Piano tuning studies

[William E. Darst]

>Helmut,
>
>If your are really interested in the historical development of tuning
>practices, may I suggest  "Tuning" by Owen Jorgensen published by Michigan
>State University Press isbn 0-87013-290-3.  Probably the best work on tuning
>that I have run across.

Another really fine and very basic source is the article on temperament in
the New Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians - a multi-voume
encyclopedia of music, hopefully available at the local library.  The
article on temperament is by Mark Lindley (who has authored many periodical
articles on temperament over the years as well as a very fine book on the
subject of the historical tuning of fretted instruments).  Each article in
Groves ends with a large bibliography, making it a very fine starting point
for any study in music. . . . .am I an ex-encyclopedia salesman or what?

One of the fundamentals of HIP (historically informed performance) and many
of its practitioners today is that an important relationship exists between
a body of musical literature and the tuning system employed for it.  The
idea goes that earlier styles of music were written with certain types of
tuning systems in the minds of the composers and musicians of the day
(meantone, unequal systems and so forth), whereas in more modern music, the
composers and musicians have been acclimated to the equal tempered system.
So that musicians, when performing older music should take the trouble to
tune accordingly.  Naturally, not all musicians agree on this approach.
For a lively ongoing discussion read the Usenet News group rec.music.early
or subscribe to the early music list (message to LISTSERV@AEARN.ACO.NET
with subscribe earlym-l in the body).

For me, there also seems to be an important link between the range of
sonority of particular types of keyboard instruments and tuning systems
employed for them.  An eighteenth century style French harpsichord tuned in
equal temperament sounds like a homogenized swarm of bees to me.  On the
otherhand, a virginals tuned in quartercomma meantone has a wonderful
musical effect in my estimation - while I don't know that I would care to
listen to the same tuning on a modern grand piano (unless maybe for a
special composition experiment).  The moving vibrato-like thirds of equal
temperament enhance and give warmth to the sound of the piano, but have a
too-relentlessly -active effect on harpsichords.  This is of course just my
personal view.

Each to his own!

Bill Darst
Music Dept
UC Santa Barbara