[CAUT] why does it feel better?

[Ric Brekne]

Hi Wim

I'm curious as to what the pianists knew ahead of time about the tuning. 
Did you tell him that you'd done anything <<special>> ?

That said... I wouldnt discount where Wim may be going with this.  I 
have a professor who has an older Young Chang he uses primarilly for 
practice of  prepared piano pieces.  I put a mild well on it a couple 
years back with his full knowledge. Now this is a guy who knows a bit 
about tuning and was pretty well prepared ahead of time for what he was 
going to hear. His response was that the instrument finnally gained a 
character that was enjoyable to listen to and play. 

I dont want to get into a HT vs ET thing either, but I do believe we 
(all in the piano music buisness) take ET way to much for granted.  I've 
said it several times before... that so many pianists with such 
seemingly deliberatness close themselves off to all the variant colours 
of different degrees of temperament.... for the sake of simplicity (as 
thats the only real explanation I get from them) is just .... well its 
astounding really.

Cheers
RicB

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Many times over the years, I have had customers tell me the piano felt
better after I tuned it. One of those times was last week.

We have 2 D's in our Concert Hall, one about 25 years old, and the
other just 4 years old. The new one is not being played much. On the
advice of Ed Foote, I put a Coleman II on the piano. We had convo on
Friday, and I brought out both pianos for the piano professor to try
out. He didn't say anything about the tuning, but he did say the new
one "felt" better. Another professor also mentioned that the piano
played better than ever before.

So why does tuning the piano, not just a regular ET tuning, but also a
historical tuning, make the piano feel different?

Wim
Willem Blees, RPT
Piano Tuner/Technician
School of Music
University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, AL USA