Intonation (music)

With intonation various issues referred to in the music:

Intonation as an element of performance practice

With intonation fine-tuning of pitches is referred to in the practice of making music. When too large perceived deviation from the nominal value is also called the detonation of the sound. This concerns mainly the singing and blowing and fretless stringed instruments (including many string instruments but also some stringed instruments such as Basses without frets ).

Stringed instruments with frets

In covenant instruments such as the guitar is called the degree of achieved by the arrangement of the frets pitch accuracy than intonation (see also intonation ). Some fret instruments such as the viol or lute the frets are not traditionally fixed, so that the musician is responsible for the intonation.

Digital instruments

Digital instruments is often possible to choose different moods, sound systems, volumes and timbres. In general, the pitch, and the sound is here controlled by precise quartz-controlled, integrated circuits, so that there is virtually no undesired deviations of the intonation. The corresponding parameters of the sound can often be adjusted and transferred to the instrument via the so-called digital interface for musical instruments ( MIDI).

Intonation as tone and volume balance

Especially with keyboard instruments, in which for each tone, a separate tone generator exists (usually strings or pipes ), says the intonation approximation of volume and timbre of the tone generator to one another. This is done by operations on the tone generator or associated mechanics like the hammer on the piano or the labium of the organ pipe. The intonation is usually the task of the instrument maker and is performed once when constructing or again at a major overhaul of the instrument. Due to the number of registers and pipes that need to be individually voiced, the voicing of organs is particularly complex.

Intonation of music

Intonation can also refer to a brief introduction of a piece of music. In the Gregorian chant as performed by a cantor introduction or even a short organ prelude before a congregation song (see also liturgical organ playing ).

Intonation in musicology

Intonation is a term that was adopted from the field of language in musicology (see also intonation (phonetics ) ). In the Soviet musicology it is treated conception of the intonation moderate nature of the music within the meaning of Boris Assafjews. The intonation is considered as the basis of musical Ausdruckshaftigkeit and meaningful musical statement that simultaneously expresses the peculiarities of different national or human resources styles. The basics of intonation teaching were from the Russian musicologist Boleslaw Jaworski (1877-1942) established and further developed by Assafjew ​​.

The term intonation refers in Russian music education and musicology also a small meaningful melodic phrase. Approximately following phrases are: " intonation of the ascending fourth ", " intonation of the elegiac sixth ", "active intonation ," " plaintive intonation ", " calling intonation ", " sigh intonation ", " intonation of the resurrection " (in the sense of a leitmotif ). But style elements may be referred to it, " intonations of mass songs ", "the intonations of the bourgeois salons of the era of modernism ," etc.

• Musical practice
• Mood ( music)
• Part of a musical form
• Organ Building