Aural Pure 5ths Temperament Part III

[w sikora]

Jim,

A couple of weeks ago I was called on to do a voicing overhaul on an
Acrosonic that had just been tuned by the most popular, well established
tuner in town.  I was keen to hear what one of his fresh tunings sounded
like.  Sure enough, the double octave 5ths and triple octaves were very
smooth. I'm very conscious of the sound of double octave 5ths as I use this
interval as part of my final aural checks on every tuning.

I liked this highly stretched tuning style, but didn't known how to
duplicate it with the SAT.  Yesterday I tried your method on a customer's
Steinway M and Bechstein grand.  It worked beautifully.  I got smooth
double octave 5ths and triple octaves with a nice progression of 17ths up
and down the scale. I thought single octaves actually sounded better,
although I could hear some roll.  Both pianos sounded very musical and the
customer was delighted.

Thanks for providing this great new tool.  The only situation I can think
of where I might hesitate to use the pure 5ths method is in churches where
the accompaniments to hymns have so many major thirds and their relatives.
Even so it's probably worth experimenting.  Maybe our ears are becoming
ever more  accustomed to dissonance in the major thirds.  And a little
added dissonance there is tolerable musically when the consequence is a
more musical sounding stretch.

Walter Sikora, RPT
Chapel Hill, NC