This week's encounters with Well Temperament

[Ron Koval]

This is in response to the question of "selling" HT's.

Most people don't know what the word temperament means.  How could they ask 
for an alternate to something they don't understand?
At this point I have only been asked to tune "regular" once.  A local 
teacher that prefers Broadwood's Best, was to perform a recital at a 
student's house.  He must have been talking to the dad before I came over, 
because the dad told me to just tune it regular, not anything weird.  I 
didn't want to get into a long discussion, so just finished the job and 
left.  You see, I kindof like the sound of a real nicely tuned in ET 
instrument, if it's designed well enough to have the octaves all support 
each other across the scale.

What I do notice is the condition of the tuning when I arrive.  You see, I 
think my job is to make the instrument play well by the time I leave.  If 
the tuning is all over the place, unisons out and octaves not matching, and 
the client says, "I think it's still pretty close", I don't think that 
setting a mild Well temperament will offend their ears in any way. In fact, 
I'm reasonably sure they will think it sounds great.  I may mention that 
I've optimized the tuning this time to support the way that music is 
written.

If, however, like the first example, the piano is really close in tune to 
start, I'll think twice before shifting anything around.

For every time I hear a tech say that no one has asked them to tune an 
'alternate' temperament, I want to ask them how often they are requested 
(without prompting) to tune equal temperament.  I think people mostly want 
their pianos to sound GOOD, and don't want to be bothered with the details.  
Of course there are the exceptions, but they always use up so much time with 
the chatting!

So I'd recommend checking out the graphs, start tuning, pay attention to 
what works and what doesn't and just keep plugging along!  The Moore is a 
safe place to start, as Jon has found, but there are lots of others 
available, too.

There is nothing 'magic' about any of the temperaments, they all have 
strengths and weaknesses. Just don't be afraid to take that first step to 
optimizing temperaments!

Ron Koval

(re-harmonizing in Chicagoland)




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