Tune it or die

What is intonation?  Why is it so important? And why do musicians (hopefully) spend so much time being concerned with being in tune?

The answers are more involved than you think.  There is relative pitch which means that the instrument or singer is in tune with themselves, but not with the musicians or singers around them.  There is "absolute" pitch (for lack of a better term) which happens when all musicians play in tune together and in relation to an arbitrary outside source, such as an electronic tuner.  These tuners are usually set to a reference pitch, commonly A=440 in the United States, but often a bit higher in Europe (A=441 or 442).

Something interesting I came across about intonation in my advanced pedagogy class was the notion that before 400 years ago, intonation had more to do with where you lived than anything else.  Instruments were built to match pitch within a specific village or region.  Only when musicians began to travel around and play with other musicians did there arise the need to standardize pitch.  In modern orchestras and bands, the reference pitch comes from the oboe.  Why the oboe?  It is more difficult to change the pitch of a oboe after the reed is made, the oboe's tone is piercing and penetrates throughout the orchestra (it's more easily hear, in other words), and it's relatively stable.

What do tuners measure?  Tuners measure the frequency of a pitch.  Frequency is measured in Hertz (Hz) and is another way of saying how high or low a pitch is.  Therefore, when two musicians play a single note perfectly in tune with each other, they are precisely matching the frequency levels of that chosen note.

How else can I nerd-ify music?  Tune in next time!!