Woodwind etc

Dear Tuning,

Daniel Wolf wrote:

> Ann La Berge (recordings and scores available form Frog Peak Music). She
> has taken advantage of the fact that using a flute designed for 12tet to
> play in another intonation

Yes, you're right about this. But I've had some email correspondence
recently with Anne about playing the Kingma flute, which she now
uses. Although, as she says, this instrument is not what one might
call a 24-ET instrument, it is specifically built, as a
'quarter-tone' flute, using Eva Kingma's key-on-key mechanism. To my
knowledge this is the only specifically designed non-12-ET
commercially avaliable professional concert woodwind. It is
certainly advertised by Osten-Brannen as the world's first 'fully
quarter-tone flute'.

Carl wrote:
> Certain people seem to be making the assumption that
> certain woodwind and brass instruments are designed to play in 12
> equal. This is not the case. (If they were, the designer's didn't
> do so hot).

Well, different manufacturers do different things. Look for
example at O. Lee Gibson's book called 'Clarinet Acoustics' to see
the extent of these differences. Two points on this are very
important. Firstly, as Johnny Reinhard rightly points out, woodwind
and brasswind are instruments of semi-variable intonation. (ie., they
are not of fixed intonation, like the piano, nor are they without a
mechanism which encourages discrete steps, like the violin).
Woodwind performers instinctively adjust pitch as a matter of course,
in all music. Secondly, manufacturers do go to some lengths the make
their instruments so that the scale is correct, and as near as
identical as possible on every instance of the same model. What a
manufacturer considers 'correct' may vary very slightly. But in
general, it seems that much effort is put into actually 'centering'
the resultant pitches which arise, by equalling out factors of breath
pressure in tests etc . And the 'model' is certainly 12-ET. If this
were not the case, there would hardly be so much mathematical theory
for woodwind tone-hole design (even if, it won't necessarily give the
right results!!), nor computer programs for same.

Hstick wrote:
> Also, I totally agree with Reinhard that if "microtonality" had been
> taught in our schools all along, it would be much more accepted now. I
> have found, in fact, that once you let people know that there even IS
> such a thing as other tunings, the rest isn't so hard.

I agree with this point entirely - although I didn't think it was the
point Johnny was making. I thought he was saying that if
microtonality was taught properly, then musicians would be able to
play accurately in alternative tuning systems on conventional
instruments anyway, and therefore new instruments are unnecessary.
Did I misunderstand?

Patrick Ozzard-Low


SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
From: "Paul H. Erlich"
Subject: RE: The severity of scale
PostedDate: 20-11-97 20:54:36
SendTo: CN=coul1358/OU=AT/O=EZH
ReplyTo: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
$MessageStorage: 0
$UpdatedBy: CN=notesrv2/OU=Server/O=EZH,CN=coul1358/OU=AT/O=EZH,CN=Manuel op de Coul/OU=AT/O=EZH
RouteServers: CN=notesrv2/OU=Server/O=EZH,CN=notesrv1/OU=Server/O=EZH
RouteTimes: 20-11-97 20:53:14-20-11-97 20:53:15,20-11-97 20:53:21-20-11-97 20:53:22
DeliveredDate: 20-11-97 20:53:22
Categories:
$Revisions:

Received: from ns.ezh.nl ([137.174.112.59]) by notesrv2.ezh.nl (Lotus SMTP MTA SMTP v4.6 (462.2
9-3-1997)) with SMTP id C1256555.006D3A39; Thu, 20 Nov 1997 20:53:03 +0100
Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA04209; Thu, 20 Nov 1997 20:54:36 +0100
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 1997 20:54:36 +0100
Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA04207
Received: (qmail 8595 invoked from network); 20 Nov 1997 11:54:32 -0800
Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1)
by localhost with SMTP; 20 Nov 1997 11:54:32 -0800
Message-Id:
Errors-To: madole@mills.edu
Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu