what's with the new temperaments?(x post)

Richard Brekne Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no
Tue, 11 Mar 2003 00:11:41 +0100


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Richard Moody wrote:

> Ric Moody
> > declares he cant hear temperaments or beating of intervals while
> playing.
>
> If I said I can't hear the "beating of intervals while playing" I
> invite you to quote me.   If there is a "mistake" (in the tuning)
> and the interval is so far from what I am used to, I sometimes can
> hear it , especially if I am listening for it while playing.  But
> I can tune a piano in Pythagorean and play something that I bet
> you can't hear the difference.

I bet not... or if you can it would have to be something so useless in
terms of  musicality perspectives that the point of such an exercise
becomes moot. If I misquoted you above, I certainly think I captured the
spirit of what you have said on several ocasions... namely that you can
not hear the difference in temperements when a peice of music is played.
Personally... I havent been able to look away from those same
differences.



>     But really how much do you listen to what you are playing?
> For phrasing, for dynamics, for shading, for rubato, for legato,
> for mistakes?

What a pianist is listening for, or paying attention to is as much a
function of what they have been taught to be aware of as it is anything
else. That is precisely why all argumentation that follows the logic
"pianists are not able to hear the difference" falls upon its own
unreasonableness. We simply have not tested to see what pianists are
capable of learning to hear in this regard. We have only confirmmed what
would seem to many as an alarming lack of ability in being able to
discern differences in temperaments. It seems much more likely to me
that this is because of lack of training as to what to listen for then
it is any physical limitation of perception or hearing.


>
> Oh I didn't even get to tuning.....   While listening to tuning
> when you are playing, what do you notice first, unisons, treble
> octaves, bass octaves, octaves + 5ths;  triads, if so in what
> position?

I can only speak for myself... and I hear quite quickly when
intervals... alone or within chord structure or other musical
progression do not conform closely to ET. And frankly... how any pianist
/ piano tuner or other piano music proffesional could miss a Major third
in the A3-A4 area that is rolling along at 3 bps or so is beyond me,
regardless of whether its heard in the middle of a piece or alone.

>
>  ----rm
>
>     "Its all relative"
>

That much I will aggree on... but perhaps in a different sense.

Cheers
RicB

--
Richard Brekne
RPT, N.P.T.F.
UiB, Bergen, Norway
mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no
http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html


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