Tom writes:
<< Keep in mind that ET has
one strong advantage over all other temperaments and that is it's
flexibility in allowing composers many more possibilities for modulations
and harmony. From a pianists perspective, it allows a great amt. of music
which will be useable for them.<<
That advantage is also enjoyed by the Victorian style of tuning,
where thirds are kept within 17 cents. Modulation is not limited, at all. It
is amazing to me how many modern ears don't register a 16 cent third as any
different, but the overall sound and feel of a Coleman 11 or Broadwood's
tuning is a profound difference. The great advantages of a non-ET are that
there is a contrast in the music, which seems to be really attractive to
listeners, and there is a lower amount of overall dissonance, (unless one plays
music in all 12 keys by the same amount, which no one but modern jazzers
seem to do).
>>Does ET take away from the purity of some intervals? Sure, a bit. But
not
enough to loose sleep over.<<
Um, ET takes purity away from every interval except the octave, (and we
have all seen plenty of discussion about whether an octave can actually be
pure or not!) Once my ears became accustomed to Bach on a WT, the same
music in ET just sounds so out of tune I can't stand it. There are thirds
buzzing in all the wrong places!
>>I still say a good tasteful ET done with the
appropriate musical stretch can rank with anything out there.<<
I respectfully disagree. In over a dozen demonstrations, I have never
seen a side by side comparison of ET and Coleman 11 where the vast majority
didn't strongly preferred the Coleman. This holds true for audiences of
technicians as well as audiences of musicians and music lovers.
>>I use this as a teaching moment and will take pieces like the Moonlight
Sonata, or
any of the Chopin Nocturnes and explain what those key signatures sound
like
in a HT mode. Then explain to them that in order to get the right affect,
the composers had to break up the chord in an arpeggiated segment in order
not to sound offensive.<<
Dissonance is perhaps more offensive to technicians than musicians,
at least, that is what it seems like to me. However, dissonance is a
valuable tool for expression, and according to one very accomplished pianist, the
highly tempered keys can be played harshly or expressively, depending on
the skill of the pianist.
>>But say what you like, almost all my customers who have asked for HT in
the
past, have all asked to go back to ET from this point forward.
Just my experience.<<
Mine is exactly the opposite. Most of my customers have told me that
they have no desire to go back to a strict ET, and many have gone farther into
the well-tempered past than I thought they would. I have had numerous
faculty members comment on performances as being so well tuned, when the piano
was not in ET. I no longer begin them on a pre-1800 tuning, rather,
something like the Moore and Co. that Jorgensen published. They don't know what,
exactly, it is that they like, but they respond with adjectives like
"warmer", "smoother", etc. Since I am charging more than anybody else in the
area, I don't think the attraction is based on that, or my sparkling
personality.
Tuners don't listen like music lovers or pianists, any more than river
boat captains view the river's surface like normal people.
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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