<tuning>

The <tuning> element states what absolute pitch the scale degrees in this score stand for.

A pitch value names a degree of the Thai scale, not a frequency. ด is the first degree wherever the ensemble happens to be tuned. Without a <tuning>, a document says what to play relative to the ensemble but not at what pitch, which is enough to print a score and not enough to sound one.

Parent

<header>

Attributes

Attribute	Required	Type	Description
reference	Yes	string	The tuning ด is written against. See below.

Values

reference is a free-form string. The values below are the ones worth spelling consistently, but the list is a starting point rather than a closed set.

Value	Description
pi-phat-mai-khaeng	ปี่พาทย์ไม้แข็ง at the กรมศิลปากร reference pitch
khrueang-sai	เครื่องสาย and มโหรี at the กรมศิลปากร reference pitch
c-major	ด sounds as C, the usual choice for teaching material and for scores shared with Western instruments
bb-major	ด sounds as B♭, the closest common Western fit for Thai string ensembles

Tuning practice is wider than four values, and pinning the set now would reject scores that are perfectly well described by a name this list has not reached yet. A validator therefore accepts any string and warns on one it does not recognize, which still catches c-majro without turning an unusual tuning into an invalid document. <nathap> is open for the same reason; <chan> is not, because its five levels are the whole set.

Example

<header>
  <title>แขกบรเทศ ชั้นเดียว</title>
  <tuning reference="khrueang-sai" />
</header>

Notes

• Thai tuning divides the octave into seven near-equal steps, so no Western key matches it exactly. The c-major and bb-major values name the closest practical mapping, not an identity.
• <tuning> is optional. A score meant only for reading, or one whose tuning is not known, can leave it out.

Conformance

• reference is required and may be any non-empty string.
• Validators should warn on a reference outside the recommended list above, and must not reject it.
• At most one <tuning> per <header>.

Rendering

Tuning is not conventionally printed on a Thai score. See The title band.