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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
 Posted - 03/31/2010 : 16:33:37
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Calling all music geeks...
Why is it that when a string on a guitar is out of tune by just a smidge, we say, "ugh, that's awful," but we not only tolerate tremolo, whammy bars and the like (sometimes in large amounts), but say, "hey, that sounds great"?
On perhaps a similar note, why doesn't a regular drum set need to be tuned? Why don't drummers have to re-tune their drums for songs in different keys?
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- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 03/31/2010 : 17:00:18 [Permalink]
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| But drums don't have notes like a piano. It's just to keep the beat. Sure, a snare drum has a higher sound than a timpani. But that's not the same thing. Sheet music for the drum looks different than that of the clarinet or piano. I think. Right? |
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Fripp
SFN Regular
USA
727 Posts |
Posted - 03/31/2010 : 17:23:16 [Permalink]
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Good question regarding the whammy bar. Being an ex-lame guitarist, I do know that you have to learn how to use the whammy properly or else it will sound like crap. Same with bending strings (where your fingers have it fretted): if you bend it up a half-step and that half-step isn't in the scale your playing, it too will sound like crap. Bending notes is a learned skill as well. One of the best is David Gilmour (Pink Floyd). Even though we've heard the song too many times, if you listen to the solo in "another Brick in the Wall", it is a really clean tone and some excellent note bending.
Let me give some thought to the whammy bar question. Drums do get "tuned" but its not tuned in term of notes, but how tight the head is. But I'm not a drummer and I couldn't keep time with a metronome.
Edited to add "couldn't" which completely changes the meaning of the last sentence. |
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| Edited by - Fripp on 04/01/2010 03:15:32 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
Posted - 03/31/2010 : 17:38:40 [Permalink]
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Thanks, Fripp, for reminding me of another example. Sliding from one note to another way up or down the neck of a guitar will hit many notes which aren't in whatever key the song is in, but it doesn't suck, either. Similarly, sliding one's hand down half the piano keys (unless, perhaps, the song is in C major).
As far as the drums go, I can hear the tones of the different drums (especially toms and bass), but they just don't seem to "matter" to the rest of the song (the key). Interestingly, this guy says that drums need to be tuned to each other (in that the intervals between drum tones ought to be correct), but suggests that matching any particular chromatic notes may be undesirable. My question is still, "why?" |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 04/01/2010 : 05:53:15 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Calling all music geeks...
Why is it that when a string on a guitar is out of tune by just a smidge, we say, "ugh, that's awful," but we not only tolerate tremolo, whammy bars and the like (sometimes in large amounts), but say, "hey, that sounds great"? |
I'm not sure I agree entirely.
Take one of my favourite hate vocalists, Belinda Carlile.
Her vibrato makes me cringe, on the verge of being nauceus.
She's singing a tone, and then modulates it, either by amplitude modulation, frequency modulation, or both.
When she is amplitude modulating, she creates two side tones, f1 and f2 which is equal to f0±fa where fa is the frequence of her modulation.
Things gets even more complicated if the amplitude in her vibrato isn't a sine-curve, but uneven. In such a case, the modulation is a sum of many individual sine-waves, and each of them will get expressed in the upper and lower side-band of the original tone she was singing.
The next thing is intermodulation. When all these extra tones reach our ear, they will interact with eachother: two tones close to eachother will mirror eachother in frequency producing additional detectible signals: 2*f0-f1 and 2*f1-f0
If these producs are in relative harmony with the scale, then all is peachy, and everything sounds great. But if they are off-key...
The tone scale is logaritmic, but the frequency offset of an AM- or FM- modulation is absolute. Which means that the lower- and upper- sideband will never be in harmony with eachother, but the closer they are to the original tone, the less noticable the dishamony will be.
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 04/01/2010 : 09:19:34 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Calling all music geeks...
Why is it that when a string on a guitar is out of tune by just a smidge, we say, "ugh, that's awful," but we not only tolerate tremolo...
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By the way, technically speaking, you're thinking of vibrato.  "Tremolo" is a rapid shuttering repeat either on the same notes or, on violins, a "bowed tremolo" is a rapid repeating (like vibrating) between two notes. Vibrato is more of a rapid wave within or centered on the basic pitch.
Its harder to sing in tune without vibrato though it is done often at select moments. Excessive vibrato sounds ridiculous or comical but "normal" singing vibrato allows the musician to stay on pitch. Perhaps it sounds "normal" because its closer to the primal basic style of a singing human voice.
"Depth" and "speed" of a vibrato varies and often a singer or guitarist, etc., will start with practically no vibrato and apply it over time on a longer held note for expression. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
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Fripp
SFN Regular
USA
727 Posts |
Posted - 04/01/2010 : 11:05:26 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
And I thought vibrato was modulating the amplitude, while tremolo was pitch.
According to Wikipedia, I got the definitions exactly backwards.
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Wow, I had it completely wrong all this time, as have (I assume) 99% of all guitarists. Whammy bars, aka "tremolo arms" are actually "vibrato units".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tremolo_arm
Hmm. Who'd a thunk it? I gotta stop learning new stuff. I'm running out of space in the ol' braincase. |
"What the hell is an Aluminum Falcon?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought my Dark Lord of the Sith could protect a small thermal exhaust port that's only 2-meters wide! That thing wasn't even fully paid off yet! You have any idea what this is going to do to my credit?!?!"
"What? Oh, oh, 'just rebuild it'? Oh, real [bleep]ing original. And who's gonna give me a loan, jackhole? You? You got an ATM on that torso LiteBrite?" |
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 04/01/2010 : 13:11:29 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Calling all music geeks...
Why is it that when a string on a guitar is out of tune by just a smidge, we say, "ugh, that's awful," but we not only tolerate tremolo, whammy bars and the like (sometimes in large amounts), but say, "hey, that sounds great"?
On perhaps a similar note, why doesn't a regular drum set need to be tuned? Why don't drummers have to re-tune their drums for songs in different keys?
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An out of tune guitar is an out of tune guitar. Tremolo passes up and down between the correct note so the effect does not sound out of tune because the in tune note is a part of the tremolo and is passed twice as often on the up and down. It reads as in tune by our ears.
Same for whammy bars. They bend notes from exact to steps higher or lower for effect, but the note that is being bent from must be in tune or the landing or takeoff will sound out of tune. Bending notes or "blueing" them is common and it also relies on the take off and landing note which must be in tune or the sound will read as out of tune. In all these cases, we are talking about a single note or cord that is well tuned as the reference point. Our ears can here that.
I play a lot of slide. I can take off from one note and land on another without a stopping point between them. And again, the notes the slide passes though are not as important as the notes they take off from and land on if it is to sound proper.
Somehow we hear the reference note, even while we deviate from it for a few moments.
Hope this answers your question.
By the way, there are tuneful drummers. But in general, the note doesn't matter nearly as much as the attack. Bass takes on the job of getting the proper notes in the rhythm section. And the base and drums work together or else...
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
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steinhenge
Skeptic Friend
USA
69 Posts |
Posted - 04/01/2010 : 14:34:31 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Bass takes on the job of getting the proper notes in the rhythm section. And the base and drums work together or else...
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Very true, but as a bass teacher one of my greatest frustrations is that the time it takes me to convince a student that they need to listen and play sympathetically to the kick drum is usually half the time it then takes me to convince them that just aping the drum part rarely makes for a good bass line. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
 Posted - 04/01/2010 : 14:43:08 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by steinhenge
Originally posted by Kil
Bass takes on the job of getting the proper notes in the rhythm section. And the base and drums work together or else...
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Very true, but as a bass teacher one of my greatest frustrations is that the time it takes me to convince a student that they need to listen and play sympathetically to the kick drum is usually half the time it then takes me to convince them that just aping the drum part rarely makes for a good bass line.
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Ha! I feel your pain, even though my instrument is guitar. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
Posted - 04/01/2010 : 20:20:31 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Tremolo passes up and down between the correct note so the effect does not sound out of tune because the in tune note is a part of the tremolo and is passed twice as often on the up and down. It reads as in tune by our ears. |
Well, if the amplitude of the vibrato is 3% of the frequency, and a tuning sounds "off" if it's more than 1% out of tune, then the vibrato would actually spend 78% of the time "out of tune."
Of course, the 1% and 3% are just numbers I pulled out of my butt. Given the real numbers, the same calculation would take all of a few seconds, though. The point is that the rate-of-change of the frequency at the crossing points is the highest, and so the tone passes by the in-tune note in the least amount of time.Somehow we hear the reference note, even while we deviate from it for a few moments.
Hope this answers your question. |
Actually, no. What I'm most interested in is the "somehow" part. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular
Norway
1273 Posts |
Posted - 04/01/2010 : 20:50:25 [Permalink]
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| Well, if the amplitude of the vibrato is 3% of the frequency, and a tuning sounds "off" if it's more than 1% out of tune, then the vibrato would actually spend 78% of the time "out of tune." |
The amount of time spent out of tune isn't the point because it is oscillating about the correct note, if you consider it as a wave it would flatten out as the correct note.
Also it has to be done at a certain speed for it to sound "good". if done too slowly the whole illusion breaks down. Much the same as 2 alternating colours will resolve into 1 different colour, exactly in between the other 2, if they are swapped at sufficient speed, slow it down and the brain considers it as 2 separate colours again
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
Posted - 04/01/2010 : 21:22:34 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by On fire for Christ
The amount of time spent out of tune isn't the point because it is oscillating about the correct note, if you consider it as a wave it would flatten out as the correct note. |
Do ours brains actually do such averaging?| Also it has to be done at a certain speed for it to sound "good". if done too slowly the whole illusion breaks down. |
What speed is too slow? With strings (violins, cellos, bass) one can watch the players do the vibrato, and I'd find it hard to believe they're doing it at much more than 5 Hz or so. Considering you can't hear an actual tone that low, I'd find it even harder to believe that one's brain is doing an averaging over the modulation that one's brain doesn't do for a simple wave.
The "flatten out" hypothesis also doesn't hold for playing slide, or bending tones through off-key notes. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular
Norway
1273 Posts |
Posted - 04/01/2010 : 21:34:16 [Permalink]
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I'm not saying the vibrato is so fast you can't hear it, but it's fast enough that your brain can resolve the "average" note. How slow is too slow? Depends entirely I guess, but IMO there definitely IS a "too slow" in every circumstance. At some point your brain will cease to consider it vibrato on a single note.
Also I don't see the problem with slides or bending up, it's a smooth transition from one correct note to another correct note as oppose to a jump. The beginning and end notes are sustained far longer than the transition. Seems like a non-issue to me. |
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| Edited by - On fire for Christ on 04/01/2010 21:37:39 |
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Out of tune with reality
