On Apr 22, 2010, at 11:59 AM, Laurence Libin wrote: > Would anyone care to speculate on what influence the rise of piano > tuning as a separate profession might have had on temperament > issues? Over time, might the profession have moved in the direction > of homogenizing or standardizing tunings more than had been the case > earlier? One assumes that, as a practical matter, players of stringed keyboard instruments learned to tune from their teachers. Hence, you would have a great deal of variability, both with respect to how well a given teacher taught tuning, and between teachers in the same area, let alone regional differences. (One should note that in the days of 1/4 comma mean tone, there would have been considerable homogenization across Europe. 1/4 comma mean tone is not subject to variability, at least as an ideal - obviously one can vary in one's skill, but it will be obvious if the thirds are just or aren't). The rise of the profession of tuning came at the same time as industrialization, with book learning becoming a much more important component (tuning and repair manuals/books began to be published shortly after 1750 in Germany). I'm not sure there are any records of tuning being taught systematically as a profession prior to Montal at the Paris school for the blind in the 1820s. We might assume apprenticeship (probably at a manufacturer) as the major means of education, unless someone picked up a book and self-taught. In urban centers, it seems it was customary to get a tuner from a local manufacturer, even in the times of harpsichords (I am thinking Pepys and Jean Denis here). The profession as an independent way to make a living probably arose when there was enough demand that individuals could branch off on their own, I'd suspect between the very late 18th century and mid 19th century. Over a great deal of time, there was more homogenization as standard textbooks were published, and as there was more communication between manufacturers, musicians and technicians. But one may well ask compared to what? What were the individual differences prior, and what evidence to we have of those differences? I would say the major homogenization would be adoption of particular methods and/or sequences, which might lead to more refined and standardized skill levels. > If so, could this suggest that ET might have become prevalent first > in urban areas, where most tuners worked, and slower to catch on in > the provinces? If you were out in the country, who knows what you would find, but it probably wouldn't be very refined (you might well need to make arrangements for someone from the city to travel out to your house). Older methods might well survive, and I think they would likely be of a mean tone variety, even well into the 19th century. There is plenty of documentary evidence of rough methods tuning outward from A to G# (up) and Eflat (down) and leaving the "waste" in that location, even in early ET methods. (Interestingly, Moore & Co tuners used that pattern according to Ellis, though they started at what had become the standard tuning fork C). > Are there any studies of whether temperaments are easier to > distinguish on harpsichords than on pianos, and on fortepianos > compared to modern grands? I am unaware of any studies. Many people make that claim, reasonably enough, basing it on the relative prominence of upper partials. Regards, Fred Sturm fssturm at unm.edu “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.” Brecht -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20100422/5b48dd50/attachment.htm>
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