historical vs. equal temperament

[Jim Coleman, Sr.]

My friend Bill:

I'm sorry to have to break this news to you, but for once in your exciting
life you are wrong. In your note below you mention that pure 5ths tuning is
a departure from ET. ABsolutely wrong. It is the only equal temperament
which also includes tempering the octaves. You do not get pythagorean 3rds.
All intervals progress evenly in beat speed as you ascend the scale. Pure
5ths tuning on a modern piano has nothing to do with HT. It is merely an
approach to dealing with inharmonicity of which the ancients had no or 
little knowledge.


As you well know (and do an excellent job of tempering your octaves when 
using your favorite HT version), one of the beauties of your concert tuning
was that your upper octaves sounded so good with the rest of the piano. The
only way they can sound that good is through a careful stretching of the
octaves immediately below in order to accomodate the greater stretch which
is required in the top octave in order to blend with the mid section of 
the piano. You have told me yourself that that is the area where you can
stretch out the wolf 5ths.

Take courage my dear brother, I've been wrong more than once (even on this
list). It is not the end of the world for you. You are still valuable. I'm
looking forward to hearing your work in Providence. Incidentally. I will be
doing a pure 5ths tuning in the last half of my class on Advanced Tuning.
Hope to see you there also.

Jim Coleman, Sr.


On Thu, 2 Jul 1998 Billbrpt@aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 7/1/98 4:34:26 PM Central Daylight Time, A440A@aol.com
> writes:
> 
> << Doug asks:
>  > I believe the concert tuners for Steinway in the basement in NY use
>  >ET for the best pianists in the world.  In some of the greatest concert
>  >venues in the world.
>         It was my understanding that much of the factory designated tuning
>  followed a "perfect fifths" pattern in the mid to upper treble.  This is a
>  departure from ET, and perhaps someone can find the postings concerning this
>  topic from last year. 
>  
>  >Does this mean that because they are playing in ET
>  >pianists such as the late Horowitz played with "diminished sensitivity"?
>  >Or that the worlds greatest pianists who went to the worlds greatest
>  >music conservatories are uninformed about what "keyboard tonality is and
>  >how to work with it"? 
>  
>        I believe the answer is yes to both of these questions.  I have spoken
>  with a number of performing pianists, and am astounded at the ignorance when
>  the topic is temperament!   They may discuss stretch and unison clarity, but
>  when you ask them about temperament, the status quo is used to cover their
>  inability to even discuss the concept.  
>       Just because someone is a gifted artist does not mean that they have
> been
>  exposed to the historical tuning that preceded our modern age.  It would be
>  interesting to know how many artists on the Steinway roster have any
>  experience with era-appropriate tunings for their repertoire and rejected
>  them.   
>  Regards, 
>  Ed Foote
>  
>   >>
> 
> Thanks Ed,
> I totally agree with what you have said here.  Yes, Horowitz was a great
> pianist but he did not tell the Steinway tuners *how* to tune the piano, they
> just did what *they* were taught.  Horowitz developed his style according to
> what he had to work with.  It would have been interesting to hear him play in
> other temperaments than the one and only which was force-fed to him.
> 
> It is no secret that the Steinway Hall tuners have long used the so-called "ET
> with pure 5ths" variation from true ET.  There is only so far you can go with
> any modifications to ET before it stops being ET.  In this arrangement, the
> intervals within the octave are all equal but the octave itself is tempered.
> It cannot be considered a true ET because of this.  It might be called "Quasi
> Pythagorean ET".
> 
> It boils down to believing whatever it is that suits you.   It does not suit
> me to believe that ET is the only way to tune a piano nor do I believe that
> most people actually accomplish it.
> 
> Bill Bremmer RPT
> Madison, Wisconsin
>