Estimated reading time 2 minutes
Table of Contents
Introduction
Have you ever tuned your synth to just intonation (JI), then selected a piano sound, and thought it sounded odd as you played scales? The reason that many people think JI sounds strange with a piano synth sound is directly linked to how people hear melody. Read more to learn about choosing the right sound to play with just intonation.
This article uses technical musical terms. For definitions, see the Glossary at the end of the post.
Absolute Pitch and Choosing the Right Sound to Play with Just Intonation
Before you can learn about choosing the right sound to play with just intonation, you need to understand absolute pitch:
- First, the big advantage of JI is the gorgeous harmony. (Play JI triads on a synth using a brass, woodwind, string, voice, or organ sound, and the harmonies seem to glow. Click on the button below for a JI based soundtrack.)
- Conversely, some of the notes sound low when played melodically. (However, you can hear it more on some instruments that others.)
- Robert Jourdain says this about absolute pitch, “Research indicates that piano tones are generally the easiest to identify, followed in turn by strings, woodwinds, brasses, and voices” (114).
- When a musician has an excellent memory for pitch, we call it absolute pitch. Only about 1 in 10,000 people have true absolute pitch.
Nonetheless, many musicians have partial absolute pitch. You can probably imagine tones from your instrument and might be able to name a few of the notes just from listening.
JI Based Synth Voice Choir:
Flexible Pitch and Choosing the Right Sound to Play with Just Intonation
Jourdain says piano tones will be easier to identify.
- When a piano gets tuned, the tuning doesn’t change vs the other instruments on Jourdain’s list which can adjust their pitch as they play.
- The notes on these instruments have a core cluster range of about 30 cents with outliers going out even farther.
- Namely, we’ve become used to hearing pitch flexibility in the melodies of strings, woodwinds, brasses, and voices. (This gives a hint of how to choose the right sound to play with just intonation.)
- However, on the piano we’ve become used to hearing the notes the same way every time.
Therefore, your ear has been trained to accept smaller melodic pitch tolerances for piano than for the other instruments.
Guitar lies somewhere in between.
- When tuned open to a pure chord, I’ve no problem with the JI elements, because there exists plenty of guitar music with this type of sound.
- However, when I play JI on the synth using a guitar patch, it sounds weird to me.
Concluding Thought to Choosing the Right Sound to Play with Just Intonation
How do you choose just the right sound to play with just intonation? By choosing flexible-pitch-instrument based synth sounds.
However, use this only as a guideline because it never hurts to try out a sound, even if you don’t think it’ll work. You never know, sometimes you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Want to tune your synth to a JI based system? Read:
© 2022 Geoffrey Keith
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Glossary
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