temperaments: meantone - don't try this at home

[Farrell]

I've got an original 1912 M&H upright in my shop waiting for rebuilding. My
son practices playing on it a fair bit. A while back I tuned it to "meantone
temperament" - the one that comes loaded in the SAT III. I trust it is
similar to the 1/4 comma meantone, if not the same? Anyway it truely was
bizzare. Simple key cords were so pure as to sound dead. Cords with lots of
sharps and flats.......er, a, well.........they didn't sound so good (they
sounded like hell!).

Tuned it back to Vallotti about a week later and all seemed well. It has
held it tuning as well as any other for the past year or so. Of course, we
are not talking about a performance piano here - or at least one that is in
high-performance condition.

Terry Farrell

----- Original Message -----
From: <A440A@AOL.COM>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2002 11:15 PM
Subject: Re: temperaments: meantone - don't try this at home


> Charles asks:
> << In the notes to one of his CD's, Ed warns not to try the meantone "at
> home" because it will destabilize the piano. He mentions that the piano
> used for the recording was restrung afterwards.
>
> What's the problem with it? Does it alter the overall tension too much?
> What would the consequences be? >>
>
> The strings were old when we started. That the meantone changes will
affect
> string level, while also seeming to "saw" their way through the agraffes
when
> brought backup, is reason enough to caution against 1/4 comma on a home
> piano.  Also,  I didn't want potential customers out there to get
> totallyturned off of non-ET because of a 41 cent wolf.
>     The overall tension didn't seem to change much, but there were a lot
of
> notes that didn't get stable for several tunings.
> Regards,
> Ed Foote
>