Jeff, I agree with what you said. There are too many times when a technician wants to delve into so many different things that, instead of being able to perfect the skills that are needed, they can compromise these skills by being a jack of all trades. While I fine nothing wrong with wanting to broaden one's horizons, you can get to a point of diminishing a needed skill in one area just for the sake of saying that you can now do something else that you never did before and in the long run it does not amount to a hill of beans. If you and many others are like me, you have a tough time trying to keep things as good as they should and need to be let alone trying to go after something that you might use once in your life if even then. God bless Bill Balmer, RPT Ohio Northern University and the University of Findlay In a message dated 03/01/09 19:09:02 US Eastern Standard Time, tannertuner at bellsouth.net writes: ----- Original Message ----- From: <A440A at aol.com> > Too many "every's". The impossibility of any one person knowing every > temperament and its applicability to every piece of music has nothing to > do with > improving our skills and increasing our offerings. > What I was suggesting was that by increasing our knowledge, and > broadening our horizons, we may be able to offer more of what people are > willing to > purchase. That is the way it has worked out for me, and I do encourage > any tech > that wants more out of his career to consider a multi-temperament ability. > If you consider more knowledge to be a burden, then it would be best to > continue on with the singular offering of only using one approach to > tempering. > Regards, > Ed Foote RPT Ed, Of course I do not consider more knowledge a burden! And I certainly am in favor of improving our skills! But the reality that the more one diversifies his skills offerings the less skilled he is capable of being at any one is certainly a consideration. And the reality of what is a wise investment of time is another. As much as we as a collective group might pretend our abilities are endless, the reality is that human beings have limits to what we can capably perform. My general perception of most CAUT situations is that the tech(s) will have far more work to do than they can get to just doing general maintenance and repair, and/or that budgets typically don't even allow adequate basic maintenance. For those of you who have a lot of free time on your hands, perhaps it is a worthwhile pursuit. But I very much see this pursuit as taking time away from other far more pressing needs. One might compare it with bank CEOs spending millions on corporate parties while their institutions are going bankrupt. That said, it is obvious you completely misunderstand my point of view. I am absolutely not opposed to being able to offer more than one temperament option IF REQUESTED. But it must be tempered as such. It is a massive field of knowledge the enormity of which and the future implications of which I think are not being considered by those who are promoting it. In fact, I surmise that you see it as not so complicated because you yourself are limiting what you are offering. I perceive from your writings that you are only offering one UET simply because it suits your personal taste. If I understand you correctly, then, you aren't doing it out of consideration for what is historically appropriate. I am concerned that this fad, which seems to have been introduced by piano tuners as as much of a novelty marketing tool as anything else (which you describe above), could result in the Pandora's Box you agree contains "too many every's". Consider this recent thread where at least three (I quit counting) different results for 1/7 Comma Mean Tone were presented, and the requesting artist himself had two separate versions of the temperament for different brands of piano. And don't you find it quite an ignorant deduction that since one particular Steinway A was different on account of inharmonicity that all Steinways should be tuned with one set of offets and all other brands with a different set? How absurd! Each different piano will require a different set of ETD offsets because of inharmonicity! Now apply that to how many tuners published their own versions of temperaments over the past, oh, 350 years. I can just imagine every modern composer licking his/her chops to see just how many different ways a piano can be tuned. And to do them correctly (if that is even possible), they would have to be learned aurally because of the effects of inharmonicity -- all while other work is going undone. Consider how Mr Cage's simple placement of a few screws, bolts, mutes and bamboo reed shards between the strings of the O in his studio (the only means of which to accurately replicate according to his instructions is to perform his compositions on a similarly scaled instrument) has resulted in many composition departments now requiring their students to present at least one non-traditional piano use composition, to the point where we've seen fine concert pianos beaten on with empty beer cans and pianos dismantled on stage with power tools. Just imagine where this temperament thing could go because it doesn't only go backwards in time -- it goes forwards as well. The possibilities are literally endless. (I'm sure some of you see this as exciting. I see it as daunting.) Consider how we're having a tough enough time to encourage piano tuners to take and pass the PTG exam for "Equal Temperament". And yet, the burden will be on each piano tuner to be able to master so many possibilities. I certainly think it is foolhearty to promote the idea that piano tuners be considered "experts" in the field of knowledge to link any particulary composition with its <historically appropriate> temperament, which was the genesis for this discussion, when apparently even those who have doctorates in that field of knowledge can't agree. Bearing in mind that most keyboard players tuned their own instruments and did so quite regularly, that fact alone makes this pursuit more impossible. From what I've read, it seems we can evaluate what circumstantial evidence exists, but when it comes down to it, we really do not know how any particular artist actually tuned on a daily basis. (I remain of the opinion that in all likelihood, because of the absence of climate control, most tunings would have in no time resembled our modern equivalent of that which might be heard on your average practice room piano, and much of this hype about the relevance of temperament character is much ado over nothing.) I'm sorry if my differing opinion offends anyone. That is not my intention. But the promotion of this pursuit seems to me for those among us who have a lot of extra time on their hands and thinks everyone else is no different. We do not all experience the same circumstances. I don't see my position as limiting my horizons. But at some point you do have to be realistic with how many you can focus on if you are to do anything well. And I think I have adequately explained how I can see this temperament pursuit as a slippery slope. My own perception is that we arrived at (quasi) ET for fixed pitch instruments because the evolving demands of music and the practicality of modern circumstances require it, or something as close as possible. And in my experience, 99.999% of the time, quasi ET, while perhaps not ideal for each one, is a perfectly useful umbrella for all music types. I think to reintroduce all the other possibilities that were a part of that evolution (and beyond) is to open a box we, or those who follow us, might later wish we hadn't. Jeff -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut_ptg.org/attachments/20090302/f0a00da5/attachment-0001.html>
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