[CAUT] Schubert and Equal Temperament

Jon Page jonpage at comcast.net
Sat Jan 24 21:04:17 PST 2009


>How did Bill Bremmer's tuning end up the favored temperament when compared to
>the ET? (Rhode Island convention?  Jon Page was there, maybe he can supply the
>dates.) 

That was Providence, RI, 1998 and Bill Bremmer's EBVT was the favored 
temperament.

http://www.ptg.org/1998/conv/festival.html

It was the first time I heard up close and personal a WT. My first 
reaction to the EBVT
was that is sounded much like what I considered some of my better 
crafted tunings.
I had a tilt towards producing a slower beating CE than ET but never knew why.

Over the course of the next few years I gravitated to an ETD mostly 
to help me in
the last octave since these old ears aren't what they used to be. 
But the VT opened
up a whole new area to explore and broadened my and my customer's appreciation
of different temperaments.

Some still prefer ET, conditioned to it I guess but I liken the 
temperaments to pasta sauce.
If someone is used to a simple marinara and are presented with a 
putanesca or fra diavalo
then they might balk at the spiciness. Not that the later are not 
good but just not what
one might be used to or conditioned to expect.

I tuned a piano the other day for a shade-tree technician, tuned ET. 
When I was done
he sat down and tested descending 10ths thru the bass. I thought, how 
sad, he's more
interested in the clinical than the musical.
-- 

Regards,

Jon Page
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