In a message dated 6/9/00 8:15:30 AM Central Daylight Time, pianoola9@hotmail.com (Ola Andersson) writes: << I think B3 is "hanging in the air" do you have a test for it espesially to E4 I usally gets unhappy with the E major chord when I finish the temprement.>> Just make sure that the G3-B3 3rd is exactly the same as the F3-A3 3rd, the C4-E4 3rd and the G3-E4 6th and it will be in the right place. The B3-E4 4th will beat faster than you are used to in ET but the F#3-B3 4th will be closer to pure. The G3-D4 5th and the A3-D4 4th will also beat more strongly than you are used to. Do not let this concern you. You will find that when you play these intervals in the context of a chord, the tempering that seems more pronounced than you would like to hear is "swallowed" or absorbed somehow. That is to say, you hear it when you play an isolated interval but you don't in a musical context. That is one of the benefits of Equal Beating, it's canceling out effect. Remember too, that E major has 4 sharps and thus it is entering the bottom of the Cycle of 5ths. You expect it to be a more vibrant key. If you look for literature written in this key, you will find that inevitably, it will be music where a strong melody is important rather than the harmonious stillness expected from the keys at the top of the cycle of 5ths. > >Please let us know how your pianos sound when tuned this way. > >Bill Bremmer RPT >Madison, Wisconsin << I really like the sound of my piano this way. Perhaps it's because I'm a bass player I find this tuning to be more in tune than ET. Sounds funny but I found it true. I will measure it when I have finished to ask my questions to see if I am close enough. Anyhow I found tuning HT is a good training for tuning ET. It trains me in hearing thirds and fifths with different speed. Helps me correcting ET. Tack så mycket Ola Andersson >> Thank you very much for your observation. It has been mine as well. It has often been pointed out recently how one temperament cannot be thought of as "better" than the other but there is more involved here than temperament alone. The way the octaves are tuned according to the Equal Beating principal is just as important to the final outcome as the temperament. This is why I have consistently refused to find the FAC type Correction Figures for this temperament. The results would not be the same as if it were tuned by ear using the Equal Beating Tempered octaves. In my response to the "Unequal Temperament" thread, I asked if it did not make sense to also vary the octaves as well as the temperament. None of the smooth curve calculations can do this. True to form from someone who does not know how to do this and who has never done this (as easy as it is to do), the blanket statement that it does not make sense was made, then the question avoided entirely: <<<<>>If the temperament you are using has irregularly tempered intervals, does it not also make sense that you may want to "temper" your octaves a little differently as well? << No, that doesn't make any sense. On any reasonably well made grand piano, I haven't found there to be any appreciable difference between an aural recreation of any of these temperaments (by following the Jorgensen rules for tuning), and using the FAC correction numbers. The differences being given as reasons for aural temperament tuning are so small as to be disregarded. If a room full of technicians can mistakenly identify a Victorian tuning for ET, ( documented by Jim Coleman), then the differences between a machine HT and an aural HT mean absolutely nothing at all to a practical musician. >>>> The octaves created by the Equal Beating method may be essentially the same as one of the smooth curve calculations when tuning ET but not when tuning a Cycle of 5ths based temperament. It is the *combination* of a temperament loaded with Equal Beating properties AND the Equal Beating octaves that create such astounding clarity and such a pleasing resonance. No historically documented temperament nor any other contemporary temperament has quite the same set of properties and absolutely no Electronic Tuning program can reproduce the same kind of octaves. Thank you very much for your interest and I wish you good luck in mastering this way of tuning a piano. It makes all of that dialing in of figures and then applying "deviations of the deviations" such a waste of time because that method ends up missing the mark, if only slightly. Yes, it is true that many professionals are doing the HT's and other temperaments this way but that does not mean that there is not a better way that as it turns out, is easier, less tedious and less prone to error. By the way, it is possible to use the SAT to tune the octaves this way and to have exactly the same results as when constructing them be ear but not, definitely NOT when using an FAC program. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin
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