Stretch Tuning

[Janis Cortese]

Charlie, it’s certainly stretch tuning but if the rest of the world does it by fixing the bottom end on typical pitches and stretching the top, then that’s probably the best way to do it rather than to fix on the top pitches and stretch the bottom. I’m stretching, but not in the same direction. 🙂

[Biagio]

By all means let’s not derail the subject of stretch tuning, it’s pretty interesting all by itself! As a method of keeping sounds – dare I say pleasant? – stretch tuning is of especial interest to me, having just graduated from nylon/gut to the ancient wire strung clarsach. With the very long ring in that instrument and considerable sympathetic vibrations throughout it’s range, it can sound really ugly unless the octaves are stretched. Just relying on my (equal tempered) tuner – yuck.

[Janis Cortese]

I remember watching a BBC harp documentary online (which everyone here has doubtless seen) that featured a little bit of back-and-forth between Paul Dooley on a wire-strung clarsach and Catrin Finch on a modern lever harp. I recall being struck immediately by the difference in how they were tuned. The lever must have been in ET and the clarsach sweetened for the particular key it was in. I am not a Tuning Dogmatist — music is at heart a compromise — but it was interesting to hear them side by side like that.

Is there one particular way to spell that, BTW? I keep wanting to write “clairseach,” and I know that Irish has … well, all the vowels that escaped from Wales apparently floated across the Irish sea and washed up there.

[Biagio]

Since the bass strings are typically at higher tension ( especially on a double but even a single) and changing one can affect the others, IMHO for stretch tuning or any other it is preferable to start in the middle and work down. Then work up. But whatever “works” heh heh.

Not to get sidetracked again (have you observed I’m easily swayed?): phonetically the Irish would pronounce it “KLAR-sock”, we Scots and perhaps Britons more likely “Clair-sukh”. So how to spell the darn thing? Clarsach, clairseach…..whatever, folks know what is meant. Gaelic has no written tradition. Interestingly, if one is a dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist, replica clarwhatevers have two Gs below middle C side by side (“the sisters”).

It’s a whole other world. Speaking of Ms. Finch, have you heard her recording with Seckou Keita on pedal and kora? Wow!

Oops, sidetracked again!

[Allison Stevick]

I also stretch the tuning in the upper range, because my harp just sounds “off” if I don’t.

[Janis Cortese]

That’s interesting to know the proper order — that also tends to be how I do things, but not for any thought-out reason, just because I tune while sitting at the thing, and reaching the bass strings with the tuning key is a pain, so I leave them until last. 🙂

Yes, I’ve listened to and watched a few pieces featuring Finch and Keita — magnificent work. The kora is perhaps the most Baroque sounding instrument I’ve ever heard. It’s such an old instrument, I wonder if they also have their HIPP-vs.-modern debates regarding use of nylon or gut and tuning systems?

[Sid Humphreys]

My tuning app (iStoboSoft by Peterson) has a “stretched tuning for harps”, (HP1- stretch for 47 string harp, HP2- stretch for 36 string harp, and HP3 milder stretch for 47 string harp). Have anyone of you tried using this “sweetener?”

[charles-nix]

I have the standalone version of that app. Peterson started (and still is) a pipe organ company, so their tuners are everywhere in our industry.

The real strobes, some of which have programmable temperaments, like the 490-ST and 590, are very sensitive and very accurate. Still, with practice, one can tune even more accurately by ear, and the stretch then is automatically adjusted to the optimum for the instrument.

The StroboSoft is a simulated strobe. Basically is is a pattern that rotates. They have far more accuracy and resolution than any of the Korgs, etc, but are not as accurate as the real strobes. They also don’t cost $1000 and don’t require AC power like the real strobes.
The standalone version almost requires an external mic or pickup to have a good solid signal to analyze. I don’t know about the iPhone version except that the software is supposed to be identical. I’d say the harp stretch “sweeteners” (why can’t they just call it a temperament?) is certainly better than tuning straight in, but may not be optimal for your instrument. However, the StroboSoft is more accurate than many other electronic tuners, if you’re really careful about getting the pattern exactly stopped just after the initial attack, then decaying into slightly flat. Also, iIf you have any strings with any falseness, it will throw the StroboSoft for a real loop as it tries to find which pitch is the true one.

I use the StroboSoft for setting temperament in one octave (usually from 4th oct A (220 Hz) to 3rd oct G, or a few notes more), then check the fourths and fifths and thirds within that octave by ear and usually adjust some, going back and forth with ear and StroboSoft until that first octave is really right, then carry the whole thing down and up, playing octaves, fourths and fifths. And I agree 100% with Biagio: tune the bass first, then the treble, especially if anything is very far off. And if any notes are far away, plan at the beginning on tuning the whole thing at least twice to get the tension stable.

While I think anyone can learn to tune by ear, I freely admit that just like playing the harp, it takes many hours and days of practice and experience to hear it accurately. Keep in mind that everyone did it that way until the last 20-30 years, it was just another part of learning to play the instrument, starting with just a reference A or C from a tuning fork or another instrument.

Charles Nix

[Biagio]

As I understand stretch tuning for the harp the idea is basically to have a perfectly tuned mid range to which all other octaves reference. Is that correct Charles? Thirds fifths and octaves are then the checks (or “proofs” as Boscha calls them); playing the first harmonics I find to also be helpful. I’m no expert.
Biagio

[charles-nix]

Yes, and pianos work the same way. Keep in mind there are two things going on at the same time. The octaves are (which are theoretically pure–exactly in tune) are being stretched slightly wider. I can’t prove it, but I believe the reason it sounds better (on the harp) is because the attack is relatively sharper the higher you go. The need for stretching on pianos is often attributed to irregular (not on exactly the standard pitch you would mathematically expect) harmonics. I’m not a piano tuner, though. Pipe organs are never stretched; the attack is an overblowing of upper harmonics combined with white noise, but is basically on pitch, and all harmonics are essentially textbook, so there is no need to stretch.

The thirds, fourths, and fifths are to keep the temperament consistent as you go up or down. All fixed pitch instruments which play more than one note at a time are tempered somehow, which is a way of compromising matching overtones of the notes being played. The many ways of actually carrying this out are highly dependent on rules or expectations for musical composition in the period in question.

The now nearly universal “equal” temperament allows music modulated to any key to have the same “feel”–and I won’t get into whether that is good or bad–to me it depends on the context. It allows use of any note at any time, and modulation to any key to work consistently. The thirds and fifths beat at the same speed in every key. It is also by far the hardest to get set really correctly. Older temperament systems allow the thirds in some chords to beat much more slowly than in others–transposing does not simply raise the pitch, but also changes how the music sounds. Some keys have a lot more “energy” than others. In equal temperament, they all sound pretty “energetic”.

As an aside, I keep my lever harp, which is tuned in Eb, set in an unequal temperament that allows keys near C (F, G) to have the slowest thirds, and E major to have really quick thirds. For it to make any difference, though, you have to tune carefully, and regulate frequently.

In earlier music where keys were firmly established, and then departed, different feel for each key was part of the effect of the music, just as gut-strung violins and unvalved trumpets were part of the effect.

Charles Nix

[Tacye]

Charles, I have it on good authority that it is perfectly possible to regulate a pedal harp to mean temperaments if you want to. Flat to natural has a lot of flexibility with adjustable nuts, and there is a fair amount of adjustment possible for natural to sharp by rotating both disks.

I am most conscious of the attack of a note being sharper with the lowest strings, particularly on harps with a short string length (so lower tension – I did calculate it once). Lower strings sustain for longer which makes it more prominent too.

I read about some research which played pure sine tones at people and discovered that they stretched the upper octaves. I haven’t checked my recollection, but what I remember is that our ears generate slightly stretched/unharmonic overtones even when they don’t exist in the sound played.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

If your string is sharpened by your attack, you are attacking it too hard! I have certainly heard a harpist audibly bend the pitch in the bass by over-plucking. If you merely push through the string, you avoid the pressure and pulling that result in bending the pitch, and also pulling it out of tune.
Each ear is different, perhaps, but the first octave notes sound quite flat without some stretching, unless you have never heard it that way before.
Tuning by ear, the old-fashioned way, unless you have perfect pitch, is an audible nightmare. Having grown up when people still did that, from a tuning fork or pitch pipe, nothing was ever in tune. Listen to an old recording by Lily Laskine. A is the worst note to tune from. You are at the mercy of your regulation. I was able to find E and B tuning forks, which at least give me F-flat and C-flat, establishing the fifth.
It takes decades of playing and listening to refine one’s ear. We just don’t have that luxury. But relying on a strobe tuner creates a false reality. There is an old rule of thumb for octaves in the bass: you should be able to hear a beat or vibrato of three times per second.

[allegra]

I am a beginner, and not that good at tuning yet, certainly not by ear, so I am using my iPad and the iStrobosoft app, with the ‘harp sweetener’ selected as described above.

I find that when I play the note several times (without adjustment), the tuning is slightly different each time, and I don’t know how to play consistently enough to know that the tuning is accurate. If I play it loud, that seems to change things – but yet sometimes, I have to play it really loud so that it registers on the tuner. Someone once suggested I play the highest notes with my fingernails, in order to get them to register (on any electronic tuner), but that seem to change it slightly too. Is this sort of thing enough of a difference in tuning to matter?

Almost as soon as I play the note, the strobe pattern changes (usually going to flat, though not always). Which bit of time is the bit that I am trying to get dead on the note – the sound immediately after playing it, or the sound as it starts to ring?

On the lower notes, sometimes the machine registers a different note than I’m playing (I guess this is a harmonic – it is often something in the chord, anyway). Various different notes will appear on the tuner, and only rarely the note of the actual string I’m playing, for the bottom 5 or so strings. Sometimes I can get the right note if I play it really loudly, but then again I’m not sure that’s accurate anyway. So, what I was wondering was – does this matter? If one of the other notes is some kind of harmonic of the string, and I tune that to be properly in tune with the tuner, would that mean that the actual string is in tune? (providing that it is a good quality, newish string). I do try to tune some of them by ear, in octaves, which I can sometimes hear for the higher octaves, but when it’s that low, I can’t really seem to tell whether it’s in tune or not.

On rare occasions when my teacher has tuned my harp, it sounds much better, and I know she does it by ear, presumably doing some stretch tuning – so I thought the app with the sweetener might replicate how she can do it. But I have to be able to tune it accurately enough to the app for it to help, and to know which part of the note/decay I am listening for and trying to tune.

[Biagio]

I suppose (replying to Allegra) a lot depends on your harp, your tuner, and your ear (grin). Since I started out as a lever harp builder, not a player, my main concern was setting those things and an analog Korg worked just fine. Yes the needle will jump at the initial attack, but let it stabilize. For those trebles using the nail in the exact middle with repeated plucks may help both to eliminate false readings (yes it is probably the harmonic) and get a good reading at all. Nowadays I use a Snark which is better; I don’t really need a strobe’s much better accuracy.

My teacher recently retrieved her old Caswell wire harp and when I go over for a lesson we tune together. Laurie has a wonderful ear after 30 years but yes, we are stretch tuning. Often the reference pitch is a G since that gives us the fundamental or fifth for either G or C tuning.

She also convinced me that just trying to tune by ear the first time is a good idea and should be part of my practice routine. “You can always go back and check with the tuner if it sounds off” she said, ‘but get in the habit of really listening, especially if you want to eventually play by ear.” She was right.

[allegra]

my ear is not great, yet! Hoping that the more I play with the harp in tune, the better it will develop.

The high notes are the ones that I need to play with the fingernails to get them to register; the low ones are the ones that register the harmonics.

I had a regular electronic tuner too, but my teacher was saying how she sharpens the upper octaves etc when she tunes by ear, and I know how much better it sounds when she tunes it for me, so I was hoping that the strobe tuner [because it has the sweetener specifically for harp] would help me get that too. But I have to learn how to tune using it. (Though actually I had the same problem of not knowing which part of the note/decay to tune even with the regular electronic tuner, too). Also, with the other electronic tuner, I just got a light to say whether it was in tune/sharp/flat, not (I think) which note it was actually registering – it’s only with the App that I’ve started using that I realise the lowest 5 or so notes sometimes give me various harmonics. I am not convinced that tuning those actually means the string itself is in tune, because different harmonics often seem differently sharp or flat. They are quite new bass wires, so should be OK. I am trying to learn to do more by ear, but those really low notes are impossible for me to hear yet! I can’t even tell if the octaves are in tune.

One of my goals was to tune more often this year! I find it physically awkward with short arms, figuring out how to stand so that I can reach over to pluck the strings relatively normally, and still reach the tuning pegs, and sometimes try to muffle the all the bass strings after each note too (as I presume that makes a difference to the tuner hearing the right note). But I know it is better for the harp to tune it regularly.

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