In another thread the use of drones was suggested, maybe the topic is worth a thread?
I have just tried playing against a D drone, and it occurs to me that I am not sure what I am supposed to notice. What I do notices is an effect when I am playing a D or E, maybe and F too (or d, e f). In the upper part of the octave (GAB) I notice no effect. Maybe I am listening wrong. What should I hear?
Also, what are the rules to choosing a drone? Do you always choose a drone of key note + perfect fifth? What is the theory of a perfect fifth being used? Surely a perfect fifth will be out of tune with an equal tempered whistle?
Can someone explain these things, or some of them, without to much in the way of technical music terms, please? I am happy to do the practicing, eager even, but as usual, I am clueless…
If you have that downloadable ‘e-tuner’ and a microphone on the computer try this.
Don’t listen to the drone. Close you eyes and play a bottom octave A that sounds ‘right’. Open your eyes half way throught the breath. What does the tuner read ? Close eyes again. Listen to the D drone on headphones and blow that A few times, trying to get it to sound ‘good’. Open eyes part way through a note. What does the tuner say ? Try it for the G and octave D next. Try again tomorrow. For the other notes the ‘control’ on our pitch is less strong, but the tuner should settle on one of the those marks that the e-tuner can be set to show for just tuning.
I think it is the same ‘skill’ needed to play in tune with other people or a harmony note.
It helped me a lot (then I got bored/lazy ). YMMV
edit - come to think of it, start with the bottom D, not the A (I remembered when I put the headphones on )
I don’t know if it was suggested that you
were supposed to notice anything in particular.
A drone might make it easier to hear if you are
in tune on each note, so you can blow notes
into tunes when you hear it is out against the
drone.
I’m not really sure what “effect” anyone might
have been suggesting aside from “Hey, that
sounds neat.” Drones are a common form of
self-accompaniment
What? Are you talking about using a chord as a drone?
That might make sense if you’re only playing
in the pentatonic scale. A one-note drone is
sufficient and the key note is a good choice.
Some of the drones linked on the other thread ( and below) include a fifth and IIRC the text with them recommends it. Some bagpipes have drones including a fifth and octave. I think some of those free-reed drone generating boxes do as well. But I understand that having a third above the root as well (i.e. a chord) restricts the notes for which the ‘reference tone’ is useful.
Yes, it was that link that made me think a fifth was part of the drone. See how iggerant I am?
I was wondering how the drone helped me hear that I was in or out of tune. I guess I could go and blow some more, varying the pressure, and see which results I like the most.
The question about which drone is because many of the tunes I like are in Em or Am. So presumably I would use an E or an A as a drone. Interestingly this is where knowing what a key signature actually means may be important. Not everything with two sharps is D major is it? So not everything with two sharps would use a D drone?
No, absolutely not! The Great Highland Pipes, for example, have three drones tuned in unison/octaves (two tenor and one bass) with a ‘one size fits all’ approach to the key/mode of the tune (ie the drones stay the same regardless). So, while tonic or dominant drones are probably the most common, it’s not necessary to have either let alone both, and assuming drones in fifths seems to be one of the most popular misconceptions of mock-trad composers!
That’s how I think of it. The starting-off point is that you would use the same note as the tonic for the drone: D for key of D, E for E, A for A, etc. It makes sense; in traditional music, tunes generally resolve back to the tonic either directly or by inference, so the drone is an anchor point around which the tune winds. As you listen to a tune set against its tonic drone (let’s eliminate the optional fifth for now), you notice that some notes of the melody clash with the drone and create tension, so resolving that tension - how the tune’s wanderings go back to fitting with the drone, the home base - becomes part of the dynamics of the tune itself. Take a D drone and play a D note. No big deal. Now play E over the D drone; all of a sudden there’s something very challenging to the ear, uncomfortable, even. It makes you want to return to D (or F#, G, A or B, all of which rest nicely in their own ways with a D drone). These are the things I listen for when a drone’s involved: anchoring, tension, and release.
But when it comes to fixed-drone instruments, things get a bit interesting. Take uilleann pipes: while a standard concert set and its drones wil be pitched in D, you can also play tunes in the key of G with the D drones on because the D drone won’t clash with it. Nevertheless it’s a bit “off-sides” compared with if you had a G drone for playing in G instead. The point is, though, that you have a small amount of flexibility with what sounds good; essentially you can play in the tonic and the fourth (D and G, as I’ve been using here) for the most conventionally acceptable-sounding results. These tunes based on the tonic or fourth can also be major, minor, or mixolydian, so your options increase a bit.
It gets even more interesting when you play an Am tune over unison D drones: all of a sudden your Am tune subjectively isn’t in Am any more, but sounds like a very abstract D major melody instead. This is all thanks to what drone you use; if you want an A minor tune to sound like A minor, then an A drone is of course a must.
I hope that helps some, and hasn’t actually caused more confusion.
On a lap/ mountain dulcimer we use two drones. If tuning in D above mid C then we use the fifth A below mid. C and a low D as drones. The dulcimer works well with the whistle as both are diatonic. And the drones are the reason its often called by some as the stringed Bagpipe…Bob.
BTW At least our drones are not equipped with missiles…
Perhaps in the absolute world of highland pipes. But there are other drone arrangements.
Drones on Lowland Pipes
The instrument has three cylindrically bored drones inserted into the pipebag by a common stock, typically tuned A, a, e’, or A, a, a. The drone tuning A, e, a was used in half-long pipes in the early 20th century, and though still rare, sets are now beginning to be made with this drone tuning again.
Drones on Northumbrian Pipes
Only three drones are usually sounded at once, tuned for instance to G, D and g if the tonic of the tune is G. Occasionally, though rarely, other tunings have been used, for example G, c, g, suitable for tunes in C major, or D, A, d, a, for some tunes in D major.
Drones on Uilleann Pipes
The pipes are generally equipped with three drones: the tenor drone—the highest sounding pipe which is pitched the same as the lowest note of the chanter, the baritone drone which is pitched one octave below that and the bass drone—the lowest sounding pipe, two octaves below the bottom note of the chanter. The Pastoral pipes had four drones, these three plus one more which would play a harmony note at the fourth or fifth interval. Tim Britton makes a drone in “a” for his sets in “d” as an option.
Which is why I said ‘for example’ in answer to the question ‘Do you always choose a drone of key note + perfect fifth?’ (to which the only possible single-word response is ‘no’)!
Dr.P, It’s hard to explain what it sounds like
to be out of tune against another note. You
can try listening for “beats”… but I’m having
a heck of a time figuring out how to describe
them in text…
The wikipedia page is somewhat helpful. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_(acoustics)
Listen to the samples on that page.
Beats sound like extra waveriness in the
sound or like another frequency that comes
and goes.
Non-unison drone arrangements (D and A, or what have you) are another issue, I think. They can limit further what you can do fittingly than with a unison drone, but OTOH they can open up new possibilites as well. You have to play around with this stuff, and one arrangement is not superior to another; it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish in the bigger picture. The main thing is that drone setup and melody need to fit each other as best as possible. For my money, though, when you’re investigating the very initial concept of the drone, I think it’s best to start simply - unison - until it makes sense, and later go on from there if you like.
That helps a bit. I hear some extra ‘feature’ when playing a D or E against that drone, but it has no apparent frequency, just a buzz. And I hear nothing with the G,A,B,C#.
I think I will take Nanohedron’s advice and resort to a simple drone (D only, perhaps D, or D, or lower). This is strange new territory for me, and I think requires a different quality of listening.
Maybe there will be a ‘doh’ moment I finally ‘get it’ .
Think it’s possible (just possible) that you’re hearing difference tones (also described in that Wikipedia article), which are quite common in ensembles of ‘pure’ sounding instruments like whistles and recorders. On which note, I seem to remember reading somewhere that Hindemith actually exploited these in the Trio (for three recorders) from the Ploner Musiktag by scoring second-inversion chords and leaving the difference tones to supply the missing roots!
Edit: yep, in the sleeve notes to The Art of the Recorder by David Munrow, which say:
Notice the ingenious layout of some of the sustained cadential chords. Hindemith had observed the ambiguous nature of the recorder’s tone and that a first or second inversion when played in tune will produce the effect of the missing fundamental. He tests the player’s [sic.] control of intonation accordingly, for instance in the last chord of the first movement.
My instructor at the Augusta Heritage Festival this year (Ivan Goff - flute) HIGHLY encouraged us (his students) to play along with drone tones - in fact, he recommended buying “The Tuning CD” (which I did). It’s available on iTunes, actually. The idea is to play along for about 10 minutes each practice session in order to train your ear. Ivan is a great instructor, by the way.
). YMMV
.