![]() ![]() Here is a demonstration of what tuning skill is required of a violin player, in which a violin player is asked to switch between three different tuning schemes. Musicians are expected to hear and memorize the way the musical notes and intervals should sound. Thus, tuning a musical instrument is not only a theoretical exercise for the instrument maker. ![]() Even on a violin, it is not enough to tune the strings: there are no frets like on a guitar and a player must remember where to depress a string. On a clarinet or a saxophone the player can alter the pitch by pressing or relaxing a reed. ![]() Wind instruments with no holes, such as trombones, require the player to remember how much to elongate an air pipe of the instrument so as to produce the desired air vibration. Wind instruments, such as flutes, have holes in carefully calculated locations to produce sound at desirable frequencies. Please refer to the piano keyboard diagram above, for the names and location of piano keys.Īlthough I am using a piano as the case study, this applies to all musical instruments. The vibration frequencies to which the strings should be tuned, is the subject of this article. I used a piano as a case study, noting that there are metal strings inside the piano that vibrate at different rates. In the preceding article The Physical Nature of Musical Sound I have talked about how air vibration affects a human eardrum and causes the perception of sound pitch. One-sentence summary: In this article I will explain the math for the Just intonation and Pythagorean tunings for the diatonic major scale (all the white keys on the piano). ![]()
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