Dennis, I did this experiment in the store with two Sauter grands, a 6' and a 7'3. The shorter was in a very mild WT. It was hands down preferred by everyone who played, include a Julliard trained concert-artist. I mumbled something about working on the larger piano and then tuned it to WT as well. They congratulated me for fixing it. I had prepped both pianos and there was no obvious (to me) difference in touch and tone (except in the bass). They talked about how much more responsive the 6' piano was until I retuned the 7'3" one, that is... Guess what all pianos are tuned to in the store now. ;-) Yes it is anecdotal evidence, but I'm banking on it. Andrew Anderson On Jan 30, 2009, at 9:12 AM, Dennis Johnson wrote: > Sorry, but I need step in with a response to Fred's last post. > "Polemics", or a Polemical argument, is not necessarily emotionally > based, but more specifically ...."an aggressive attack on or > refutation of the opinions of another.... the art or practice of > disputation or controversy." It is one of the oldest Polemical > tricks in the book to label the other side as Polemic. > > Home key choices by specific composers and consistent compositional > styles in within various keys, are facts. What that specifically > means to anyone however, is personal. We are all professional > tuners, with legitimate opinions on the subject of tuning. In a not > so well publicized event back in 1812, two Journeyman at the > Broadwood Factory actually fought a duel over the ..."best way to > tune a piano". It wasn't recorded who won. > > As for the tune off, please allow me another "fact" that hasn't been > mentioned this time around. It is a fact that inharrmonicity has > the effect of reducing the physical size of commas. The greater the > inharmonicity of an instrument, the smaller the size of the commas > and consequently less tempering of intervals is required. Lower > inharmonic pianos have a preferred sound, but they actually have > more total beats going on in the octave. My point is that 2 > beautiful pianos side by side tuned by 2 different experienced > tuners in different but non-restrictive temperaments (i.e WT and ET) > will both sound beautiful. This exercise would be fun and most > likely revealing on a personal level, but it will not produce a > definitive "winner". Not going to happen. If we were to do the > same test on cheap spinets though- now that is an entirely > different matter. > > I was offering classes on this subject 12 years ago. If you prefer > the sound of all keys alike, of course this is possible on a spinet, > but ultimately you are going to end up with more total beats/octave > than necessary. That is because you will end up do tricks with the > fifths to make it work. If the fifths are not all equal it is not > ET. Typically, the black key thirds on a spinet piano in WT are > beating approx as fast as would normally be expected in ET, while > the white key thirds are significantly slower. This is fact. You > can like that result or not. I do, and so do my customers. > > > Ok.... back to work, > > Dennis Johnson
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