Re: Transposed Chord name "F flat"

[Anthony W. Youngman]

In message 
<address@hidden>, 
Johannes Schindelin <address@hidden> writes
> In the Western world, we usually hear equally tempered instruments. That
> is not totally true, though: trumpets, for example, suffer an especially
> strange situation: some notes are played just by altering the embouchure,
> so the interval is constrained by physical laws and the frequency can only
> be an integer number multiplied by the base frequency. For other notes,
> the length of the vibrating air is changed, and this is used to adapt it
> to a "more equal" temperament.

It's a bit more complicated than that ... :-) and I'd disagree that we 
"usually hear equally tempered instruments". Your "strange" situation 
for the trumpet is in fact the norm for any wind instrument (ie most 
instrument families...)

But yes, fundamentally, the fundamental note of a brass instrument has a 
wavelength twice the length of the instrument. For example, I play the 
trombone (approx 11ft long) so my fundamental is bf,, with a 22ft 
wavelength. All open notes nominally have an integral number of 
half-wavelengths within that 11 foot. Valves or the slide alter this 
length, thereby altering the note. But by just using the lips an 
experienced player can "bend" the pitch - I've heard of good players 
bending it by well over a full tone!

Given that pretty much any wind or string instrument can "bend" notes, I 
would guess that actually, any bending is used to bend *away* from 
"equal temperament" and *towards* intonation.

Actually, we *don't* hear a lot of this stuff that we should, because 
modern orchestras have an annoying habit of playing stuff on the "wrong" 
instrument. For example, at least one piece was scored by the composer - 
?Chopin? - for two cornets and two trumpets. The intent was to 
*contrast* the two different sounds. So what do modern orchestras do? 
Play the piece with four trumpets! Or take my instrument - a trombone 
trio is *supposed* to be one Eb, one Bb(/F) and one G trombone. Yet such 
music is now invariably played on with three Bb trombones (at least one 
of which is a Bb/F). And the sound is completely different!

The best way to hear this is listen to some Haydn. He wrote a lot for D 
trumpets, and that is still usually played on the instrument it was 
written for. Compare it with the same piece played on a Bb.

(But I think this is drifting OT for devel - it should probably shift to 
user ... :-)

Cheers,
Wol
--
Anthony W. Youngman - wol at thewolery dot demon dot co dot uk
HEX wondered how much he should tell the Wizards. He felt it would not be a
good idea to burden them with too much input. Hex always thought of his reports
as Lies-to-People.
The Science of Discworld : (c) Terry Pratchett 1999