{"id":30282,"date":"2021-11-27T15:31:35","date_gmt":"2021-11-27T23:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/?p=30282"},"modified":"2021-11-27T15:34:33","modified_gmt":"2021-11-27T23:34:33","slug":"tuning-the-d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/tuning-the-d\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuning the D"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>One of the most thankless challenges of the t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 is its tuning. It would probably be best to describe it as <em>gamey<\/em>, meaning that unlike orchestral woodwinds that have been civilised over time to conform to standard tuning, the t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 stands out on the periphery of culture punching the winter air with its cold, primeval tunings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"90\" height=\"350\" src=\"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Tarogato-fingering-D2-corrected.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-30283\" srcset=\"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Tarogato-fingering-D2-corrected.png 90w, http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Tarogato-fingering-D2-corrected-77x300.png 77w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 90px) 100vw, 90px\" \/><figcaption>Corrected D2<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>And of that riotous incoherence, none is worse than the middle D, which sits unavoidably in the middle of the instrument. I&#8217;ve tried many tricks to ameliorate the problem (dropping my jaw to the floor just for the one note, pulling the instrument out risking even more havoc elsewhere, you know, the lot), but it never occurred to me that the tuning itself might be wrong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That supposition goes against the tenor of woodwind physiology which assumes certain things about fingers for pretty much all woodwinds. From the contra-bassoon to the piccolo, they all pretty much agree that the octave key is pressed when going over the octave (sounds logical). Even the clarinet with its <em>octave-plus-five<\/em> eccentricity has a register key that gets pressed once the lower notes have all been consumed and the upper register is called for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet, despite what standard fingering charts for the t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 contend, playing the D in the second octave does not use the octave but instead requires the raising of the left-hand index finger instead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To illustrate the improvement it produces in tuning, the following sound clip contains two attempts at a D major scale (with a tuner as a control), which first show the corrected version (using the fingering above) and then the so-called <em>standard<\/em> fingering. I assure you, I didn&#8217;t monkey with my embouchure on these two versions just to make my point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Tuning-the-D-improved-fingering.wav\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The challenges with this fingering are,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol><li>It&#8217;s counter-intuitive for woodwind players, and<\/li><li>It&#8217;s awkward considering that all notes above it require the octave key.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>On the other hand, there are some passages that are actually easier with this fingering. They speak faster and this part may be of interest to composers who want to understand the instrument better (there should be one or two out there somewhere), and also t\u00e1rogatonists, such as myself. And Ed too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I came across this noodle in a piece by Hungarian-German composer, Istvan Horvath-Thomas, in his suite called <em>Partita Ongarese<\/em> for t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 and piano. On first playing, this seemed difficult but with the new and more intune fingering, it&#8217;s a breeze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GtoD.wav\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the most thankless challenges of the t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 is its tuning. It would probably be best to describe it as gamey, meaning that unlike orchestral woodwinds that have been civilised over time to conform to standard tuning, the t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 stands out on the periphery of culture punching the winter air with its cold, primeval [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[162,59],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30282"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30282"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30294,"href":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30282\/revisions\/30294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}