Do you know this Man ??/Dr. Braide White/John Travis/Jim Coleman/Pure 5ths

[Billbrpt@aol.com]

    Now cone on guys!  I too, was confused at the time by this book.  I still
remember the quote, "We shall not tune pianos by turning tuning pins".  I
wondered to myself  how we were going to tune them if we didn't.
    Pin bending was going on at that time.  Fads come and go.  One of my
Chapter colleague's wife's piano has some incredibly bent pins from the
"Stayin' Alive Disco '70's".  He got that customer, and a wife and 5 kids
because the pin bender told her that if she was that particular about that
"bobbling" hammer, "SHE SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT A GRAND".  The pin bender has been
out of buisiness since 1985.  He put a lot of paper puchings on a lot of
balance rail felts and left 'em there,  also broke off quite a few plate
bolts during his "rebuilding" efforts and glued 'em back in "so nobody would
 know".  He liked to drill his new "F***ng Wood" pinblocks by hand with a
1/4" drill.  He couldn'nt get them pins in but about half way.  Bending 'em
back & forth worked real good for him!  How would YOU like to deal with his
messes?
    I learned my hammer technique from Jim Coleman in 1979 at the Convention
in Minneapolis during his lecture with George Defebaugh.  I still use these
basic approaches today.  Strip mute the entire piano, rough tune with
"anticipated drop" as George called it, then fine tune.  These guys who are
whining about 8 cents don't seem to live on the same planet I do.  I tune
virtually every piano twice.  The usual time is 45-60 minutes.
 Coleman-Defebaugh were what worked for me "You can tune a piano a lot faster
& better twice than you can FIGHT with it once".   The only change I've made
since then was when I bought Charlie Heuther's "Wonder Wand".  Never touched
a regular tuning hammer since the first time I picked it up.
    I put my hammer typically at 2 o'clock and "tap, tap" with the palm of my
hand.   I hear people who INSIST that the hammer MUST be at 12 o'clock.  Some
say that a verticle can ONLY be tuned with the LEFT hand!!!   Believe me,
that would be the ONLY way I COULDN'T  tune one!
    John Travis (May God Bless his soul)  wrote that we should begin our
temperament on F# or C#, that way it would be "MORE EQUAL".  How could a
temperament be "more equal"?  It is either equal or it isn't.  Does this
perhaps mean that some people who were (and still are) tuning a temperament
they THOUGHT was equal really wasn't?  Hmmm?  I dare say that if you tune by
ear and you start on C or A and tune all the white note 5ths first in a
typical DR. WILLIAM BRAID WHITE pattern,  and get them just a little too pure
as in the now popular fad "EQUAL TEMPERAMENT BY PURE 5THS" then tune your
black key 5ths last and  find out that this just isn't quite working out and
start backing up through the temperament and end up with black key 5ths which
are tempered a little too much,  Voilą!, you will have the most popular
temperament of the day, "REVERSE-WELL TEMPERAMENT".  Not only will it NOT be
equal, it will be in a pattern which is direct opposition to a true
Historical Temperament.  
     I find much more of this going on than I am comfortable with.  All those
who CONDEMN the use of Historical Temperaments inevitably tune in Reverse
Well.  So much so, that I have come up with a proverbe for it:  "He who
tuneth in Reverse Well believeth in all his heart that his temperament is
Equal and shall cast stones against those who speaketh the truth against him"
 William 1:1    
     George Orwell made fun of this kind of notion in his novel, Animal Farm:
 The Pigs declared after a time that they were MORE EQUAL than the rest of
the animals!
     The point of all of this is that you have to accept with a certain grain
of salt virtually anything you read.  All textbooks eventually become
obsolete even though their basic premise might still be valid.  There are
ideas which come and go.  I beileve Jim Coleman brought up this ET with Pure
5ths idea (which is CERTAINLY not new, it is the Steinway Hall practice since
at least the early 20's) just to see what kind of trouble he could stir up
and he certainly did.
     What really is valid about this idea is the notion of "tempered octaves"
which makes too many people uncomfortable to even THINK about.   Believe me
fellas, you don't need  harsh 3rds in the temperament octave to make F5 on up
sound in tune.  The "pure 5ths" (which are not really possible) sound good on
a large Steinway Concert Grand in a large Hall because it is a high
Inharmonicity instrument and you want clarity and projection out of it.  Try
doing that on a small, ordinary piano in someone's home and you'll just make
it sound SOUR.
    So let's stop TRASHING Dr. Stevens and his book and leave it on the
shelf.  Use it to point out how ideas and notions change, if you will but
trashing his credentials as a PhD doesn't do anyone any good.  Why not come
up with a list of Do's & Dont's regarding hammer technique and show various
styles that can work for different people?
     Bill Bremmer, RPT
     Madison, WI