The Great Temperment Tune-Off

[Jim Coleman, Sr.]

Hi Del:

I'll try to answer your question below.

On Thu, 16 Jul 1998, Delwin D Fandrich wrote:

> Jim,
> 
> I'm curious. I was not able to attend the Sunday tune-off, but I would like your
> impressions --
> 
> I understand that Bill Bremmer's EBVW temperment won the event using the Walter
> grand -- about which I am admittedly prejudiced. I have two questions:
> 
> 1)    In your view, how much were the tuning results influenced by the differences
> in the stringing scales used in the two pianos? The stringing scale in the Walter
> is quite smooth, both in power and in inharmonicity. Unless the Steinway B was
> rescaled, the stringing scale in the Steinway B would have been, well, a Steinway B
> scale.

First I must confess, in a previous post I mentioned that Virgil's piano was
a Steinway B. THAT WAS WRONG. It was a Yamaha S4 which is the successor to
the S 400 (I think).

The Walter Grand is a very fine piano as you know since you designed it. The
balance is very good (so is the Yamaha S4). Bill's tuning took advantage of
the blending of the octaves so that there was good matching of triple and
maybe even quadruple octaves (something which Virgil also attempts to do).
I overheard Bill say to Dr. Sanderson that the top C8 was 77 cents 
sharp. The piano just sounded beautifully in tune while listening to music.
Obviously, when playing test intervals, there was much deviation from equal
temperament, but not as much as in some of the historical temperaments. for
example, the Paul Bailey unique temperament was more extreme. Karen Hudson-
Brown who played all of the comparison pieces commented about the Paul 
Bailey temperament: "this Paul Bailey temperament feeds my soul." This 
was in contrast to all of the other tunings. When the contest was 
between the Bremmer tuning and the Bailey tuning, many of us were not quite
ready for the greater contrasts of the Bailey. The Bremmer tuning was much
milder. but as you can see above, the real aficionado, Karen, preferred the
Bailey. The piano which had the Bailey tuning was a little less manageable.
It might have made it harder for Karen to tune it in the Bailey temperament.

When the comparison was between Virgil's ET and Bill's EBV Well
temperament, the ET was a little bland, but clean. I believe that the lower
inharmonicity of the Yamaha did not permit Virgil to do his best stretch.
Virgil is more used to tuning Steinways.
Bill mentioned that higher inharmonicity pianos lend themselves better to
stretching out the semi-wolf 5ths in the higher treble. If I'm not mistaken,
I don't believe I have seen an adequate explanation from Bill about just how
he does that maximum blending of the octaves. His treble was superb.

> 
> 2)    In your view, how much was the voting influenced (if at all) by the
> differences in the sound and performance between the two pianos? I did not hear the
> two pianos side by side, but, if the Steinway B was typical of its type, the Walter
> should have been the "smoother" and "cleaner" sounding of the two pianos.

Since it was NOT a Steinway that Virgil tuned, it is hard to answer this 
question. The Yamaha was rather typical however, and a very good piano. Well
scaled. I certainly could not downgrade the Yamaha. They are always so good
at having great duration in the killer octaves. Some of the musical 
selections were equal in beauty. The ones which utilized the high treble
showed Bill's tuning  to be superior. The voting was not even a close tie.

In the first Heat race, it was between ET and a Handel Well and the Kellner
Well temperaments. Virgil's won quite handily in the voting, but the 
Handel won in my personal scoring.  In the second Heat race,
Bill's EBV won over the Bailey modified Meantone by only one point in my 
method of scoring. However the voting preference showed a little more
difference. The Bailey may have fared much better except for the fact that
Karen was playing on a 7/8 keyboard on that piano. This may have subtracted
a little from her usual expressive playing.

Jim Coleman, Sr.

PS Please understand that this is just one person's impressions.

> 
> I'm making this query private, but please feel free to make it public if you wish.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Del
> 
>