Option B

[Jim Coleman, Sr.]

Hi Bill:

That's the best humor I have seen since Warren Fischer resigned from the
Humor list leadership.

Jim Coleman, Sr.

On Mon, 26 Jan 1998 Billbrpt@aol.com wrote:

> Dear List,
>     I am enjoying the discussion on temperaments and realize that people have
> strong opinions.  There are people in Madison who only tune ET and I respect
> their beliefs on the subject as I do Jim Bryant's and Ralph Martin's.  There
> was no implication made that Ralph has ever said anything to his customers
> that was not sincere and done so with the integrity expected of an RPT.
>     As I was tuning this morning, I thought of a few embellishments to my two
> "options" which should not have been nor should be taken seriously.  The
> following is meant to be tongue-in-cheek but serves to demonstrate how anyone
> can use material which is basically factual to suit one's own purpose or
> agenda.
> 
> Technician:  "I'll give you a choice in how you'd like your piano
>  tuned:
>   
>  Option A:   A nice, normal, regular, well-tempered tuning.  It is the way all
> of the European composers tuned from the time of Bach through the Victorian
> era.  Bach even wrote two whole books of music to show how good this tuning
> system is.  They are called the "Well-Tempered Clavier Music".  Have you heard
> of it?
> Customer:  Yes, I play some of that music myself.
> Technician:    Each key you play in will have a distinct character.  At the
> top of the cycle of  5ths,  you will hear smooth, gentle, quiet harmony.  In
> the remote keys, you'll hear beautiful vibrant, singing tones, enhanced
> leading tones.  When you play
>  modern music such as jazz, you'll hear crisp clear harmonies.
> 
> Customer:  What is the other option?
> Tech:  A method known as a "Historical Temperament".
> Cust:  What is historical about it?"
> Tech:  Well, along about the time when Russia was falling to the Communists,
> the Titanic sank, the Hindenburg exploded and Al Capone and his mob were
> running bootleg liquor and extorting money out of innocent businessmen, a
> group of evil scientists conspired to practice their own kind of extortion by
> inventing a method of tuning which they forced upon the general population to
> satisfy their own lust for power.  These people weren't even musicians.  They
> were people who were trying to define music "scientifically" and who
> prescribed a certain irrational  frequency for each note of the scale. 
>      A man named Dr. White wrote a book in which he published a table of those
> frequencies.  He said that from now on, everyone who tunes a piano should do
> it his way.  Being that the whole thing sounded so "scientific" and all, added
> to the fact that this man was a "doctor", people believed in his method even
> though it was very difficult to learn.   Later, a machine called the "Strobe
> Tuner" was invented to help tuners get these frequencies exactly because it
> was so difficult for them to do by ear.  It became common for tuners to buy
> these "Strobe Tuners" because tuning in this new "scientific" way was thought
> to be somehow better than the natural way that the ear hears so easily. 
> Cust:  What will my piano sound like, tuned this way?
> Tech: If I  tune your piano this way, none of the harmony you hear from your
> traditional  and classical music will sound the way the composer intended.
> Every chord you  play will be slightly "sour" and unfocused sounding.  There
> will be no
>  distinction between any of the keys.  They will all have that same,
> undesirable sound.  There won't be any reason to modulate from one key to the
> next because they will have all been homogenized into one slightly "sour" but
> supposedly "scientific" arrangement.  The smooth, quiet harmony you expect to
> hear in the top of the cycle of 5ths will have a "busy", nervous sound to it,
> quite inappropriate, I'd say.  That beautiful "singing" tone you want to hear
> when you play Chopin will be flattened and dulled over.  Your leading tones
> won't lead so well either.
> Cust:  My goodness!  Why would anyone want a piano tuned that way?
> Tech:  Beats me, ma'am.  In all my years as a tuner, I've never had anyone,
> concert pianist, church pianist, music teacher or general customer ever ask
> for it.
> Cust:  Then why even offer it?
> Tech:  Well, they say we should inform the public that they do have a choice.
> Cust:  But what kind of music would sound good in it?  
> Tech:  That's a good question. It's called "Atonal" music.  Have you ever
> heard of it?
> Cust:  No, I don't think so.
> Tech:  That's because it is rarely, if ever played.  It's really awful, in my
> opinion.  It has no harmony, no melody, no good beat to it or anything.  Yet,
> just like the Communists who wanted to make everyone in society "equal", as
> they put it, these evil conspirators wanted all music in the future to be
> "atonal".
> Cust:  Thank God they didn't succeed!
> Tech:  And God Bless America!  We need to be truly thankful that we live in a
> country where freedom of the marketplace exists and these kinds of arbitrary
> rules and methods can't be imposed on free thinking, free spirited people!
> Cust: Yes!  God Bless America!  But how do you even know how to do this
> Historical Temperament if you never actually do it in practice?
> Tech:  Well, to become a member of PTG, you have to prove you can at least
> approximate it.
> Cust:  Why use that as a standard when no one ever wants it?
> Tech:  Beats me.  I think they try to set an impossibly high standard just to
> make sure that the tuners who get in are really good.  It takes three aural
> tuners or one of those fancy modern electronic versions of the Strobe Tuner to
> even establish what it is.  The tuner only has to get 80% of it right to
> qualify.
> Cust:  Then if you only need to approximate it, you're never really getting it
> to begin with?
> Tech:  Gee, I never thought of it that way before.
> Cust:  What is this Historical Temperament called?
> Tech:  The 11th Comma SYNtonic MEANtone.*
> Cust:  Oh my!
> Tech:  So what'll it be today, ma'am, option A, the regular well or option B,
> the MEAN one?
> Cust:  Oh, I don't think I'd EVER want that MEAN tuning!  I'll just take the
> regular!
> 
> *An equivilant name for Equal Temperament
> 
> Bill Bremmer RPT
> Madison, Wisconsin
>  
>