Alternate temperaments

[Andrew & Rebeca Anderson]

Thanks Ed,
I didn't intend to post this on the general list.  Guy is our chapter 
president and we are having a special on aural tuning the ET at our next 
meeting; on my wife's piano.  I'm guessing that there will be some less 
than "sympathetic beats" coming from the undamped treble and to a much 
lesser extent the damped strings while those of us who haven't set the 
temperament aurally in a while try our hand at it.  We're thinking about 
starting on the path that adds RTT to our monikers.  Probably should tune 
it back but we like Young's and are thinking of trying some others on for 
size.
My wife plays Chopin and likes how it sounds on this.  Bach is more 
interesting here than on ET which makes us curious about Kellner's Bach 
Well-Temperament.  I need to shoehorn another piano in here to try all 
these different ones out on.

Andrew
At 03:52 PM 11/3/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>
><< I have my wife's piano tuned to Young's temperament.  Would this be pesky
>in a ET aural tuning situation? >>
>
>Greetings,
>    This may be a common question, but requires a qualified answer.  Above 
> all
>else, the expectation of the listener can have a lot to do with the
>acceptance.
>    True, the Young has a 21 cent third lurking at F#, and B and E major are
>certainly more agressive in their harmonic presentation, but whether that 
>bears
>on the "pesky" nature of the sound also depends on the material and/or the
>way the pianist plays.  Highly tempered triads can be played harshly or
>expressively.  Increased familiarity with the well temperaments 
>facilitates the
>latter.
>
>    If what you are asking is the degree of difficulty in tuning a Young
>aurally,  it is rather simple to tune six pure fifths from C in one 
>direction, and
>then six tempered fifths in the other.  Make the tempering even among them 
>and
>you will be very close to Young's description.
>
>   Young's tuning works for a lot of music.  Some later pieces, I think,
>become unsettled due to the increased tempering in unfortuate places, 
>(like where
>the composer wasn't thinking of "expression"), but all in all, it is a very
>clean sounding tuning.  I think it really is beneficial for most music 
>composed
>after Bach and before Chopin.  When you get on the era's boundaries, I 
>think it
>pays to listen to other plausible alternatives, such as the meantones,
>WErckmiester, or Kirnberger, or Kellner for Bach and the "Victorian" level of
>inequality or even ET for Chopin, Ravel, Debussy, etc.
>     Somewhere in the comparisons, each of us arrives at optimum amouts of
>harmonic contrast to suit our tastes. And then, tastes change.....etc.
>    I guess the real answer to whether it would sound pesky or not can only
>come from  ourselves as we listen to the musical results and draw our own 
>value
>judements.
>Regards,
>
>Ed Foote RPT
>http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
>www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
>  <A HREF="http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/399/six_degrees_of_tonality.html">
>MP3.com: Six Degrees of Tonality</A>
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