Greetings, I wrote: > I have even tuned for one well known and respected performer/teacher, >(Julliard and Curtis) that didn't even realize he was playing a piano in a >Young temperament while giving a master class, side by side with an ET piano. >> Don asks: >>Why should a pianist notice it? The smallest interval they regularly train to listen for is 100 cents. I don't know that pianists regularly "train" their sense of intonation, at all. It seems that, unlike almost all other instruments, the pianist is not conscious of intonation because they can't do anything about it. When we are talking about temperaments, we are talking about 300 and 400 cent intervals being changed by 8 cents or less. This isn't a pitch thing, it is a tonal thing. I understand that pianists have more on their minds than tuning, aside from unisons and octaves. I don't think that absolves me, (as their pit crew), from seeking the maximum response from the instrument. It is a scientifically proven fact that the involuntary, physiological, response to musical consonance and dissonance occurs in consistant fashion. The more consonant an interval, the slower the respiration, heart-rate, etc. These are the manifestations that indicate the emotional state. Creating contrasts, in a musical plan such as the sonata, at this subliminal level, creates more of an emotional response than the lack of contrast. My exprerience is that the rising and falling levels of musical tension more fully engage the listener than when all is the same. As I said, we tuners listen differently than the "normal" music listener. ET is measurable on the intellectual plane. With no change in tonal value, the differences between keys is no more than a change of pitch center, there is nothing to heighten or lessen tension other than the distance between keys, and that is registered at the conscious level. We bring our baggage from the past with us, and are conditioned to expect things a certain way. Those with perfect pitch know the key of C by the Hz. From what I read, the musicians and listeners of the past recognized it as well by the amount of tempering. Ah, so much to experiment with, so little time. Regards, Ed Foote RPT http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
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