Talk:Scordatura

message: I was wondering if we should reference Biber in the "examples of scordatura" section?  as several folks have pointed out here, Biber uses scordatura in the first of his Rosary Sonatas (and possibly in other ones?).  I am, for the record, also opposed to that enormous and silly picture being in the article--it only has very tangential relevance to scordatura.
anyway, in that particular Biber piece, the E is tuned town to a D, i believe.
Interestingly, this was mentioned this week in WGBH's classical music feature...the violinist here (Christina Day Martinson) mentions this in her interview.
http://wgbh.org/classical/
it's not a big deal, but i think it would be meaningful to include the Biber reference...are there any objections?
Lesotho 17:18, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scordatura in Biber 

message: Am I the only one to question that this section pays far to much attention to one particular rock band? Additionally it is not neutral. I'd delete and rewrite the whole section without mentioning any particular artist. RichardJ Christie 01:41, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The first 4 sentences of the Sonic Youth paragraph could benefit from the removal of irrelevant and opinionated statements. However, artists' names are useful as examples (as in the non-rock sections of the page - though citations are needed). --Wiki Pig5 (talk) 06:32, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I just trimmed it. Time for the "undue weight" tag to disappear yet? __Just plain Bill (talk) 15:18, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Would it make sense to limit mentions of artists to ones that have articles on wikipedia, ie, blue links? I'm going to experiment. Huw Powell (talk) 23:38, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

text: I know she's not a rock artist (actually that section should be called "guitar" or some such, since that's what it's about), but no mention of Joni Mitchell?  She is well-known for using alternate tunings... Huw Powell (talk) 23:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that limiting to blue links is the minimum standard.  Thanks for the great edits!  Best, -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 05:23, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You're welcome, and I appreciate the pat on the back!  I didn't remove any bands since they were all blue (although it took a little clicking to figure out which ones to append (band) to), I figure we've got the room here. Huw Powell (talk) 17:38, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rock section 

message: From the Folk section:
While the standard tuning for open strings of the violin is GDAE—with the G being the tuning of the lowest-pitched string and the E being the tuning for the highest-pitched string—fiddlers playing tunes in the key of D major sometimes employ a tuning of ADAE. In this tuning the open G string is raised to the A directly above it.
(Underlining added)
I'm not really a musician, so I'm just guessing here, and would appreciate if someone knowledgeable would review this and supply the correct answer, one way or the other, i.e., If I'm right and that's "worng", or:  If I'm wrong, here's why.
Thanks.
Isn't A adjacent to G directly below G?
Wouldn't raising G to the A above it involve tightening the string through nearly all of an octave, putting a huge strain on the string and possibly the entire instrument?  And also be redundant with the third string?
My guess is that the last sentence in the above-cited passage should read:
 
In this tuning the open G string is lowered to the A directly below  it.
--Rick Drake 21:52, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the A adjacent to G is above it.  A scale of C, from lowest to highest, goes CDEFGABC.  Tuning the G string to an A takes it up one tone, to the A an octave below the existing A string. TSP 22:08, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scordatura:  Folk Section -- Possible typo? 

message: I have removed "Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird is a rare, perhaps unique, piece which calls for the entire violin section to retune a string, in order to play some natural harmonics. Similarly," from the text as unsourced, given that I have played the firebird suite orchestrally and do not recall retuning, at least in the firsts, and I would have noticed the seconds retuning. If anyone finds a source and it was purely the edition we were playing feel free to add it back in.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 12:09, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: It's the first entry of the 1sts, with the instruction(s): "Mi muta in Re" (1911) and "glissez sur la I. corde accordée en Ré" (1919); both versions are online at IMSLP. Del Mar (Anatomy of the Orchestra) comments: "the dazzling effect is somewhat spoiled in the 1919 version through one of the myriad of misprints...8va..produces an impossibility and should sound two octaves higher. As a result many players ignore the instruction and play on the D string like the 2nd violins."  Sparafucil (talk) 23:10, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, ok thank you very much - I was indeed playing the 1919 version. I have restored the text.--Gilderien Chat|Contributions 23:22, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Didn't notice you beat me to it! Sparafucil (talk) 00:25, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stravinksy's ''[[The Firebird|Firebird]]'' 

message: Grove Dictionary of Music would seem to differ with this article as it currently stands in regard to scordatura and classical guitar. This is what Grove says: "For the six-string guitar (from the 19th century to the present), different tunings in true scordatura are rare, but the lowering of the sixth string by one tone is quite common (e.g. M. Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Sonata op.77, 1934). With the emergence of the new guitar, tablature was abandoned in favour of staff notation, which made reading and playing scordaturas difficult, and might explain the subsequent decline of unusual tunings for the instrument, except for music grounded in aural tradition. Some modern folk and popular guitarists use open-string tunings based upon a G or D chord (called ‘dropped tunings’), which enable simple fingerings to be used for basic harmonies (see GUITAR, §7)." 
To summarize: Wikipedia says that classical guitar scordatura is common. Grove says for modern classical guitar other than drop-D it's rare. TheScotch (talk) 11:45, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I've edited the Guitar section of this article, heretofore completely unscourced, to reflect the above information.TheScotch (talk) 12:25, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Classical guitar 

message: The violin, viola, and cello sections of this article are currently nothing but lists. It's difficult to imagine that in this form they could be of real use to a reader wishing to learn about scordatura. The function of an example is to illustrate a point. Without supporting text, an example is pointless. I propose that in these sections (as in the double bass and guitar sections as they currently stand) that scordatura as it applies to respective instruments should actually be discussed in actual prose, and that, where appropriate, a notable example or two can be integrated into the prose text. By where appropriate I mean if it helps and only if it helps to clarify the point being made. That also requires--especially, in the case of the violin section--that we should have fewer examples. TheScotch (talk) 23:04, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Endless, pointless listing 

message: Re: "It is usual [citation needed] to notate the finger position as if played in regular tuning, while the actual pitch resulting is altered (scordatura notation). When all the strings are tuned by the same interval up or down, as in the case of the viola in Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra, the part is transposed as a whole."
The reason the first sentence above strikes me as suspect (and the reason I've asked for a citation--aside from the absence of a citation) is that I immediately think of guitar drop-D tuning which is invariably (so far as I know) written in concert up an octave like normal guitar notation. The sentence may be perfectly correct, however, if it limited itself to a particular instrument (probably the violin) and a particular period. The second sentence would seem to be tautological, but probably it's trying to point out the existence of transposition scordatura, particularly viola and violin transposition scordatura. It seems to me that both sentences need to be moved (and reworked) into a different section of the article. TheScotch (talk) 08:49, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead--or "lede", if you prefer 

message: The Bowed strings section as it stands has a various problems, but I see no good reason for its existing at all. It seems to me that scordatura for bowed strings is better discussed in sections devoted exclusively to individual instruments. 
The heading Use in classical music (bowed strings) is troublesome for several reasons. For one thing, it seems to be implying that classical music uses bowed strings only, which is obviously not the case (and why, by the way, is there no discussion of the lute in this article?). As someone has pointed out elsewhere, the term scordatura itself is a classical term, which suggests that the article should primarily (but not exclusively) devote itself to classical practice, making the heading also redundant. I think the heading should simply be removed, and that all individual instruments should be given matching section-title formats. TheScotch (talk) 09:11, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bowed strings/Use in classical music (bowed strings) 

message: Thanks for monitoring this page, Sparafucil; I'm happy that you've reverted by small aside on this page, but there is still a problem with an ambiguous link. This page came up on a bot check for ambiguous links, which is why I visited; there isn't a "pedal (music)" page (or rather, its just a redirect), so reverting that link from pedal leaves the reader clicking through to a disambiguation page; it would be better to either:
Repairing links to disambiguation pages - You can help! Klbrain (talk) 13:51, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for pointing out the problem! There's no  obvious primary redirect for pedal (music), but in this case  pedal point was doubtless intended. Sparafucil (talk) 23:27, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  I am an idiot; I had misread that section completely. Your clarification makes much more sense and now even a musical amateur like me can follow it.Klbrain (talk) 08:05, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Double Bass Pedal 

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thread_title:  External links modified