Glossary entry

Spanish term or phrase:

"lobos" (in this context)

English translation:

discordant "wolf" fifth

    The asker opted for community grading. The question was closed on 2011-05-08 15:54:15 based on peer agreement (or, if there were too few peer comments, asker preference.)
May 5, 2011 14:50
13 yrs ago
Spanish term

"lobos" (in this context)

Spanish to English Art/Literary Music Musical notes/Tuning
SPAIN: One for the musicians; note that it is in quotation marks in the original.
"Cuando se afina un instrumento en nuestra escala actual algunos intervalos de quinta –que son consonantes- pueden sonar tan mal que en música se conocen como “lobos”, por lo que “aúllan”, debido a que no están afinados como intervalos “naturales”.
Proposed translations (English)
4 +3 discordant "wolf" fifth

Discussion

Sandro Tomasi May 5, 2011:
Initially, I was thinking sour note (similar to bum note), but after seeing kittilina's and Taña's posts a "wolf" fifth refers to a special, specific, intentional tuning.
neilmac (asker) May 5, 2011:
Non sequitur It's just a footnote from a text, I think the whole context refers to birdsong experiments...
Sandro Tomasi May 5, 2011:
Do you know what scale "nuestra escala actual" is alluding to? Is it a scale with special tunings or are they actually talking about bad notes?

Proposed translations

+3
7 mins
Selected

discordant "wolf" fifth

I was going to say just "discordant" but then I found this:

"The interval between E and B, 40/27 (680.4 cents), is a discordant "wolf" fifth, which differs from the perfect fifth by a syntonic comma (81/80 or 21.5 cents). "

Hope it helps
Note from asker:
Thanks to your tip I found it on Wikipedia. I never thought to look for "wolf", we just call them "bum notes"... Thanks for the help ;)
Peer comment(s):

agree Sandro Tomasi : Never heard of it. So thanks for the ref. Funny how people with a keen sense of pitch come up with a tuning that mimics the sound produced by people without one. (No offense to the "wolf" advocates).
30 mins
Thanks!
agree eski : Nice work, kittilina! eski
1 hr
Thanks!
agree Emma Goldsmith : Learn a new thing everyday :)
1 hr
Thanks!
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks for the pointer. Sometime I can't see the wood for the trees..."

Reference comments

16 mins
Reference:

Some refs.

I would just say "wolf" fifth [quinte-Du-loup or diabolus in musica].

Wolf tone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about artificial overtones in musical instruments. ... older device on cellos was a fifth string that could be tuned to the wolf frequency; ...
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_tone - Cached -

http://www.ericweisstein.com/encyclopedias/music/WolfFifth.h...
In the mean tone scale, the C:E' frequency ratio is defined to be exactly 5 instead of the expected . The discrepancy between four fifths and a seventeenth is , known as the comma of Didymus), and required that each whole step have a ratio of instead of the 3/2=1.5 of the exact fifth. When the scale was started at C and carried four such steps backwards and eight such steps forward (E, B, F, C, G, D, A, E, B, F, C, and G), the G-E interval consisted of 12 mean tone whole steps ), whereas 12 fifths would be . This produced cacophony and was therefore known as a ***wolf fifth, also called a quinte-Du-loup or diabolus in musica.***

Songstuff: In Search Of The Imperfect Fifth
Temperament affects the tuning of musical instruments. ... This necessitated having eleven pure fifths and one small (wolf) fifth that sounded disturbingly ...
www.recording.songstuff.com/article/the_imperfect_fifth -

HTH!
Peer comments on this reference comment:

agree Sandro Tomasi
22 mins
Thank you so much Sandro. Abrazos.
agree Altogringo : Research is very impressive.
4 hrs
Thank you Altogringo.
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