Flat tuning

[THE MAN]

Ever since beautiful midnight hes been tuning to flat. im just wondering why. ive tried to email him but he wont tell me. anyone else know or has even wondered?

[juanpe]

probably he doesnt answer because hes pretty busy with the tour... and the answer to your question? I dont really know...

[kbernardp]

There are two reasons why I do it.

 

(and no, I'm not Matthew Good.)

 

I do it because it's easier to hit the high notes singing in a live forum when you're tuned down a half-step. You'd think that it wouldn't make that much of a difference, but it does. Try playing and singing anything by Jeff Buckley tuned up to A440.

 

So if you're going to do that live, then you may as well do it when you record. People recognize the difference in tone and it might sound different all together. There was a famous conductor preparing for a performance at Lincoln center. He requested that the piano be tuned to A443 because it is a brighter sound. When it wasn't, he could tell the difference and postponed the whole thing. People are very picky about their tone, as you can see.

[THE MAN]

Ya, thats what i kinda guessed but it never seemed to be THAT much of a difference. your probobly right though. my other guess was that it makes the songs a bit heavier if they are a bit lower. well anyway thanks for helping me out

[kbernardp]

It's the truth, though. They've done studies on things like this to identify what's the most "people-happy" note or sound, and what's the worst. Have you ever wondered why all car horns are tuned to that god-awful note? It's because the masses seem to be affected by it so they've pretty much made it standard. People recognize the subtle differences in tones whether they have perfect pitch or not.

[THE MAN]

Intersting point. Makes sense though and i never thought about the horn before

[AnythingYouWant]

I heard he had soem kind of vocal surgery after Underdogs, so he started tuning flat for ease the strain on his voice.

 

-julz

[Crusader]

I heard that too and I think you're right.

[mg_forlife]

Fascinating

[Crusader]

What was it that was wrong with his throat? Kat do tell.

[no yu begin wher i end]

He used to smoke at the time. I'm pretty sure that had something to with it.

[THE MAN]

i thought he stopped smoking after beautiful midnight. and i never heard of any surjury. its all news to me

[ToadMan]

I remember that he had throat surgery. He had a cyst didn't he?

I don't know if he tunes low to help the strain on his voice.

 

Now we have to establish some terms here: technically when you change the base tuning (A437 instead of A440) your not playing flat notes. A flat is an accidental that is applied to any given note. Now music notes change on the octave where each octave doubles the frequency of the note, there are 10 semi-tones in an octave, therefor each semi-tone is (1/10)(2*k*base) where the base is the A tuning, and k is some integer that is the current octave (the base octave is 1). In A440 a flat note is 88*k hertz bellow the non-flat note, in A437 in is 87.4*k hertz bellow.

 

My point is, we could be talking about two different things. It is quite clear that we are talking about lowing the base A440, not flattening all of the strings but still tuning in A440.

 

Peace

 

btw, if anybody feels they need to correct me, that is fine. I just worked the math out in my head, so I'm not sure if I'm 100% correct.

[THE MAN]

what they do is simply lower the pitch of each string so that the notes go Eb Ab Db Gb Bb Eb, as opposed to E A D G B E. your not changing the type of actual note to a lower version. your changing the note totally, but still keeping it to A440. hopefully that clears it up

[kbernardp]

I was going to elaborate on this, and then Internet Explorer quit on me. Gotta love it.

 

In any case, different pitch or key makes a difference. Play a song that's usually played in the key of E in the key of B and you'll notice a difference. You're right, though it keeps A 440.

[ToadMan]

well at least you cleared up what you meant. I am well aware of the tonality difference between keys.

 

Peace

[OWJeeves]

He got the surgery after Beautiful Midnight, and he used flat-tuning on BM, so that theory doesn't check out.

 

And the surgery was the result of smoking + not singing properly for years.

[THE MAN]

Maybe we shall never know the truth. Its like area 51, lol

[Crusader]

He got the surgery after Beautiful Midnight, and he used flat-tuning on BM, so that theory doesn't check out.

 

And the surgery was the result of smoking + not singing properly for years.

Ah. I remember when every picture of Matt had a cigarette. It's a dirty habit.