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Subject:
From:
David Pickett <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Harpsichords and Related Topics <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 21 Aug 2016 09:10:36 +0200
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Dear Andrew and Clyde,

>Just for grins, consider thinning a plectrum and 
>see if that settles down the pitch variation and improves tone quality too.

Thinking through the experience, the effect is 
there even on weaker quills that are definitely not overplucking.

 >I don’t know the algorithms that PitchLab uses. It may be filtering on the
 >fundamental, or it may not. It may be integrating the overtones. WIthout
 >access to the souce code there is no way to know. When a harpsichord string
 >is plucked the overtone spectrum rapidly changes with time, unlike an organ
 >where it is much more stable from the start.

Depending on the nature of the pipe, even with 
the organ, there is a transient period when the 
pitch is not stable.  (I dont mean the stopped 16 
ft Bourdon coughing its 12th before settling!)

 > This is part of harpsichord
 >tone production, and is of course caused by the pluck. This does not mean
 >your instrument is overplucking. Even very lightly quilled instruments show
 >this. It is because of the initial displacement of the string which settles
 >down shortly after the initial attack.

Yes, and presumably a function of the string 
being slightly stretched elastically.

What it seems to demonstrate is that PitchLab 
displays results that are unnecessarily accurate 
for music.  Like using a timepiece that is 
accurate to a second to time the boiling of an egg.

 >Don’t use a tuning meter to judge overplucking., Use your fingers to sense
 >the force of the pluck, and your ears to hear the quality of the sound. A
 >tuning meter is not the right tool to determine if an instrument is over
 >plucking.

Your assertion confirms what I subjectively 
felt!  And the quality of the sound in ensemble 
improves considerably when tuned!

 >On the topic of the initial sharpness, this brings up a most interesting
 >point. I myself and other harpsichord tuners that I know tune on the
 >initial pluck, by repeatedly striking the notes in succession, rather than
 >striking the note and listening for a long time.

I dont listen for a long time, and do restrike as 
you describe; but by ear the initial pluck is 
obscured by other sounds that do not have pitch 
character.  I suspect that our ears hear the 
pitch after this transient has cleared, and this 
is seen on the meter.  When using PitchLab 
yesterday, I waited for this fraction of a second 
(at a guess c. 1/3 sec) while the reading settled 
to the point where it stayed for a while before decaying

  I have always found this
 >technique produces a better sounding result. It’s possible that obsession
 >with fractional cent tuning accuracy is rendered somewhat moot by this
 >effect in harpsichords. What is the frequency of a note? It varies with
 >time in the initial stage. Of couse this is only small fractions of a
 >second. This gets back to the point that I repeatedly make on forums that
 >the ear integrates all these phenomena very well, but electronic devices
 >cannot, in general.

Quite so.  The machine measures a selected 
paramter, whereas the ear tunes for the overall 
best match to what is expected.  I dont think it 
is actually possible to tune to fractions of a 
cent in the middle of the instrument and above 
with a simple tuning pin such as we use.

Rather than just setting the tenor octave, I 
tuned every note of the back 8 with 
PitchLab.  Even when two notes an octave apart 
were not reading better than 1 or 2 cents "in 
tune" in PitchLab, listening to them assured me 
that they were in tune.  I did a reverse test and 
discovered that the two notes of a "dead octave" 
tuned by ear are rarely better than 2 cents away 
from each other, as measured by PitchLab.  Having 
tuned each note of the back 8 separately, I then 
tuned the front 8 by unisons and the 4ft by 
octaves, using PitchLab for the top octave of 
this.  The result was a very "in tune" instrument 
that was again a pleasure to play.

It has been raining hard overnight, so RH has 
gone up and the instrument is now 7 cents 
sharper!  The two 8s are still good, though could 
be finessed; the 4ft not.  So is life!

David


 >
 >Andrew
 >
 >
 >On 21 August 2016 at 4:26:37 AM, David Pickett ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
 >
 >
 >I use the rotating display which has the note name and +/- cents in
 >the middle, with the rotating strobe around this. I find that the
 >pitch is usually about 5 cents sharp at the beginning of the pluck
 >but settles down quickly. I tune to the settled down pitch; but I
 >have been wondering whether the sharpness indicates too strong a pluck.
 >
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::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Note:  opinions  expressed on HPSCHD-L are those of the  individual con-
tributors and not necessarily  those of the list owners  nor of the Uni-
versity of Iowa.  For a brief  summary of list  commands, send mail to
[log in to unmask]  saying  HELP .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

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