Piano tuning studies

[Helmut Wabnig]

Dear reader,
     let me first give my thanks to Mr. David A. Vanderhoofven for
his "long" report on the tuning course and to Mr. Allan Gilreath
for mentioning the "piantung.zip".
     Since my daughter gets piano lessions I try to collect
information on piano tuning. A professional tuner told me, that it took him
seven years to master it. He does no longer use strictly
equal tuning. First he asks the customers, which kind of music they
would play. The classical beginner pieces in the first years are
mostly in the range from Fmaj (1flat) up to Amaj (3sharp). He will
then use some kind of modified Werckmeister tuning centered around those
keys,with little stretch.Thus his pianos sound much better than those of the
competitors and the other piano tuners don't understand why,he says.People
who play jazz or modern stuff, get a different tuning.He would not reveal
the exact working of his system to me because,he says, I am still too dumb
to follow his explanations.
     That's why I am working into this matter now, and I want to
learn the theory.For the same reason I bought a digital piano which
offers 6 different temperaments. The newer types have a feature
called "microtuning", which allows fine tuning of each individual key.
I also bought the KORG "Master Tuner" model MT-1200, which also
allows for microtuning.
     Have you ever listened to a real pure Cmaj chord? Switch back
then to "equal" temperament and notice the dissonances. I can only
confirm, that it sounds like vinegar. This is the material, which
pours out of all the radios and TVs all over the world, because
all the misguided and miseducated musicians lost the ability to
notice the mistuning of their instruments.
     "Das Wohltemperierte Klavier", the "Well Tempered Piano" by BACH
is not meant to be played in "equal" tuning. Bach had devised his
own system of tuning, which is little known today. Thanks to the
Japanese electronics and microtuning we can get Bach's sound back
in our livingrooms!
     Now I am busy with lengthy calculations of different frequencies,
beat frequencies, and formulas to analyse the temperaments of
my digital piano. But there is much more to do: I have the feeling,
that there are about 50 worked-out and fully tested systems of
piano temperament tuning. Organs are different, but also of interest.
But it is hard to get information.

     Please everybody, drop me a line, or better, publish it here,
if you can help a dumb but not deaf Austrian on the way to understand
sound and music.

Thank you for reading this.

yours sincerely,
Helmut Wabnig
wabi@net4you.co.at