Deviations from A440

Has anyone experimented with deviating the A reference pitch from 440Hz? I find myself considering a situation where I may want to change this by a few cents for some playbacks. I can translate that into Hz. Looking at Dorico’s HALion Sonic SE VST instrument in the ‘Play’ environment, there is an option to change A (pic shown). Would this be the “right” way to achieve this? Can this done differently for different flows?
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Well, you can certainly change the 440 reference pitch in Dorico settings. Playback Options–Tuning. But it’s global, not per-flow.

So I can’t just set the Tenors down few Hz? :smiling_imp:

I am not familiar enough with VI’s to know for sure, but if the tuning option in Halion Sonic SE applies only to its own instruments, you might be able to detune HSE tenors and then use another virtual instrument plug-in for other instruments. (I assume multiple instances of HSE would share the same tuning but it might be worth checking that, too.)

Hmmm, OK. I wasn’t sure but it’s always better to ask.

Doing this but not per-flow isn’t a big deal - I’ll just apply the concept and do what I do in other software packages where I encounter global settings like this: create different projects.

In fairness to the software, a project encompassing many flows would ostensibly represent a single unified work. I think it would be rare that you’d encounter multiple concert pitch references within a single performance.

I do not use Halion.

Usually, this can be controlled by MIDI CC and any MIDI data if the VST supports learning MIDI.
Thus, you can create individual playing techniques with various deviation setting and can attach to any notes regardless of flows.

There is also another way to do it. You can add a playing technique which controls pitch bending, and attach it on the first note of a player in each flow.

Rare, indeed, but it definitely happens. And then my brain melts.

(Though I feel like this is as much an argument against including this sort of functionality in Dorico as it is for it. Should we really encourage writing music like this? :laughing: )

Jacob Collier can be forgiven for most things, in my book :wink:

Given Dorico’s support for user defined tuning systems (for playback as well as notation), is there any need to write that score two simultaneous tunings in Dorico?

I guess the quarter tone “follow at your own risk” version could be made accurate.

Oh, I was only posting it (tongue firmly planted in cheek) to show that ‘A’ changed from 440 to other things multiple times over the course of what in Dorico would be a single flow (six times in two measures at the end there!). The two simultaneous tunings section was an additional bonus (which of course, doesn’t need to be done, but boy am I sure glad that it was).

That all said, if either of prko’s suggestions would actually work, it should already be totally doable in Dorico as is… I think.

OT: anyone else spotted one mistake that introduces multiple errors into that transcription?

Auto tune? Ha ha ha

Great song btw

Nope. Error in the transcription itself. Clue: it’s on the first (handwritten) page.

I am viewing the score on my phone at 12:50am Australian time, I can’t for the life of me see the score clearly enough to see what the bracketed deliniations say above the score!

(Plus I’ve been drinking wine!)

I’ll check back in the morning but always appreciate your insights Leo :slight_smile:

Failure to indicate “mark tree”? :laughing:

This instruction is never cancelled, but only actually applies to the handwritten pages.
For example, this chord in bar 8 is EbM|Fm, not Em/FM.

[/pedant]

… and with Jacob Collier, you can’t be sure you guessed right about such things, if you don’t have any audio to check against :wink:

It’s what Bernstein called “Chromatic Porridge”. All his harmonies seem so dense that you could substitute any melody whatsoever above them to the same effect.

There, I’ve said it. :astonished:

I know more than one (amateur) choir that can turn any published arrangement into a Collier-style version, especially with limited rehearsal time.