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Post by Zi on Dec 3, 2023 10:06:49 GMT
Does anyone still use them? Or is it all little electronic devices? I use an electronic one on the harp. Occasionally, I try the recorder against one but it's usually depressing so I don't go there...
Just curious...
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Post by pavane on Dec 3, 2023 10:31:12 GMT
Can you still even get tuning forks??? Or those little tuning pipe thingies people used to have for guitars? I suspect it's mostly electronic devices nowadays - I feel it's a bit sad but I have an app on my phone. I really want a Peterson strobe tuner app as they are much more fun but they only run on Apple devices and I don't have one. However, using it is indeed generally quite depressing so I am not losing sleep over this.
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Post by keff on Dec 3, 2023 11:11:58 GMT
The piano teacher at the adult class I attended more than twenty years ago was always leaving his tuning fork around the room. I found myself looking at it during a lesson and thinking to myself that I ought to be able to calculate its frequency of vibration from its length and properties of steel. Before the next lesson I cobbled together an equation plugged in some numbers and obtained a reasonable result. I had to reproduced "the proof" on the blackboard at that next lesson.
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Post by corenfa on Dec 3, 2023 12:50:55 GMT
I was at a vocal concert in the last few years but can't remember when, where the singers used a tuning fork to find the starting note for an unaccompanied piece
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Post by Zi on Dec 4, 2023 7:47:23 GMT
Apparently you can still buy them and Mr Z has one and uses one for the guitars... I didn't realise that he still did that. I'd assumed he was all electronic gadgety.
Much amused by keff working out the frequency of vibration! And yes, corenfa, that was the kind of romantic view I had of tuning forks. The single note to start off the unaccompanied choir...
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Post by Zi on Dec 4, 2023 13:11:09 GMT
PS you can buy a whole bunch of them in a case - they're spread out like crochet hooks or knitting needles. I dared not look at them too long because I knew I'd become overly fascinated... I have this vision of the piano tuner with a big roll of tuning forks...
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Post by keff on Dec 4, 2023 15:20:02 GMT
PS you can buy a whole bunch of them in a case - they're spread out like crochet hooks or knitting needles. I dared not look at them too long because I knew I'd become overly fascinated... I have this vision of the piano tuner with a big roll of tuning forks... Tuners should only need one... for A4. My tuner gets the pitch from her phone! All the other notes are set relative to A4 by ear which sometimes means stretching the octaves (i.e octaves no longer represent doubling or halving of frequency but are adjusted so that the notes harmonise to our hearing). |
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Post by Zi on Dec 5, 2023 10:45:06 GMT
Do they 'wear out' or become less accurate with time? Or are they immortal?
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Post by keff on Dec 5, 2023 11:21:05 GMT
For longevity "I'd rather be a tuning fork than a piano" could possibly be added to Paul Simon's El Condor Pasa. Could tuning forks be affected by metal fatigue or creep....is a question for a piano tuner?
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Post by Zi on Dec 5, 2023 13:25:36 GMT
For longevity "I'd rather be a tuning fork than a piano" could possibly be added to Paul Simon's El Condor Pasa rofl!  |
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lafa
Quaver
Posts: 17
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Post by lafa on Dec 7, 2023 16:04:06 GMT
Reading this, I remember that for many years I had a tuning fork and two pitch pipes, one for the guitar and one for the ukelele. The ukelele was a Christmas present in 1952(?) To my amazement, I can not only remember the names of the notes for tuning for the ukelele, A, D, F#, B, but also sing the sequence. I had had no idea of the intervals or why it was tuned like that but it stuck in my mind for seventy years. The human brain is really amazing. Now where on earth did I put my keys when I came back from the walk down the hill this afternoon?
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Post by keff on Dec 7, 2023 16:43:52 GMT
I was given a banjo as a Christmas present during the 1950s. Sadly I didn't make much of it.
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Post by Zi on Dec 8, 2023 9:41:02 GMT
lafa - I'd say your brain is working perfectly to spec. It becomes really hard to make an impact on memory as we grow older. I sometimes feel that mine has seen everything that will impress it because these days, it remembers nothing.  keff - I gave my husband a uke one Christmas - he can play guitar anyway - he played about with it for a bit and sang with it but I don't think it's really his 'thing' - he played classical guitar. I'm not sure what possessed me really... Love the photo lafa!
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Post by keff on Dec 13, 2023 12:54:26 GMT
Said hello in person to a tuner that have occasionally corresponded with on a forum. He had a tuning fork with him.
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Post by Zi on Dec 13, 2023 18:10:34 GMT
He had a tuning fork with him I still think there is something very special about them - like fountain pens... |
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