Certain notes that I play sound flat, but sound fine to the listeners sitting in front of me.
When I listen to my recording, notes sound fine. Anyone else encounter this?
Sure, but I notice it when piping much more than when playing whistle. The sound that is reflected or otherwise makes it up to my ears is different than what someone sitting in front of me hears. Depends very much on the room I am playing in. Once I played for a funeral, in a stone and brick pavilion outside, and I was amazed at how different it sounded to me when I could hear everything that bounced back from the stone/masonry ceiling and partial walls.
Thank you, that makes sense. I used to play the pipes back in the 70s.
We’d tune up and play solos up against a wall to listen to our own playing.
I’ve encountered a different taste in “classical” (legit/orchestral/trained) music than in Highland piping, which is my first instrument.
Highland pipers dread having a note a hair sharp. It grates on their ears far more than having a note a hair flat. So, they’ll err, if they err, on the side of flatness.
Orchestral players seem to be the opposite. I’ve heard repeatedly how the soloist standing out in front of the orchestra will sometimes intentionally tune the tiniest hair sharp, so that they will stand out as bright and brilliant against the background music. Seems to me that orchestral players dread being on the flat side.
Of course both sorts of musicians will be “in tune” if they’re good musicians. We’re talking very fine points. It’s just that Highland piper’s “pocket” is a tiny hair lower than an orchestral musician’s, it seems to me.
So, due to my background in Highland piping, when I’m playing a whistle solo it will sometimes sound “right” to me, but sound a hair flat to orchestral people.
A friend who is an excellent Highland piper recorded two albums with a great organist. He had to have the organist tell him where to pitch the various notes of his scale, because when they sounded right to him the organist assured him that he was flat.
When the piper listened to the finished recording he realized that the organist was right.
That reminds me…
Back when I played the pipes in my Connecticut days,(1970s) some of us got in trouble form the experienced players for biting our chanter reeds to get it sounding “right”. I remember being told each note has its place; don’t rush the tune.
“Right” isn’t the word that comes to mind for the sound of a chanter reed that’s been bitten.