We all know how important it is to play in tune, especially when we play with others. We also know that we have to listen very carefully whenever we tune our instruments. Music sounds so much better played in tune! Hopefully everybody in your next jam tunes carefully and everyone ends up tuned to the same frequencies.
Tuning can seem like an annoyance to many jammers. The musical flow is paused while another musician insists on retuning before the next song or converting to a different banjo or guitar tuning. But spending time tuning instruments before the next tune is rarely a waste of time.
Some musicians have a deeper understanding of what “in tune” actually means. They tune by ear using “sweet” note intervals mostly based on perfect fifths. This type of tuning differs slightly from the slightly fudged “tempered” tuning most people are used to. Fiddle players tend to be most adept at this. If you need a “good A” when you tune up, ask a fiddle player.
My son studied violin years ago with a very good teacher here in Healdsburg. As a parent I of course attended multiple recitals (in order to observe how well my money was being spent). One of Ethan’s classmates was a girl named Marcie. Marcie was blind from birth and she was far and away the most talented musician in the group.
But Marcie had another amazing gift. When the teacher John Konigsmark played a random note on his violin and asked Marcie what it was she said Bb, A, F. And she was always right!
The ability to identify a pitch perfectly is said to be very rare. Estimates range from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 25 among music students. The gift Marcie demonstrated at my son Ethan’s recital I think would rank closer to the 1/10,000 range but I think many more people have a similar gift I would call semi perfect pitch.
I happen to have this ability so I know all about it. I suspect that it is pretty common especially among people who play music. Let me explain. This is not a 1/10,000 gift like perfect pitch. If you played Bb on your instrument for me I would have no idea what to call that note. But I can’t tell you how many times I have sung a tune and rushed home to play it again on my already tuned instrument to find that I had been singing it at exactly the right pitch in the key that I always sing it in. I would be interested to hear from any of you on the message board who have had a similar experience. My bet is that semi perfect pitch is very common and lots of people probably don’t even know they have this ability.
As long as musicians tune to the same relative pitch music can sound good. If you’re out of tune forget about it. The perfect fifth interval is the tuning home base our human brain seems to gravitate to. Bluegrass music respects that interval as much as any form of music out there. But we have to play in tune to make it all work. Like the tee shirt says “Tune up or die”!
