between 1857-1894 (oh dear, did not get that old) so what have they been playing to before he was around and "invented" and found out the oscillations? 440 Schmuck? Pleyel?
And yes, I agree, a violin player would play an F sharp differently than a G flat...
Which one has the preferential right of interpretation?
The worst ones are actually Zappa fans.... they're all such a PIA when coming to this. I don't know why he attracted those mentality types. But that was musicians music so little wonder.
yeah, this is actually an example of the Nasville Number System:
1⁶ . . . | 2⁷ . 5⁷ . | 1⁶ . . . | 2⁷ . 5⁷ .
I get to use it on a regular basis with one of my singer/songwriters who did real time in N'ville
I'm surprised you did not know that
What was he in for, and is he on parole now or full release?
Correct - my bad. Middle C is listed as 261.1 Hz (but really no need to specify the UOM when it's understood from the context.)
By pitch I mean the tone that we hear - that remains the same regardless of its name. Perhaps pitch isn't the most correct terminology - maybe tone would be better.
I did. It makes sense really: In such a system, from B to C is a whole step, just like from A to B. H to C is something special - a half step that's represented by a whole letter in the spelling of the scale, but a letter that's after everything else and isn't part of the regular order of notes, which go in whole steps. I like that idea better than having a whole step between A and B but only half a step between B and C, which always strikes me as wildly inconsistent.
The problem is, what do you do with E/F? To be consistent, In that system Eb should be called E, go a whole step and you get to F. And E we'll call I just like B is called H.
As stated, I don't think that's relevant to anything - the name of the note is just a guideline in that case. Although it could be that since fretted instruments were not, AFAIK, part of the medieval orchestra, it was accepted that F# is actually a different pitch/tone/frequency than Gb . Although there is no formal representation of that idea in our notation, violinists, etc have that tradition and abide by it.
I think it would depend on the musical context, which would generally be reflected in the notation itself : Is it written Gb or F#?
True, it is generally musicians' music so "regular folks" won't have much to say about the music itself. But putting that aside, Zappa created a public persona and mystique of sorts that tends to generate that sort of thing. Hendrix is another one - there are others too: They put an image out there that certain types of people (usually those prone to "group think"...) are attracted to and fixate on.
