This week's encounters with Well Temperament

[A440A@AOL.COM]

Terry writes: 
>That is why I am looking forward to this Chicago class where the focus
>will be in how to select an appropriate HT. Are you aware of any other
>guidance sources for choosing a temperament?  

   Reading what Owen J. has to say is a good base.  Then application will 
show you a lot.  

>If I had a more solid and wider ranging foundation with these things, I
>could talk sensibly to a musician and perhaps go for something stronger.
>I have trouble steering them one way or another when I am seemingly just
>as clueless as they are.

   The Vallotti is a fairly strong tuning to begin with. It carries a full 
syntonic comma in the most remote keys,(  Db, Gb and B).  In contrast, the 
1799 Young has only one third that wide(F#-A#).  
   What I have found to be most effective in introductions is the use of the 
Broadwood's Best that Jorgensen provides, or the Coleman 11.  These provide 
key color without too much of a change and the acceptance rate is near 100%.  
 The widest thirds in the Broadwood are only 18 cents, so it doesn't shock 
the new ears, and the smoothness found in the "white keys" is profoundly 
musical to those persons that have lived their whole lives in a 14 cent 
tempering of ET.   
   It is always easier to take the customers farther and farther into the 
tonal realm after they decide that they like the change from ET, but quite 
difficult to interest them in it at all if the first change is too drastic 
for them.  
   Chronologically, the temperaments tend to get more contrasty and stronger 
as you move back in time, so you can use that as a rough guide.  A pianist 
that tells you they don't play anything newer than Schubert will probably 
love the Vallotti to start.  If someone plays modern as well as Classical or 
Baroque, then the "old-fashioned" ET of the Broadwood factory will usually be 
the best place to start.  
    Your level of confidence in suggesting it will have as much to do with 
their perception as anything.  People are often leary of leaving the status 
quo, but many of us, like Jon, are finding that that is what they really, 
musically, deep down, want to do.  They just don't know it, yet.   If you 
pitch it as a questionable thing, it will be scary to start with, but if you 
tell them that you now have a tuning that was used by master tuners of the 
last century and it has a slightly more "organic" feel, you will be surprised 
by the number of people that come to consider you a magician!  It is much 
easier to get them over the hump to say early on that you will be glad to put 
the piano (at no charge,  back into the everyday tuning if they find it 
doesn't help them.  This takes the financial risk out of the picture and to a 
lot of people, that is a big gamble they will not be comfortable taking.  (it 
has only happened to me four times in 8 years.....)  
   You will also, if careful in your crusade, begin to make inroads with more 
serious musicians.  I know of three places in the country right now where a 
more junior tuner is beginning to plow through the clientele of a more 
established technician that considers WT to be hogwash.  This whole field can 
be rewarding in both the aesthetic and financial sense.  
Good luck, 
Ed Foote RPT