Hi Paul: OK, now I understand what you meant by the difference between temperament and tuning. You are really proposing that sometime a tuneoff should be held to see if indeed there is a preference for an historical tuning over against an equal temperament tuning when the octave stretch style is maintained the same (just as I tried to do in Chicago) so that an audience will be judging only the temperament differences. My guess is that even an audience of technicians would not be able to tell in a blind test which was which in a music playing situation, but they would be able to tell which sound they liked the best even if the musical selections covered the gamut of key tonalities. Well, I think it would be very interesting. You know, I have already done listening and comparison tests in 3 situations where the audience did not know ahead of time that I had tune a piano completely in a Well temperament. The audience definitely expressed how much they liked the sound of the piano as far as octaves and unisons were concerned, but did not have a clue that there was anything "wrong" with the temperament. In that situation more than one person said in essence: I have never heard a Yamaha C3 sound that big and clear before." Yes, we did have selections played in the more distant keys as well as the favored keys. Poulenc was played as well as Debussy. I was surprised at the reception this particular mild Well temperament had received (is that redundant or what?). BTW I had used that same Moore 18th Century Well temperament on a CD recording of the complete piano works of Ravel. Jim Coleman, Sr. On 13 Mar 1997, Paul N. Bailey wrote: > Hi Jim: > > >What do you mean by the difference between temperament and tuning? > >I guess I really don't understand. > > I'm thinking in order to limit the variables as much as > possible, use a group of the same model piano, and tune each > with it's own RCT Ch.II generated tuning- using the same Octave Tuning > Style for each piano. Advantage: each piano is'tuned' the same way > re: octaves' relation to IH. Disadvantage: perhaps there are things > to be learned about interaction of temperaments and octaves... > Some very fine tuners 'stretch' to compromise between > double octaves and octave -fifths. I mean, they don't stretch > the same for every note; if it's the upper note of a just fifth, > it gets a different stretch than the upper note of a tempered > fifth. I'm not convinced this is best, > but I'm not sure - To "allow" it in this 'event' would be a great > learning opportunity, but would compromise the temperament comparison, > I suppose.... I have to think about this some more. > > Clear as chocolate pudding? or maybe lime jello? > Paul Bailey > > > Hi Paul: > > I don't think I understood your last phrase in the snip below: > > > So we could have temperament comparison tune-off events. > I'd almost be more interested to see whether audiences would prefer > rivals of et to et ; or 'mild' w.t.'s (victorian w.t.'s ) to et. > "You can't step in the same river twice" and all that, but maybe > we could have a small handfull of new somethings (Kawais?) and > we could eliminate many variables, change only the temperament, and > not the tuning, if you understand.... > > > > What do you mean by the difference between temperament and tuning? > I guess I really don't understand. > > Jim Coleman, Sr. > >
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