Electronic tuners wrong?

Why should they be right?


They are based on engineering x2f octaves, not ear brain perception octaves.


An example:


At 7:16 of the following 90 years Rodrigo music video documentary:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=huhKfYUbkyA#fauxfullscreen
one can listen the instruments of one of the best orchestras on the planet playing the melody D, E, F, E, D, G...


It sounds brilliant, the notes at high resisters sound brilliant, in tune, greatly intonated.


If one tunes for example an electronic instrument to this sound so that it's high notes sound correct to the high notes of this music extract from this video then this electronic instrument will be found to be tuned many cents above another electronic instrument which was tuned with an electronic tuner. For this experiment a Casio MT-100 was used which has external tuning capability. Compared to another normally tuned Casio, when both organs play the same high notes the beat is very fast, perhaps more than 10Hz, more than 10 beats per second, suggesting 10Hz higher for the instrument tuned to the high note of the orchestra. For this experiment the violin sound was used with no vibrato.


Assuming the conductor did not ask musicians to tune above 440Hz for A4 it is clear that the human brain wants those highs to be higher in frequency than the engineering relation of x2 in frequency asks.


A better experiment would be to sample (or use granulab, a granular synthesis software) such a high note from a brilliant orchestra or other brilliant orchestras then play the sample at long duration and let the electronic tuner show that the note is much higher that it wants to hear.


This is because human brains want it to be higher.


Another nice experiment could be using an online sound generator trying to match the high notes of a brilliant orchestra, then reading the value in Hz and then comparing to what is expected from engineering x2 in frequency octaves. Acoustic intensity levels should be low as human brain pitch perception depends also on acoustic intensity.[Stevens]. Are you in for surprises?


Bibliography:


Human brain vs engineering octaves - euroelectron


The Pleiadss tuning


Sound and Hearing - S. S. Stevens, F. Worshofsky - Life Science Series