It’s been discussed recently on the uilleann piping forum that many makers of non-fretted instruments ie: whistles and flutes and the like, are not tuned to equal temperment as a rule. I was under the impression that whistle makers used the equal temperment scale fairly regularly when voicing in an instrument. Is just intonation really the way it’s done? Pipes are tuned this was certainly (just intonation) but the pipes still sound different on several notes than my whistles do.
Insight??
I’m not a maker, but all my whistles sound equal temperament to me.
Brian,
What, most whistles are actually tuned?!?! Who knew!!! 
Loren
Brian
Most “Pipes” are tuned to the “Highland Scale”, which is very different from Equal Temperment or Just-Intonation. Your question is a little unclear.
(For those who don’t know about Just-Intonation, The intervals between notes are based on the natural separation of harmonics rather than the equal spacing, in cents, of Equal Temperment)
Are you asking about the tuning of tin whistles to the Just-Intoned Scale to better match reed and string instrument harmonics? Some makers believe Just-Intoned woodwinds blend better than Equal-Tempered woodwinds in group settings. It may have to do with the weak second harmonic in string and reed instruments that is so prominent in flutes and whistles(?)
(Here is a link to a site on musical temperment)
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/music/tempercn.html
(Here is a site with WAV files comparing Bagpipes with Equal Temperment)
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~emacpher/pipes/acoustics/hearscales.html
I did a quick Google search on “highland scale” and found this article. Is this what you mean, Thomas?
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~emacpher/pipes/acoustics/pipescale.html
Best wishes,
Jerry
Yes Jerry. There are some regional variations, but Bagpipers are very adamant about the purity of their scale and have resisted other interval compromises.
Just remember this…every instrument can be tuned to equal or just. If all the instruments you play, including whistle, sound good with a professionally tuned piano, then that instrument must be equal temperment. I really can’t think of an instrument that doesn’t (or can’t be made to) sound good with a piano, except some of the more exotic foreign instruments.
Here’s the details…
Best thing to do, for a lasting impression, is to borrow a piano tuning hammer and go experiment on a piano that’s seldom used. Forget the black keys for now, stay with the white keys and start with middle C, tune all the 3rds, 4ths, and 5ths, and 6ths above perfectly to the C below you started with. Tune the 2nd and the minor 7th perfectly to another note you already tuned, like the 4th or 5th.
Then tune every octave up the keyboard perfectly to the octave note already tuned below. Keep going up so that all the C’s, Ds, es, Fs, Gs, As, and Bs are perfect with themselves. Hit 4 octaves…they all sound perfectly the same. Then go downward the other way with the lower octaves. When you get done, the piano will sound the sickest out of tune piano you’ve ever heard. Try playing chords on the white keys only. Spread out the chords with bass and treble fingering. This will sound so out of tune that you’ll wish you’d never wasted all the time. But it will settle the question once and for all. Why? Because everything was tuned perfect, or “just.”
“Equal” means everything was equally off from perfect just enough to that all chords are also imperfect, but “equally” tolerable imperfections, one like the other. IOW, if you like what you hear on all professionally tuned pianos, then you are an “equal” kind of guy. But, if you like the sickening sound of the piano tune perfect, then you are a “just” kind of guy. When everything is perfect it won’t sound good altogether. It will only sound good playing one note at a time, rather than chords. And, when I say one note at a time, I mean for only one octave. When you get to the second octave, your own ear will tell you it’s stretching away from the bass…sounding sharper all the time to the middle C note.
One thing I forgot to mention is that octaves are always perfect, up and down, in both the temperment and just tunings. It’s only the relationship of notes against other note within an octave that is different.
Hi, Lorenzo.
The main reason for using just intonation is that it sounds better in chordal/harmonic situations than equal temperament. I learned about it when I sang in a choir that was directed by a violinist who was meticulous about intonation. We sang in just temperament and sounded fine against an equally tempered piano. I believe it would be correct to say that every well trained choir does the same, as you can feel it when the parts of a chord or harmony being sung, synchronize harmonically, which is what just intonation is.
As to your description of piano tuning, if you stay in one key tuned to just intonation, there’s nothing to keep you from having as many octaves as you want, and they’ll be perfectly well in tune.
The problem is when you try to use just intonation to generate the cycle of fifths that take you from one key to another. A C in one just intonation key will be different from a C in other just intonation keys, so when you try to move from key to key using just intonation notes, the further you get from the original just intonation key, the more notes (called “wolf notes”) will show up badly out off pitch for the new key.
Best wishes,
Jerry
I believe that Ronaldo Reyburn offers a Justly tuned instrument. Most others that I know of tune to TET.
Lorenzo, what is the source of your information on tuning? I’m no expert, but it looks very wrong to me.
In particular, it should certainly be possible to tune a large keyboard instrument in just temperament and have it sound good. The problem with just temperament is that you have to tune the instrument for the key you are playing in, and if you change key, you will sound like crap.
If you really tried just tuning a piano that way, did you try the equivalent way with equal tuning? Because I’m pretty sure the source of your problem is awful tuning technique, and equal temperament will sound just as bad. (And really, wouldn’t it be a lot easier to just use a microtunable electric instrument to do experiments like this?)
Yes, that is true Jerry, that if you only played in C, a paino would sound fine tuned perfect, or to just intonation. But no one ever plays in just one key, so that’s totally impractical. It makes no sense, and niether does “just intonation.” Same with any other instrument…no one just plays in one key. Well, there may be some, esp oriental instruments.
BTW, you mentioned singing in “just” to a piano in “equal.” That would be called singing out of tune. Only a choir with voices out of tune with one another could do that. You couldn’t do it knowingly. Not even a person with the best perfect pitch could tell the difference because they could not possibly hit the same perfectly “just” note twice. Only a stringed instrument, and a free reed insturment like an accordian, with a substantial framework that’s not subject to change (like a piano) is able to offer such stability that it hits the same perfect note everytime.
The human voice, bagpipes with reeds subject to different pressures, flutes subject to embochure changes, whistles with varying embochure pressures, violins (other than open strings) are all more different each time they hit the note than the difference between “just” and “equal.” The difference is so minimum that it only shows up when chords are hit, and only then, esp with 3rds. If I were to tune a piano, and I were to change the perfect 4th to “equal” you could be standing right there and not be able to tell which was which…it’s that close (one waver in 5 seconds–you know the wah-wah-wah, you hear when something’s off). But, a machine can measure it and show you visually, and there’s a host of other tests (note against note) on the piano that can be used to figure it out.
I’ve experimented with Just Temperament, and would make a justly tuned whistle on request… but normally I go with Equal Temperament.
It really all depends on what other instruments you want to play along with, and in some cases an alternate tuning is needed… but I think most people will be playing along with equally tuned instruments.
I do know what I’m talking about, Lorenzo.
There’s the phenomenon of constructive and destructive interference. When you’re a little off, you get “beats” between two or more notes. When you’re singing on pitch in accurate harmony with other singers, you can feel in your throat that the sound locks in with the other voices, which is the constructive interference at work.
And you can definitely hear the difference. You’ve been hearing choral music done that way all your life, and you’ve heard fretless stringed instruments played that way all your life. It’s definitely not out of tune, and it doesn’t clash with equal tempered instruments.
Just temperament comes into play with diatonic instruments, which have no need of playing in more than two keys and their relative minors and modes. It’s logical to tune such instruments for just intonation because the scales and harmonies sound cleaner, less dissonant. This is why bagpipes are tuned that way, because they sound better when the notes of the scale are in true mathematical relation to the drone note. No reason at all not to do that if you’re committed to only one or two keys.
In fact, that’s the beauty of diatonic instruments. You don’t have to sacrifice harmonic accuracy because you don’t have to make the compromises necessary to play in multiple keys.
Best wishes,
Jerry
By the way, didn’t want to say this until I found evidence – I’m pretty sure the reason tuning a piano (just intonation or whatever) by octaves sounds bad is that pianos should not be tuned to exact octaves:
A further peculiarity in piano tuning is the practice of stretching the upper and lower octaves. This refers to progressively sharpening the notes of the upper octaves from a perfect equal tempered scale. The reason for this has to do with what is known as the inharmonicity of ringing strings.
See http://www.precisionstrobe.com/apps/pianotemp/temper.html (the source of the quote) for more information.
Been tuning pianos professionally, off and on, since I was abou 15 years old, I’m 48 now. Also, a 4th generation piano tuner on my dad’s side of the family. Six of us cousins and bothers, and sometimes more, are involved in the business now…3 full-time, the rest part-time. some of the colleges and universities have people with extremely critical ears. My uncle use to tune concert grands for Van Cliburn, and he would always have my uncle stand up in the audience for special recognition during northwest tours and performances.
That’s really cool, Lorenzo. What a fun profession to have in the family.
I would hate to make a precedence of this, but I agree with Lorenzo. (boy, you’re 48 - no wonder you’re so ornery 
) My experience with Just vs. TET has revealed that for practical purposes there is such small difference that it is not worth the time worrying over it. The difference in breath pressure and aural tuning makes a much greater impact (measured in 20,30 or even 50 cents) than does the set just scale (memory has it that the max is around 11 cents off on 3rd - could be wrong, though).
There are folks out there that would die for Just Intonation, though, so I just want to say that just intonation is really cool. I’m sure that you are all very nice people. Very nice. And I’m not just saying that.
Erik
If you go through a bunch of whistles (Generations, Shaws, Feadogs, etc.) you’ll find that many will play a third (F# on a D whistle) that shows up a good 10 to 15 cents flat against an equal tempered tuner.
The rest of the notes are close enough between just intonation and equal temperament that you can bring them up or down to pitch with breath control. However, a just intonation third is about 13 cents flat to an equal tempered third, and that’s where there’s a noticeable difference between just intonation and equal temperament tuned instruments.
Erik, when you put a Generation against a tuner, it’s obvious that the third is intended to be flatter than an equal tempered third (or somebody really goofed), and it’s not practical, or at least easy, in my experience, to blow it all the way up to an equal tempered third.
I prefer the sound of that “flat” (if you use equal temperament as your reference) third that just intonation produces. It just sounds right to me. To my ear, an equal tempered third sounds too sharp.
If you’ve been playing Generations, etc. and you have a good ear for blowing your pitches so you like the way they sound, chances you’ve been playing just intonation all along because to most people, it sounds “right.”
Best wishes,
Jerry
All of the whistles from Serpent Music are tuned to Equal, which is what you get “standard” on most electronic tuners (I use a Korg). I’ve never had a request for Just, but certainly would do one if someone wanted it.
Cheers,
Bill Whedon
Serpent Music