Just Sax

Alexandre Enkerli wrote:
>I play tenor in a classical saxophone quartet, so I'm used to thirds. But
>trying to tune them with an electronic tuner isn't that obvious. So I
>wanted to calculate how to calibrate the tuner to give me a just third at
>440Hz. What I calculated was around 443.6 so I guess 444 will do fine but
>I'd be glad to hear some advice from you.

I'm a pedal steel guitarist. Most steel guitarists use a tuning meter, the
kind with an analog needle, to tune on the bandstand. The accepted practice
is to tune the instrument by ear in a quiet place, calibrate your tuner to
440, and then measure everything with the tuner and write it down. You then
use the chart to tell you how many cents sharp or flat to tune a given note
on the bandstand. The chart varies a bit according to the characteristics
of the particular instrument (steel guitars aren't perfect), but there are
examples in steel guitar literature that give good starting points.

Using such a meter with a sax should be really easy. Partch's "Genesis" has
charts that show the cents for every note in JI. Just blow into the mike
and tune sharp or flat according to those charts. Since you're only playing
one note at a time, you have a much simpler problem than a steel guitarist.

I love classical sax quartets, by the way. Someday I'd like to hear a steel
guitar with one. Talk about modern!

-b0b-

// http://wco.com/~quasar/


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