Intonation (music)
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Intonation, in music, is a player's realization of pitch accuracy.
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[edit] Strings
In string instruments, intonation is more of a worry than in other instruments. Because many string instruments are unfretted, if a finger is too high or too low by even a fraction of a centimetre, the note will be out of tune. The process of gaining good intonation typically takes many years of playing to acquire and is arguably the hardest part of learning a stringed instrument.
The same principles of intonation that apply to strings apply to the trombone, because the trombone uses a slide instead of valves. However, the margin of error is much wider on the trombone as it has only seven basic slide positions on a slide length of over 80 centimetres.
[edit] Fret intonation
Instruments with straight frets such as guitars require special compensation on the saddle and nut. Every time a string is fretted, it is also stretched. As the string is stretched, every note will rise in pitch. Therefore, all fretted tones would sound sharp. However, with the right position of the saddle and precise placements of the frets, all fretted notes will sound sharp by the same amount. With the right nut compensation, the pitch of the unfretted (i.e., open) strings will rise the same amount that the fretted notes do (because of the proper saddle position). Thus, these adjustments combined with lowering the tension of the string from that required by an unfretted instrument will allow all tones to be exact.
[edit] Semiotic concept
A concept which was taken over into musicology from the language area. In the Soviet musicology it is used for the purposes the Boris Asafiev’s concept of the intonation nature of music. The intonation (интонация, "intonatsia") is looked as a basis of the musical expression and the sensible musical utterance which coins at the same time the peculiarities of different national or personnel styles. The bases of the intonation doctrine were laid by Russian musicologist Boleslav Javorsky (1877-1942) and were developed by Asafiev.
[edit] External links
- Konrad Schwingenstein: Intonation of stringed instruments with straight frets , http://www.pepithesecond.com
- Malcolm H Brown: The soviet russian concepts of "intonazia" and "musical imagery", http://mq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/citation/LX/4/557
- Karen Pegley: Censored Musical Messages, http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/epc/srb/srb/censored.html
- N Mahoney: Intonation on the Classical Guitar , http://www.classical-guitars-plus.co.uk/guitar_info/784__Intonation
