Re: Intervals enharmony question

[Hans Åberg]

> On 1 May 2018, at 04:53, Vaughan McAlley <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> On 1 May 2018 at 06:27, Hans Åberg <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
>> Flutes have a very definite pitch, making it hard to play in unison, unlike 
>> strings then. It is mentioned in Blatter's book on orchestration.
> 
> Flutes can adjust their pitch enough to tune well. I'm mainly a singer, but 
> when I play flute (my first instrument) I approach pitching like a singer, 
> and I rarely have tuning issues.

I also think that the flute is quite close to singing in terms of 
expressibility.

> But flute-wise, this is a pretty advanced technique.

I trained pitch by holding on certain notes and check against a tuner, 
originally a teacher, but then an electronic one.

> And flute players have to spend a lot of time practicing the semiquavers that 
> composers so love to give them :-)

The flute is easy if practising a lot. :-)

> First & second flute in a professional orchestra should be able to play a 
> unison passage just fine. I have sung in the Bach St John Passion a number of 
> times, and rarely hear problems with Ich folge dir gleichfalls, and that's 
> using baroque flutes…

It maybe be easier with those, having a softer sound.

> One of the major features of Boehm's (ie the modern) flute is that tuning (in 
> equal temperament) is more consistent. So maybe less thought is put into 
> tuning by players.

The pitches are quite uneven if measured electronically. In addition, the scale 
was not originally adjusted when the tuning rose to about 440 Hz; this is done 
in Cooper flutes.

> (Good recorder players have all sorts of tuning tricks, I believe)

Another post mentioned some.