e.t. comment for your response

[Susan Kline]

Stephen Birkett asks:
>Any comments from you piano tuner guys and gals? Don't you all tune 
>perfect ET?
>
>Stephen

Hi, Steven --

Nothing in life is perfect, as Frank Weston proves quickly enough. As Horace
points out, mathematical accuracy, while reflecting a certain competence, is
not the aim of the exercise. 

I think the great majority of us (those of us who have cut our teeth) tune a
temperament equal _enough_ for all reasonable purposes, and possibly too
equal for some. The few times I've tested a temperament that someone else
has done using a method other than my own, it was essentially
indistinguishable by my normal tests.

Whether this is a good thing is open to debate, for sure. It does provide
for a tuning of a certain minimum quality. You can't go _too far wrong_ with
an equal temperament, and it would be _very_ easy to do something really bad
while trying to be "musical" when you didn't know what that meant. 

I and a roomful of other people had a very interesting experience at Jim
Coleman, Sr.'s recent tuneoff in Washington. It was a Jim vs. Jim tuneoff,
with a pure 5ths temperament on one piano, and a "more conventional tuning"
on the other. A whole roomful of tuners (apparently) didn't realize that the
second piano was tuned to a well temperament, even when they were carefully
listening for differences in tuning. I know he fooled me. 

So, what's a cent here or there? Why are we so fussy about being able to
tune so very equally? In my opinion, the quality of the tuning will emerge
much more strongly from the choice of octave stretch and from the timbre of
the unisons. (and those _are_ musical qualities.)

So, guys and gals, does anyone think that some of our temperaments are more
equal than others?

Susan

Susan Kline
P.O. Box 1651
Philomath, OR 97370
skline@proaxis.com

"Cheer up! Things may be getting worse at a slower rate."
			-- Ashleigh Brilliant