Piano Impossible to Tune?

[amirm]

No idea what I am talking about but watch these nice minute videos on physics:

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I could have told you that a piano - or a guitar for that matter, though it's a different problem - can't be tuned perfectly. But I could not have done the math. Nor would I bother. In this area, I'm a committed subjectivist.

Tim

 

[Ethan Winer]

This video is great. I don't think it matters if a piano can or cannot be tuned perfectly. It's not the piano! It's the notes themselves, no matter what instrument plays them. Equal temperament is a fine solution that has worked perfectly for a few centuries now. Further, everyone doesn't have to be perfectly in tune. If all the first violins in an orchestra were precisely in tune they'd sound like one louder violin rather than a section. Also, soloists often play ever so slightly flat or sharp for effect. Playing a few cents flat makes a melody sound more melancholy. Playing a little sharp (just a very little please!) imparts optimism. And so forth.

--Ethan

 

[NorthSky]

If the music we listen to comes from musical instruments that are not tuned 100% perfectly, what does it say about our loudspeaker's music reproduction?
...And about all the rest of our audio electronics in the chain? ...Objectively and subjectively speaking.

Fair question, or isn't it?

 

[Julf]

If the music we listen to comes from musical instruments that are not tuned 100% perfectly, what does it say about our loudspeaker's music reproduction?
...And about all the rest of our audio electronics in the chain? ...Objectively and subjectively speaking.

Nothing?

Tuning/pitch is not something your average modern audio system distorts in any way - the old mechanical media (vinyl and tape) were another matter, but even they don't distort *relative* pitch - they distort all instruments and harmonics by the same amount, so their pitch/tuning relative to each other doesn't change.

 

[NorthSky]

Nothing?

Tuning/pitch is not something your average modern audio system distorts in any way - the old mechanical media (vinyl and tape) were another matter, but even they don't distort *relative* pitch - they distort all instruments and harmonics by the same amount, so their pitch/tuning relative to each other doesn't change.

Yes I know; the music comes the way it closely resembles the recording, even with the imperfect tuning.

My question was vague; what I was referring to is to the minutiae detailed audiophiles tuning their gear and mechanical speakers with their room acoustics to reproduce what's on the recordings...even with the faults in them...imperfectly tuned instruments and less than ideal microphones positioning, etc.
It was more a realistic perspective on our musical/audio hobby. ...Kind of a good balance between simple pleasure satisfaction and hardcore serious perfection...which is only impossible on the real of the scientific matters; not the balance, but the perfection.
Perfection is a legit goal, and balance too. ...A mix of both, so the atmosphere is more relaxing in our audio hobby; just my simple view from communicating, sharing, learning with and from others...here and there.

So it was more of an overall comment under a balanced question. The pitch stays the same, and the tune still has that emotional impact.
Some folks have tremendous aptitudes @ hearing out-of-tune musical instruments or music players from recordings.
Also, some improv music can have deliberate "un-tuned" musical passages.

I've seen piano tuners in the past tuning top notch pianos, and it's not like a twelve-string guitar.
About people tuning big church organs; not a few minutes job.

Some people tune by ear, others with digital tuners.
In a full orchestra with seventy-seven musicians, some can get away from "murder", and in a small classical chamber quartet it becomes more evident.

The piano is my favorite musical instrument, after the human voice.

 

[Julf]

Also, some improv music can have deliberate "un-tuned" musical passages

Not to mention all the different tuning systems in non-western music...

 

[NorthSky]

...And some tribes don't allow western music, but machine-guns sounds with grenades and rocket launchers' explosions.

If you can bring a piano player in all the most violent countries of the world, in the houses of the leaders of violence, and with a cellist;
perhaps then, maybe the world would be just a bit better of, in a dance of peace instead of blood.

A piano is impossible to tune, the world is like a piano.

 

[Julf]

If you can bring a piano player in all the most violent countries of the world, in the houses of the leaders of violence, and with a cellist;
perhaps then, maybe the world would be just a bit better of, in a dance of peace instead of blood.

So replace their traditional music that is part of their culture with standardized western music and culture? Indeed, there is a lot of that going on.

 

[Sal1950]

You can tune a piano but you can't tunafish.


Sorry, I just couldn't help myself.

 

[RayDunzl]

"13 notes: The most alien tuning of all: so dissonant that no three-note combination sounds like a major or minor triad. Yet even this tuning contains a strange mode best described as "sub-minor." The first four bars of the Etude are an arrangement of this mode into consecutive thirds — a motif that recurs later in two transposed variations. The rest of the piece is comprised of chromatic resolutions of complex altered chords."
- Easley Blackwood
from 12 Microtonal Etudes, Op. 28

 

[NorthSky]

It sounds like a dream in reverse.

 

[Sal1950]

It sounds like a dream in reverse.

That's a nightmare.

 

[NorthSky]

That, is a nightmare:

 

[Sal1950]

That, is a nightmare:

You got that right!

 

[DonH56]

Haven't seen the video yet, have to wait until I am home.

If you calculate the harmonic series for a note and chord you'll discover that pianos do not follow the chord structure. Equal temperament does not align harmonically with the notes in a chord. That is, a chord on a piano is more dissonant than when played by musicians who listen and strive for a pleasant-sounding chord. For example, in a major chord, the third needs to be significantly low and fifth a little high relative to the notes "exact" pitch if played alone (or as the root of a chord) to have the pitches "line up" in the chord and sound good. At least using our 12-tone octaves.

Another consideration is that most pianos are tuned to "spread" the end octaves. The notes near the end keys are shifted a little down or up relative to their absolute pitch. This is supposed to make the piano sound a little "bigger". We specifically asked the tuner to not do that to my wife's grand piano; it's grand enough.

FWIWFM - Don

 

[amirm]

Hi Don. Welcome to the forum! Great to see another familiar alias join our silly party here .

What you state is indeed what the video explains. My question is if this was a mistake in the "design" of the piano? Was there an attempt to be mathematically correct but it isn't?

 

[DonH56]

Thanks Amir. I'll have to add my sig and avatar later. I just updated my age in my username..

Nope, designed that way. The desired pitch depends upon where the note is placed in the chord. An E in an E chord should be dead on pitch (relative to the octave, i.e. 2^(n/12) where n is the note and n = 0 is the root of the chord). When played as the third of a major C chord, that E needs to be brought way down in pitch to sound right. Because pianos have fixed pitches, you can't really do just intonation, so you stick with equal and we get by.

Fundamentally 12 notes in an octave simply do not allow the notes in the chords to fit harmonically with fixed (equal) tuning.

I have a Matlab or Mathcad program someplace that makes this more clear, but in the meantime here is a Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_intonation

 

[amirm]

Thanks Don. As a non-musician, this stuff is all greek to me .

 

[DonH56]

I'll have to see if I can find my program. The cool thing about this is that the math, music theory, and hearing all agree on what sounds best. And even helps explain why we find IMD more objectionable than THD.