Moore

[Jason Kanter]

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What I said about fifths was wrong, a bit backwards. They weren't trying for
pure fifths; they were trying to temper the fifths and save the thirds.
Those tuners who tuned as I guessed below wound up tuning reverse well.
Apologies for continuing the confusion, especially because I am dedicated to
clearing it up. Gotta run to my day job.

..........
.  jason kanter . jkanter@rollingball.com . jason.kanter@wamu.net
.  manager . learning & performance development
.  consumer loan servicing . washington mutual bank
.  office 206 490 6708 . cell 425 830 1561
.  home (bellevue): 425 562 4127 . fax 425 562 4132
.  14847 ne 14th st . bellevue wa 98007
.  (orcas): 360 376 2799 . 136 perch tree lane . eastsound wa 98245
...............................

From: Jason Kanter <jkanter@rollingball.com>
Reply-To: pianotech@ptg.org
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 19:40:20 -0700
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Subject: Moore


Here's what appears to me as the background of the "Moore," "Broadwood's
Usual" and "Broadwood's Best" tunings.

Alexander John Ellis diligently studied various methods of tuning and came
up with his own recommendations. He was very much interested in the question
of whether equal temperament was possible or practical. As part of his work,
in 1885 he published "Specimens of Tuning in Equal Temperament", in which he
commissioned seven tunings and analyzed each one using a complex set of
tuning forks that gave him accurate readings of actual cycles per second.

Of these seven tunings, four were done on pianos and three on an organ or
harmonium, on which the tuner can play the interval for a long time without
decay, enabling the organ tuner to count slow-beating fifths accurately.

At least two of the piano tunings were done by different tuners from the
Broadwood Piano Factory. One of these was Ellis's usual tuner, and the
tuning which this guy did is now identified in the literature (including my
charts on rollingball.com) as the Broadwood Usual. The other, now known as
"Broadwood's Best", was done by a top student of Hipkins, who was "the
famous piano technician who introduced the philosophy of equal temperament
to the Broadwood Piano Factory in 1846." Hipkins himself certified this
particular tuning as excellent. Hipkins was Chopin's personal favorite piano
tuner. 

So both the Broadwood tunings are attempts at achieving equal temperament
without using the beat rates of thirds and sixths (which had not yet been
"discovered" as tuning tools).

The "Moore" was tuned on a harmonium by a tuner from Messrs. Moore and
Moore. As mentioned above, these guys counted the beat rates of fifths,
because they did not have to wrestle with decay and were able to sustain for
many seconds while they counted. They did not count beat rates of thirds or
sixths.

Here's my personal opinion of these temperaments. These were the best tuners
of the mid 1800s. They were trying to make the fifths come out as right as
they could. In the process they were naturally favoring the fifths that are
most in use in composed music, while making the less used fifths still as
tolerable as they could. Because he could hear the fifths better, the
harmonium tuner from Moore & Moore was able to come closer to "equal" than
the Broadwood piano tuners. That's why we experience it as so "mild."

If they could have tuned exactly equal temperament, I bet they would have
done so simply because they were starting to believe that the mathematical
purity of equal temperament was the perfect ideal. They did not dream that
by abandoning the pure fifth they were losing a musical experience that we
have now almost forgotten. To hear classical music played with CG, FC, and
GD fifths pure and the CE, FA, GB thirds almost just is an experience quite
surprisingly different, but that is what the composers of the time were
creating. 

Source: Jorgensen, pages 534-535, with my imagination thrown in for local
color.

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jason kanter * piano tuning * piano teaching
bellevue, wa * 425 562 4127 * cell 425 831 1561
orcas island * 360 376 2799
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From: "SUSAN P SWEARINGEN" <ssclabr8@flash.net>
Organization: Prodigy Internet
Reply-To: pianotech@ptg.org
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 18:02:13 -0500
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Subject: Re: historical tunings - in particular the Moore


I believe the Moore temperament is also known as the Victorian temperament
but I could be wrong.  I just tuned this style on my own Yamaha U1 and I
found it to be very rich and colorful (there, hows that for subjective?),
especially in the upper tenor and treble.  It's a very mild deviation from
Equal and would be a good candidate for use as a primary temperament when
tuning for clients.
 
Corte Swearingen
----- Original Message -----
From: Billbrpt@AOL.COM
To: pianotech@ptg.org
Sent: Thursday, June 27, 2002 2:53 PM
Subject: Re: historical tunings - in particular the Moore

In a message dated 6/27/02 2:20:24 PM Central Daylight Time,
cadunn@vt2000.com (Clair Dunn) writes:


I very casually checked some of the numbers against the ET and found
very small differences.
However, I did definitely hear a difference. I would like to know
more about the Moore temperament specifically if anyone has
information about it. I did read the info again on your site Bill (I
had read it before). Why is it called the Moore temperament and what
is the general consensus about the audible differences?
What struck *my* ears was a brighter tenor/treble section. Noticably
"crisper" and cleaner -- I know these are terribly subjective words,
but it's the best I can do.
Am I hearing right??

So, I want to extend my thanks to Bill Bremmer and the rest of you
folks for making me curious.
I actually tuned a customer's piano with the Moore yesterday. They
have two pianos--the daughter plays the fairly decent Lesage Console
and the husband plays the big old Ellington upright (1911). It was
the Ellington I tuned with the Moore. (--after I talked to my
customer about it. She deals in Victoriana and I thought she might
be interested--she was. But she's not going to tell her husband, to
see if he notices any differnce.) These are regular customers of
mine and the piano is in good shape and holds a tune well.
Anyway, thanks again
. 

I very much appreciate your interest.  I'm quite busy at the moment and will
be leaving for Chicago tomorrow for 3 days of performances downtown.  You
hit on a number of issues.  I have never tried the Moore temperament but
assume it is named after the person who designed it.  I never use the method
which is admittedly the most popular, to apply "correction figures" to an
ETD program.  I tune only by ear but often enter my tunings into my SAT as a
custom program. 

I unfortunately cannot comment on the Moore temperament because I have never
heard it but can tell by the numerical information that it is similar to
what I do with the EBVT except that I have 4 pure 5ths unlike any other
Victorian temperament.  It is possible that the Moore has some of the same
Equal Beating effects as the EBVT but those are built into the EBVT by
design and are specific, not accidental.

You noticed that the differences between the Moore and ET are slight but
that's where the magic and usefulness of it lie:  in the very slight
difference.  Too much difference and it's sure to become unacceptable to
some people.  On the other hand, not enough contrast renders a Victorian
temperament inadequate for earlier music.  What the EBVT does that is
different is to employ the Equal Beating effect to create the illusion of a
much stronger temperament yet avoid any harshness.  This makes it useful for
all types of music.

When playing chromatic 3rds the way one would test for evenness in ET, the
first impression one would get when playing the EBVT is a "sloppy" ET, much
the same as the remark made by Don Mannino.  However, this is really not a
valid way of listening to any HT or Cycle of 5ths based temperament.  I
still take this into consideration though, because I know people will do
that because it is generally their only frame of reference.  I try to keep
my temperament within the bounds of what I know to be acceptable and
tolerable to the contemporary ear.

The real proof of whether it works is its net effect on the music.  Your
customer is not likely to notice the difference without prompting.  But that
is a good thing, not a bad one.  If there were to be a large enough effect
to be clearly noticeable, it would inevitably end up being rejected.
Virtually no one ever picks up on the fact that a piano which I have tuned
in my EBVT has a "sloppy" temperament or any other such negative comment,
they only remark about how good the piano sounds and that's the way it
should be. 

Many people have expressed similar comments to yours about how a Victorian
temperament makes a piano sound "cleaner, crisper and clearer".  This is no
illusion.  It is the desired outcome.

Thanks again for your kind remarks.  Let us know of further good results but
also of any negative repercussions, should there be any.

Bill Bremmer RPT 
Madison, Wisconsin 
Click here: -=w w w . b i l l b r e m m e r . c o m =-
<http://www.billbremmer.com/>






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