In a message dated 98-02-08 02:00:54 EST, you write:
<< Bill,
After reading your "daily posts" I was wondering, among other
things,........where did you receive your training in piano technology, and
from whom?
Curiously yours,
Bob >>
I first found an ad in a trade magazine while I was in High School back in
1969. It was from the American School of Piano Tuning. It was a
correspondence course that I think still exists although the material in it is
likely to have evolved quite a bit.
So, I learned by myself on my family's piano. The manual taught a basic
4th's and 5th's temperament from a C fork. It first taught unisons, then pure
intervals. It described the sound of the beats you would hear in the 4ths &
5ths as "wow-wow-wow". (Being the 60's, I said to myself, "Wow,man,
groovy!").
It made a point of saying that 5ths were to beat "3 beats in 5 seconds"
and 4ths were to beat 1 bps. I carefully timed my beats with a watch. It
said that if your last 5th did not resolve with the octave at the end of the
cycle, your timing was "off".
Well, of course, my timing was always "off" by this method. So, I did
what the manual suggested and "backed up through the cycle until I did get
some resolution. Although I did not realize it at the time, this produced an
accidental and crude Well-Tempered Tuning. No customer ever complained about
my temperament as being "unequal", ever. Even when I toured for a year & 1/2
with the Holiday on Ice show as a musician (bass player), I tuned the piano
weekly and earned an extra $25.00. I told the management that I had the skill
and the tools, they let me try and found my work satisfactory. Since I tuned
the same piano every week, I kept it up pretty well and kept it in good
regulation too. The pianist was always pleased with my tuning. Never once
was there any remark about an "unequal temperament".
In 1978, I made the definitive decision to become a Piano Technician as my
principal vocation. I thought I was a pretty good tuner and had a good ear
but I did not know very much about actions, how pianos were made, how to do
basic repairs, etc. I had heard about PTG and believed it my duty and
responsibility to be a member and of course, still do.
I signed up with my Chapter to take the Exams as they were at the time.
My "bench" (technical) Exam did not go well. I barely qualified as an
"Apprentice". There were too many things that I just didn't know about. My
tuning Exam was better but I still fell into the "Apprentice" category with a
score of 73. I was told that my temperament was "sweet & sour" and did not
meet the PTG standards for ET. I did not know how to listen for the Rabidly
Beating Intervals (RBI).
I decided that I needed more education and the way to get it was to attend
every PTG Regional Seminar that I possibly could for a number of years. I did
this and this, I have to tell you is where I learned everything I know. From
PTG. I talked to other technicians, asked questions and got information on
what books and publications to read.
The first Annual Convention I went to was in 1979 in Minneapolis where I
saw the now famous and historic Coleman-Defebaugh lecture. A lot of it went
over my head. Those RBI's were difficult to hear and discern. But I got the
chance to see George Defebaugh a short time later and got much more out of it.
I learned about the 4:5 ratio of contiguous 3rds and the Oliver Faust
Temperament Sequence for an ET. With daily practice on my customer's pianos,
I was able to tune a temperament well enough to qualify as an RPT in 1982. My
temperament score was 100! I still had one score below 90 though so I took
the exam again in 1983 to qualify as an Examiner Trainee and did so, again
with a temperament score of 100. At the Dearborne Convention, I took the Exam
again. just to see if I, who had renounced the use of ET long ago, and was
using an SAT most of the time, could still do well on an aural Exam. I did
very well as I expected I would be able to. It is a combination of both skill
and a profound, far reaching understanding of tuning which permits this.
Serving as a CTE is the most valuable contribution you can ever make to your
own set of knowledge and skills, let alone the contribution you make to PTG
and the Examinee. Once again, my temperament score was a perfect 100.
I first attended a lecture by Owen Jorgensen in the early 1980's in
Michigan at a Regional Seminar. While I found the material mildly
interesting, I did not at all think that using an HT in my daily practice
would ever come to pass. Owen played that night at the banquet and I was not
particularly impressed by the sound of the piano. I was so wrapped up in just
how the RBI's should beat uniformly, that it sounded wrong to me. I had
gravitated to the kind of temperament which is most common now: an ET with
very clean 5ths and a slightly wide octave. I firmly believed for many years
that this was the one an only "right" way to tune a piano. In 1986, at the
Steinway seminar with Bill Garlick, Karen Hudson Brown (who will also be
participating in the HT Recital in Providence) tuned her piano in a
Werkmeister III WT. I remember thinking to myself that she was dabbling in
something that was foolish and that she should only do that on a harpsichord
or a fortepiano, never on a Steinway or any modern piano. (I kept my opinion
to myself).
A fellow Chapter member, Timothy Farley RPT became interested in the HT's
in the mid 1980's. Tim Farley was very persistent in his zeal for the HT's.
He got other Chapter members interested too. I did learn how to do a Valotti
and sometimes used it on a very poor piano where I thought people would
probably only play in the simple keys. I did this often in churches. This
was following the reasoning of Steve Fairchild in his October, 1982 Journal
article.
Then came my opportunity to do my first piano concerto with the local
symphony in February, 1990. I was fixing up the Steinway D to be used in
Tim's shop in December of 1989. He was going to use it in a solo recital,
then I was to get it for the concerto a couple of months later. He talked and
talked with all kinds of mystical poetry about the wonders of the HT's. He
showed me the piano tuned in the 18 Century Modofied Meantone Temperament. It
sounded pretty cock-eyed to me. Then a young PhD candidate pianist came in to
play the set of Brahms that changed my mind forever about HT's. I went on to
tune the Beethoven Emporer Concerto in Vallotti for André-Michel Schub. (Yes,
he knew about the temperament and agreed to it.) (I heard a story a couple of
years later where he asked for a WT in Los Angeles and was told, "Forget it,
you're getting ET").
The conductor/music director received many eleated comments about the
piano and he was impressed enough to have me tune many more concertos after
that until his retirement. He still has me tune his personal piano at home.
One of the newspaper reviewers who is very perceptive commented on the WT and
how it enhanced the music. The new conductor wanted ET to which I refused to
give in so I no longer tune for the symphony. I consider it their loss, not
mine. The high profile work is very stressful and I simply make more money
doing lower profile work.
I still get to do tunings, but in smaller venues wher I call my own shots.
This suits me fine. The orchestra generally gets good reviews but you don't
read much anymore about piano sound. It's satisfactory, it's what they expect
but it doesn't stir anybody to comment about things one way or the other.
That's ET, for you.
Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin
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