Tuning question. Help please!

[mrchips]

I never could get that C3 type of thing straight in my mind. I just use "middle C and the fog lifts..

Nearly everybody has punched around on a piano at some time in their life and most know where middle C is on one. If you dont have a tuner just hit the next white key right. Thats the D the melody string is tuned to on a DAd tuned one.

[Ken-Nutt]

Now, if we could get everyone who tabs to use the same definitions!

[folkfan]

I never could get that C3 type of thing straight in my mind. I just use "middle C and the fog lifts..

Nearly everybody has punched around on a piano at some time in their life and most know where middle C is on one. If you dont have a tuner just hit the next white key right. Thats the D the melody string is tuned to on a DAd tuned one.

You correct if you mean that the d just to the right of middle c is the d that is used for the melody string on a standard size dulcimer in DAd. I normally think of one in tuning as the bass string as in 1-5-5 or 1-5-8 which I tune to the D below middle c in DAA or DAd.

[Rahere]

In his 30 Jan posting, MrChips talked about telling if the tuning is spot on: given that few of us have perfect pitch, he's almost certainly talking about the 'beat' you get when two strings are slightly out. That's something you can use to get closer than with a tuner.
Basically, what happens when two strings are close but not spot on is that an interference pattern starts between them, creating a kind of woo-woo as the peaks and troughs alternately reinforce peaks, cancel, reinforce troughs, cancel themselves. That's the beat, and when you bring the two strings into accurate pitch the beat speeds up until it disappears when both are precisely in tune. It's the cherry on the top when tuning to comparable sounds, which will get you to about 5 cents one way or another: tuning to the beat will get you to a cent.

[folkfan]

In his 30 Jan posting, MrChips talked about telling if the tuning is spot on: given that few of us have perfect pitch, he's almost certainly talking about the 'beat' you get when two strings are slightly out. That's something you can use to get closer than with a tuner.
Basically, what happens when two strings are close but not spot on is that an interference pattern starts between them, creating a kind of woo-woo as the peaks and troughs alternately reinforce peaks, cancel, reinforce troughs, cancel themselves. That's the beat, and when you bring the two strings into accurate pitch the beat speeds up until it disappears when both are precisely in tune. It's the cherry on the top when tuning to comparable sounds, which will get you to about 5 cents one way or another: tuning to the beat will get you to a cent.

My problem with tuning without a tuner is that I end up with C slightly sharped and then two G's that are slightly sharped. With a tuner at least I know when I've hit the D.

[Robin the Busker]

My problem with tuning without a tuner is that I end up with C slightly sharped and then two G's that are slightly sharped. With a tuner at least I know when I've hit the D.

I really wouldn't worry about being a little flat or sharp Folkfan. I rarely put a tuner on my instrument until after I've finished playing or recording at home and then it is only to post here or on FOTMD what tuning I've been using. You'll never get your tuning right (particularly for noter drone) if you use a tuner for the open strings because each tuning changes the way the strings react. For example, I may tune way down to G#,D#,F# to copy a tune such as ID Stamper's 900 Miles from his Red Wing album but then up to E,A,d to learn something like Frosty Morning played by a fiddler on YouTube. If I tuned the open strings to the "correct" notes acording to an electronic tuner then the whole piece sounds out as I move around the fretboard. So I tune my melody string by ear so it is "right" for the tune I'm listening to (right key, right mode) and then blend in the drones by ear to a root or 5th against the fretted root note on the melody string - listening for the beats as previously suggested. Even when tuning to something simple like D,A,A I end up with a slight difference between the two open A strings using this 'by ear' method of tuning against the root note fretted on the melody string - but my played tune is then spot on. If I tune to D,A,A using an electronic tuner for the open strings then my played tunes are always just a shade out for noter and drone work.

I had a bit of a shock yesterday when I posted a version of 900 miles on FOTMD. I wrote down the tuning after I measured it on one of the cheap electronic tuners I had lying around and someone pointed out that the tuning wasn't what they were hearing. I checked again and that particular tuner has developed a fault and is reading one and a half tones too high in chromatic mode but spot on in guitar or bass mode The moral of the story being, trust your ears not your tuner

[folkfan]

Robin, Since I'm by myself and never going to play in public or with others a spot on tuning is probably not that important. I agree. As long as my ear doesn't go screaming out of the room because the notes are actually clashing with each other, I'm ok with it. With my hearing I don't really hear the beats or wah-wah that musicians talk about when tuning by ear. I just try to get it as close as I can to what I am hearing.

[Robin the Busker]

Robin, Since I'm by myself and never going to play in public or with others a spot on tuning is probably not that important. I agree. As long as my ear doesn't go screaming out of the room because the notes are actually clashing with each other, I'm ok with it. With my hearing I don't really hear the beats or wah-wah that musicians talk about when tuning by ear. I just try to get it as close as I can to what I am hearing.

Well "close" is often good enough!!!

There are many early recordings from Appalachia where the tuning is a long way from "close" - so you are in good company

Regarding those beats - it takes a bit of practice but you can actually feel them pulsing through the dulcimer body once you have worked out what you are actually feeling for (like reading braille). I quite often have my fingers on the dulcimer when I'm fine tuning so I can feel the vibrations as well as hear them. I've got one of Dave's Sweet Woods Student dulcimers on my knee at present and the beats really pulse on that

[john p]

The thing that seems to have happened with the coming of electronic tuners is that people have more of a tendancy to tune off the 3rd string instead of the 1st string. It's convenient to do it that way but not strictly correct. In practise I usually do a bit of both.

The first 30 years I spent playing solo, so all my tuning would be done relative to whatever I decided on as the root on the melody string. This was done by fretting one string against another, i.e. 3rd string 6th fret = 1st string open for Aeolian, 2nd string open = 3rd string 4th fret etc. There was usually a bit of tweaking if something sounded a bit off.
It's only really now I have a tuner that I spend any time in setting the root to a particular key. I don't think the results are any better, but you do get a sense of security from them.

john p

[folkfan]

Robin, Since I'm by myself and never going to play in public or with others a spot on tuning is probably not that important. I agree. As long as my ear doesn't go screaming out of the room because the notes are actually clashing with each other, I'm ok with it. With my hearing I don't really hear the beats or wah-wah that musicians talk about when tuning by ear. I just try to get it as close as I can to what I am hearing.

Well "close" is often good enough!!!

There are many early recordings from Appalachia where the tuning is a long way from "close" - so you are in good company

Regarding those beats - it takes a bit of practice but you can actually feel them pulsing through the dulcimer body once you have worked out what you are actually feeling for (like reading braille). I quite often have my fingers on the dulcimer when I'm fine tuning so I can feel the vibrations as well as hear them. I've got one of Dave's Sweet Woods Student dulcimers on my knee at present and the beats really pulse on that

I hadn't thought about feeling the beats on an instrument. As I have one of Dave's students, I'll give it a try first. Not hearing the wah-wah is part in due to hearing loss and tinnitus. A noise sort of like this is with me all the time.

http://ringinginears.net/audio/sirren.wav

[mrchips]

If you are playing alone then some exact spot on tuning isn't really needed but it should be at least close to the desired note. The important part of tuning this way is the relationship between the strings. Knowing where the duplicate notes between a couple of strings will allow you to get the relationship dead on. Its a different issue when playing with others,

You DO need to be dead on or as close as possible or you're going to hear all sorts of weird overtones and beats because of the slight difference you get from being slightly sharp or flat while others are dead on. Even here you can tune exactly to another person by simply having them pick a note then tune to it to where you dont hear that pulsing beat sound. From there its the same as above. In fact this is how instruments were generally tuned by using a pitch pipe, a tuning fork, or another instrument as the standard before the cheap small tuners became available.

Even where you are located in a room has effects on what you hear when playing anything tuned dead on. Often you will hear an echo off a wall that can c=give you that beat note you hear when 2 strings are slightly out of tune with each other. The cure is simple, just move a foot or 2. If you have a ceiling fan set under it with it on then pluck an open string and listen closely. You will get all sorts of beat notes. This is why you will often find professionals moving around a bit on stage and tinkering with the tuners. They are trying to cancel out the effect of the echos and slight variations in tuning between instruments.

In addition how and where you fret a string will affect the actual note. The act of fretting its self stretches strings and that makes the notes slightly sharp. In addition how high above the frets the strings are will also affect how sharp a note is. The ideal way to fret a string is to push the string down tell it barely touched the fret as close to the center as possible without getting that muted sound. Pushing a string all the way down to the fretboard will make the note sharper than it should be. In addition no 2 people will fret an instrument the same way. If its tuned dead on and one person frets by barely touching a fret another person who drives the strings to the fretboard will find the SAME tuning a bit sharp. Bottom line is to tune to take in account the way you play. Tune a tad flat if you are one who goes all the way to the fretboard.

My electronic keyboard was a tad flat when I first got it but that was easily fixable. All of them have an adjustment screw inside that shifts the master oscillator up and down a bit. As any note is defined by a frequency that is in reality just a number. I just borrowed a frequency counter from a friend and plugged it into the line out jack on the back then hit the A above middle C and twisted that adjustment until I seen 440 on the display.. The accuracy of that frequency counter is around a coupe 100 times more precise than any tuner out there with the possible exception of a really expensive strobe tuner. In fact most any tuner is a frequency counter that displays a note name instead of numbers.

[Rahere]

You might also think about one of the software tuners on PC - AP, for example, lets you set the open strings on any instrument, select the temperament, and quite a lot else.