Hail fellow off-beat temperamentalists. For Georg Friderich Haendel I use Valotti - but C# M sounds really cool. Distinctly so. Maybe that's why Herr Haendel didn't use this key? ;-) Regards Michael G (UK) ----- Original Message ----- From: <A440A@aol.com> To: <pianotech@ptg.org> Sent: Monday, November 03, 2003 8:52 PM Subject: Re: Alternate temperaments > > << 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> > _______________________________________________ > pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives >
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