Bilson/Tuning pun

[k.swafford@genie.geis.com]

Dennis,
     Hey, I'm on your side.  The fact that Bilson could speak for an
hour-and-a-half on historical performance practice and not once
mention tuning was EXACTLY why I asked him if he ever varied the
tunings that he uses.  I believe, too, that he knew EXACTLY why I was
asking him the question, and the fact that he could deflect such a
loaded question in such a punny way was part of what made his reply so
funny to me.

     There is a DMA piano student at UMKC who is also a piano
technician.  Her thesis will be on historical tunings, and she is
getting almost no encouragement for her efforts at UMKC.  She claims
that one of the piano artist faculty members told her recently, "I
just don't believe it when you say Bach didn't use equal temperament."
Bilson is not alone in his disinterest in historical tuning practice.

     Anyway, Bilson's concert the night following his lecture was
wonderful and well-received.  I compared notes with other piano tuners
who were there.  The consensus was that if a piano is going to go as
badly out-of-tune as his did during his concert, then it probably
doesn't matter in which temperament the piano was originally tuned.

     @8^)>


                                             Kent Swafford