Harmonium temperament

[SidewaysWell1713@aol.com]

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In a message dated 11/28/02 7:43:48 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
dm.porritt@verizon.net writes:


> My best guess is out-of-whack.  Much of it is kind of "reverse well"
> that has been talked about ad nauseam.  The C-E third is wider than
> ET and F#-A# is narrower.  Others kind of fit in between.  
> 
> If the pianist is happy, that's the name of the game.  I probably
> would have just gone for a regular tuning, and only adjusted the
> pitch from 440 by enough to match the Harmonium.  Of course, when
> there is that much variance, how do you "match" the Harmonium?  
> 
> 
Tom,

Interesting dilemma and yet not one at all as I see it.

So many have scoffed at the very idea any instrument could ever be found in 
Reverse Well.  It must be only a confused and disturbed mind which could ever 
come up with something like that, right?  Medication that would make me think 
everything has been and always will be in ET would be the what I need, right? 
 I should be banned from the list, seek *help* and medicine to *correct* my 
improper and inappropriate thinking, right?  Well I still believe in Reverse 
Well and I believe a lot more in it than I do ET.

Before I started saying it is actually more often the case (much more, in 
fact) than a true ET, the world was in such harmonious balance and such 
blissful ignorance.  It was only *me* who thought that most instruments 
weren't really in ET and are not because ET is almost impossible to achieve.  
Other lists have started because of this very topic and some of the people 
who just can't accept the fact that it exists have gone away, never to 
return.  It's just too unbearable to ponder.

But now, the serpent has shown you what you were not supposed to know about 
and you're going to have to either accept it or try to do something about it. 
 Any of the advice you've been given will work.  Your own solution worked.  
The "just do ET, it's right, the harmonium tuning is wrong and you can't help 
that", conventional wisdom, seems to me to be the least favorable solution 
but it will work.  It will work because the people who say ET is the only one 
and right way to tune a piano say it will work and if you say they're wrong 
about that, you'll create a firestorm.

Here's my suggestion and thoughts.  If you leave your A at 0.0, most of the 
notes would be on the flat side by an average of -2.2 cents if the piano is 
tuned in ET.  Only a couple of random notes would be exactly in tune and 
other random notes would be off enough to create unnecessary dissonance 
between the two instruments.  

Your piano does not have to be *exactly* the same as the harmonium in order 
be perceived as being in tune with it, just something close.  Unless you do 
set out to change the harmonium's tuning, you have to accept it the way it 
is.  Sometimes, a backwards temperament can feed the idea of having 
deliberately out of tune sound,  a circus calliope type sound being one 
example.

Many accordions are deliberately mistuned.  The people who do that call it a 
"wet" tuning.  I still find it amusing that all of these attempts to put 
"color" in the sound of the instrument come through manipulating the unisons 
by arbitrary amounts.  The tuners still blindly think in terms of ET for the 
temperament, cannot even imagine anything else and usually get it wrong (but 
don't ever tell one that).

I suggest you offset all of these pitches by +1.0 cents, round the larger 
negative deviations off by 2 cents and round the smaller, negative ones off 
to the nearest whole number in the positive direction (don't round off to the 
flat side a number which is already negative).

This should give your piano a *smother* sound.  The difference from ET that 
the temperament will have will contribute to the *character* type sound of 
the harmonium.  You went in that direction with your decision and the 
musicians liked it.  If you do what I said, they'll still like it but the 
piano will sound better on its own, which it should.  The harmonium will 
sound as it does which they accept and your piano will not be so far mistuned 
as to sound strange but will reinforce the unique character of the harmonium. 
 This is the way to "match" the two as was asked in the above quote.

Keep us posted on what you do and how well it works.  I, for one am truly 
interested to know.  I'm not so far away from you that I couldn't come to 
hear the project and help you with it if you would want me to.  However, I am 
quite fully booked through the end of the year.  I will have a little more 
time on Saturday or Sunday after my next concert which is December 7 & 8.

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin

Inventor of the "Sideways Well" Temperament and Octaves that "don't make 
sense at all" (sic, according to Ed Foote)

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