Personally I notice that right off the bat there seems to be disagreement about just what "playing an instrument" is.

I hope my friend, and I mean that, Mr Hofnar will chime in, as I noticed his "seems crazy" answer.

Bob, I did listen and play along with your intonation chord drones, and a funny thing happened. Maybe it was the speed of my CD player, or the tuning difference from when I tuned my rig last with the new strings, but I found myself playing along at a different fret alignment. I could move to a different position and still while trying to play along, move away from the fret.

I all of a sudden remembered the times I had to work with slightly sharp guitars, and slightly flat vocalists. Hundreds of gigs with both as matter of fact. I remember as I played with them year in and out, that I finally got to the point where I developed my own internal drone, and then it stopped "driving me crazy". I don't know when it happened, but a pretty good band that Doug Jones and I both worked with started "recording" to "sort things out".

I listened to a couple of the tapes, and found that there were indeed things flat and sharp, but for one, they were the things that I was hearing, and for two, they didn't come from me. They seemed to know it too, because I was never asked again to "listen" on the breaks, and after a while they stopped recording. I've had similar experiences with a couple other bands too. I wish I'd have stolen the tapes, but they were grabbed and I think, tossed.

I admire Larry and his tone center, and I remember remarking immediately when he posted his off the cuff "Ashoken Farewell" just how great I thought it was. A new guitar, and some of the changes were obviously new to him, and maybe slightly untuned, but it was his "Internal tone center" that impressed me more than anybody's off the cuff playing had for a while. Somebody might listen to it and give me an "amen". I dunno.

What I'm saying is it seems like the kind of tone center that he could maintain in the face of other instruments playing out of tune right next to him, and it wouldn't matter.

I don't think "ear training" accomplishes this. Not alone anyhow. Not considering most of the stuff that our ears hear, or what we think we hear, is stuff that if we "follow it" we won't have a tone center.

What's the best is to play with people whose tone centers agree, but from the top on down, there are MANY NOTORIOUS EXAMPLES of "artists" that sang and sing flat, and many out of tune guitars or piani that didn't seem to drag well centered players' tone center off in the ditch with them. Once in a while, of course it is obviously the steel player, and I mean in TOP venues and recordings, but like vocalists with shi##y monitors, fiddlers with a cold in one ear, or just a wierd mix, it can be for totally "lightning strike" reasons.

I mentioned with the Gary Morse Band I saw here when I was with a band that opened for him, HE was the "tone center" or at least his was predominant.

With the examples Larry has so far posted, his "tone center" can obviously be reached with tunings that he himself doesn't regularly use.

I doesn't sound crazy to me, just that I DO think it is leading to a better understanding of this subject that like most of the threads often gets too filled with the most complex stuff.

I've found that constantly tuning exactly to and striving for the harsh simplicity of tuning to a state of the art tuner, whether it's a 40 year old Conn Strobe, or the latest Korg has been my main quest in establishing my own portable, and solid tone center. I've honestly been working on it for 26 unbroken years of steady gigs. It was harder for the first few.

The fact that there have been never ending rebuttals to this simple but difficult method has shown me a lot of things. Mainly that people find simplicity sometimes overwhelming. There are a million reasons to abandon it that seem to follow it everywhere.

That's it's nature, I guess and you don't have to read Lao Tzu ( look it up) to figure that one out.

Anyhow, having a "Sidebar" to discuss these things before Larry's thread becomes anothe crazy free for all, might help.

That was my thought when reading Bob H's post anyhow.

Maybe Larry's Post will be THE Tuning thread pointed to in the FAQs for those wanting a real qualitative analysis (look it up).

I'd like that.

The Podxt is plugged in, and I must go to it.

EJL

[This message was edited by Eric West on 25 July 2005 at 09:55 PM.]

It's simply math versus nature. If you tune straight up, the overtone series don't line up. If you tune so they do, the fundamental frequencies find themselves a little bit off, but you have no beats in your harmonics." --Michael Barnett

I've heard Michael in a session at South Plains College. He played a Carter D-10, and to put it simply, it sounded 'real good.'

I too notice a philosophical scism, or 'comma', in the tuning threads. It reminds me of freshman philosophy, 'Mysticism and Logic.' The same sorts of reflections occurred to me last night while watching a program about 'The Da Vinci Code,' an attempt to put various threads of myth into one story.
In both cases, there are two sides who debate with fervor, not unlike the two positions taken on pedal steel tuning.

Surely, in every debate, the 'truth lies' somewhere in between, and the truth is exposed as a subjective thing--or in the Jefferson Airplane song: "When the truth is found / to be lies...."

A string's harmonics define a system of whole tones. When Pythagoreas divided and subdivided the string, he created a scale of whole and half tones. This scale was later re-divided into a scale of half-tones, and never again would the twain meet.

The Pythagorean comma can't simply be erased. The numbers don't add up, and it causes the piano tuner to tune an equal temperament. And I doubt we'll go back to the 7-tone scale.

So, like philosophy, it's in the ears of the beholder. These ears say Eric's guitar sounds in tune, and Larry's guitar sounds in tune, and Buddy's and Bob's, etc. etc.

Perhaps Larry's thread will be the ultimate expression of the matter, but it's more likely that steelers will continue to close the rift, the scism, the comma, getting closer and closer, mathematically, to a single truth. Physicists will continue to unite the forces, when in reality there is only one force, and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

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Personally I notice that right off the bat there seems to be disagreement about just what "playing an instrument" is.

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Just my 26 cents (the Pythagorean comma).
That's a mighty big divide. Wherever there is a rift, there will be philosophies.

These days, I prefer riffs.
There's tuning, and there's playing.
Play on.

But I'll add another:

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Who knows, maybe this is one mystery not meant to be solved. Maybe the ancient sages had it right. They believed that a broken musical scale is there to remind us of our fallen state of imperfection. Mortal music is flawed...and so is man. We should do well to remember it; we: easily tempted to hubris, curious, always over-reaching.

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Natasha Mostert, "The Other Side of Silence"

[This message was edited by Charlie McDonald on 26 July 2005 at 12:14 PM.]

Maybe he didn't mean to.

no smiley..

EJL

[This message was edited by Eric West on 26 July 2005 at 05:05 PM.]

Eric, you were editing your post as I was typing this reply. Now nobody's gonna know what you're talking about...
Bless your heart.

[This message was edited by Stephen Gambrell on 26 July 2005 at 05:07 PM.]

I think it was the "trying to" thing.

I LOVE turning to my guitar player after a burning solo, or set, and say "I like what you were "trying to do there" and we both crack up. I get it a lot too. "Hang in there" is one I get back after one of my better sets, and the same laughter ensues.

If he reads well, maybe he can clarify. That was a DAMN lot of effort, and I can say that I've listened to as much music as competently and well as the next guy, even if I was lucky enough to find a few thousand times to get paid for playing my crap tuning stupidly as I have to a tuner.

I could hear the differences, and could see how the positions would "match up" to most ears. A lot of it sounded better than what is rammed into my ears on my syndicate programmed radio...

I just threw up my hands and said an expletive, because it has been the FIRST time I've not seen one of these tuning threads disintegrate into a bunch of crap to use a small word.

Maybe it will yet survive to be "THE" "Tuning FAQ".

I hope so, and dont care if this one sees the light of a new day..

I was just dissapointed, and hope it doesn't dim the effort.

Anyhow. Like Buddy, maybe I've been starting to write myself little notes on my hand when I go to bed in case I don't hold the same train of thought when my feet hit the floor.

This morning it was "Don't expect too much". Sometimes it's "Don't trust them". Once in a while it's "Tell them"..

There was a great movie about a guy with short term memory loss.. I forget the name..

I didn't feel the least bit of disrespect in what Paul wrote. He feels it's critical for him to tune as he tunes. I feel the same way and so does Eric and, I'm sure, many steel players who have been around the block a time or two.

After all, he did say this

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Anyway, you are a brave man to subject your musicanship to the tuning test and I, among many, thank you for your contribution here.

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I appreciate all the nice remarks about my playing. If you REALLY like it, BUY MY CD's. I do have two of them for sale on my website.

Peace -- and may we all play in tune together.

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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2003 Fessenden S/D-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 197? Sho-Bud S-12 7x6, 1971 Dobro, Standel and Peavey Amps

You have hundreds of posts saying things like "tell it like it is" and "say what you believe". And I have seen you stepping on others toes doing so. Looks like you don't allow me the same option.

I have the utmost respect for Larry Bell and I am pretty sure he knows it. He is not only a great player, but a super nice guy to boot. If I have offended him with that or any remark I apologize.

I'm outa here!

I learned to apologize in the later part of my life, and for misconstruing your remarks I apologize.

You can't leave, You're right beside me everytime I hear Shania Twain..

EJL

Now, where did I put my poodle skirt?

[This message was edited by Eric West on 26 July 2005 at 06:00 PM.]

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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2003 Fessenden S/D-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 197? Sho-Bud S-12 7x6, 1971 Dobro, Standel and Peavey Amps

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Drew Howard - website - Fessenden D-10 8/8, Fessenden SD-12 5/5 (Ext E9), Magnatone S-8, N400's, BOSS RV-3

[This message was edited by Drew Howard on 26 July 2005 at 06:17 PM.]

on the back...

The lights are getting dim....

EJL

[This message was edited by Eric West on 26 July 2005 at 06:30 PM.]

Okay, Eric, you want philosophy, here goes. It is true there is a sort of working rule in science and philosophy, Occam's razor, which basically says to always look for the simplest explanation first, not the Rube Goldbergian obfuscation. It's a great rule that has shredded many an overly-complicated house of cards. But, unfortunately, nature has also shredded Occam's razor many, many times. The best example would be the sense-defying paradoxes of quantum mechanics, whereby light behaves both as waves and particles. To paraphrase Neils Bohr, if the senseless impossibility of that does not shock you, you don't understand it. Newton's description of the universe was simple and beautiful, and wrong. The Schroedinger wave equation, which explains things better, is as complicated and ugly as anything you will ever see (look it up). Einstein's theory of relativity is unfathomable and profoundly disturbing to our small brains and limited senses.

But enough of physics. Physics is beautifully simple compared to biology. All electrons are the same. All hydrogen atoms are the same. Even all stars are pretty much the same, within certain categories. But, aside from the rare and special case of clones (including identical twins), nothing in biology is the same - no two individuals, no two organs, no two cells, no two chromosomes. Your left hand is not like your right hand, not even as a mirror image. Each finger has a different finger print. The vein pattern on the back of each hand is unique. The vein pattern of each tree leaf is unique. Anatomy books are mere guidelines; every medical student learns that exceptions are the rule. Biology is enormously complicated. The patterns of nature are governed not by simplicity and orderliness, but by chaos theory. Immeasurably small changes in the beginnings of natural processes render the outcomes forever unpredictable.

It gets worse. Goedel’s proof showed that no self-contained set of rules could explain itself without contradictions or improvable assumptions. They all end up being self-referential and contradictory. Here’s Bertand Russell’s classic example: If the barber shaves everyone in town who does not shave himself, does the barber shave himself? Every answer is both right and wrong (don’t spend more than 5 minutes on this question, it’s not good for your sanity, or your religion). Therefore, we can never establish the rules of mathematics, or of philosophy, in a self-contained noncontradictory system.

The goal of all science is to be able to predict the future. If we build a car this way, it will work like this. If we build a bomb this way, it will explode like this. If we build a guitar this way, it will sound like this. We can get pretty good at this up to a point. But we can’t predict the weather, and we can’t predict what the next child born will be like. And we cannot predict the course of human evolution. An obscure theoretical physicist named Walter Elsasser wrote about why we cannot predict biological phenomena the way we can predict physical and chemical phenomena. The molecules and biological structures that govern living things are very complicated. They can have many permutations and fit together in many ways. This gives rise to an enormous number of possible future outcomes. The term “enormous” is used here in a special mathematical sense. Enormous numbers are finite numbers that can exist, that is they are smaller than infinity, but they are so large we can never know them. In order to predict the outcome of a complicated collection of interacting things, one has to have a sufficient sample size. By studying large samples of atoms of pure substances, such as hydrogen, physical chemists learned how to predict the behavior of pure substances and simple compounds. But the fundamental chemical compounds governing the future of life are not as simple as hydrogen molecules, but are hugely complicated DNA molecules and other biochemical structures. This means that the number of possibilities of the next configuration they will obtain is an enormous number, by the special definition above. The number is so enormous that if you were godlike, and knew the present configuration of every molecule in every cell, in every animal, on every planet, in every galaxy in the universe, from the beginning of time, the sample would still be too small to predict the next moment. The future of life is unknowable. Life cannot know its own future. It’s not a big enough sample size.

A very interesting philosophical perspective emerges from the examples above. Quantum mechanics says that the behavior of individual subatomic particles is unpredictable. Chaos theory says that natural processes are unpredictable. Goedel’s proof says that any of our attempts at a comprehensive theory of mathematics that attempts to explain its own fundamental assumptions will be self-referential and contradictory, in other words unpredictable. Elssazar says the sample size is too small to predict the future of life. At first this unpredictability is profoundly distressing and depressing. We all want to believe that the universe is understandable, that it is going someplace and the direction is meaningful and knowable. We want to believe that if we study religion and/or science we can understand where we and the universe are headed. But in spite of our natural fear of unpredictability, there comes a ray of liberation and hope from the unpredictability of complexity. If no one knows the future, and no one CAN know the future, then it is forever free. The future will happen, and it will always be free to be its unpredictable self. Our ignorance of it can never constrain it. The universe is embarked on a journey, yet it cannot know its own destination. The possibilities are not limited. They are so enormous they are unknowable. Once you get used to the idea, it is the ultimate sense of freedom.

Now from this new perspective, one doesn’t always expect simplicity. It is the complexity of nature that gives it its freedom. Complexity is not always a bad thing to be feared. It just is. To be alive is to live with it.

You thought I would never come back. But here I am. The Pythagorean comma does not bother me. It does not bother me that the natural system of harmonics is not evenly spaced, any more than it bothers me that my fingers are not all the same length. I expect some things to be hopelessly complicated in nature. It is this complexity of nature that gives the future its freedom. To play music, we have to learn to exist at some poorly defined, constantly moving place between JI and ET, just the way light exists both as waves and particles. Just the way Schroedinger’s cat is neither dead nor alive before the box is opened (look it up). It is not simple. It is messy and complicated. I accept that. I am alive. Okay, yeah, I play a pedal steel guitar. It’s the most complicated musical instrument I could ever imagine. It can never be exactly in tune, because there is no exactly in tune for it. Whenever I sit down at it, I never know exactly how it will sound and how I will play. But it’s always worth it. That’s life.

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 26 July 2005 at 10:05 PM.]

Some people are confusing the complicated verbal explanations of the numbers with the simplicity of the actual process of ear tuning. The words are not the act. It is very complicated to verbally explain the sound of one hand clapping. But it is simple to make the sound. You just wave one hand in front of your face.

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 26 July 2005 at 10:07 PM.]

I read every word, and will be thinking about it.

This Tremendous Tunin" Question has showed that with the right amount of effort, and civil exchange, a group of people can become more understanding, and eventually weed out one line jackasses that spend more time attacking and harrassing other people out of whatever reasons they find for doing it than participating in theoretical discussions as you and I and others seem to, or sharing of experiences as many do. Especially Mr Bell lately, b0b and others. It's actually getting somewhere.

Sometimes people that don't commonly put their thoughts into words and have much to share will be more comfortable doing it. I dunno.

I've seriously enjoyed it the way it's turned out.

That's what this thread's about I guess.

Not to worry, Mr Doggett. I've been shot up before.. A little "rat packing" is to be expected..

I'll think about the things you put forth while I'm working tomorrow.

Night DD.

EJL
PS after reading your 2nd post.

Playing ANY tuning method with a diverse group of instruments is a challenge. With different tuning methods the downsides are different as are the 'up sides'. Most live gig players are like businesses in that not 10 percent that start ever last any length of time. Most are weeded out in the first year on the bandstand. I've made the choices I have to remain in that smaller percentage. I can't think of any period that's been "easy".

Some rare times I've relied on "pure spite".

I expect others have done similarly with their tuning methods.

The tuning method is the way you sharpen your axe. Maybe curved to match your target's contours, or aerodynamics, or maybe as straight and true as you can, focusing on the technique of wielding it. Or a mixture of both. I suppose if not sharpened at all it can act as a club. (Isn't that where we play?)

Time is the great test.

(The thing that keeps everything from happening all at once...)

"You're only as good as your last gig. -E.W.-

[This message was edited by Eric West on 27 July 2005 at 05:29 AM.]

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I'm beginning to think that tuning posts should be put in a special section with religion and politics.

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Sometimes a thing is only what it appears to be. I forget who said that.

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Peace -- and may we all play in tune together.

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