Rachmaninoff in ET???

[Susan Kline]

Bill, you still seem to be laboring under a deep confusion. You do not
admit that ET can still work acceptably as ET when it is _near_
rather than totally _exact_ with an unreasonable perfection imperceptible
in music to any human ear. That is, once again you totally refuse to admit 
that there is a tolerance. As I said, way back last January,

> When you say that temperament either is _exactly_ equal, or it isn't equal
> at all, you are confusing a scientific and a musical definition. There is
> always a tolerance, even with the ETD.

Also, you are forgetting (or refusing to admit) that individual notes can 
be wrong in any way except a mistake in temperament. A single note can be
out of tune with the same notes in other octaves. A note can have a bad
unison. A treble note can have an octave stretch that a performer doesn't
like. 

But this confusion pales before your real problem, which is that you seem
to think you can win an argument by attacking your opponent rather than by
demonstrating why your opinion is right. "Pecking order" is foul enough,
but calling people "peckers" is obscene. You do not win arguments by
destroying 
them. It only reflects back on you, and makes it unlikely that people will
accept anything you say, even when you are right. 

This will not do any good. Oh, well, Les said his roses needed some more of
your fertilizer. I only hope I get another chance to "take it from one who
knows." He has far more to say than we have heard, and his health is very 
fragile. He has seen and heard and studied during a long life of intense
devotion not just to piano tuning but to music as well. You will not see 
his face here again. I will send directions for the MPT list to whoever 
wishes them. 

Susan


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At 06:50 PM 10/28/98 EST, you wrote:
>Les Smith writes:
>
><<He played a bit
>and then stopped abruptly and peered in at the strings, distastefully.
>He then whispered something to Bill, while pointing at the piano, and Bill
>immediately retuned the note in question. The final judge as to whether or
>not the note was in tune was not Bill, it was Rachmaninoff.>>
>
>Was it ET before Rachmaninoff intervened or after?  Or was it *more* ET when
>Sergei said it was right?
>
>Then, with contrite erudition, he states,
>
><<(Hey, pal, so much for that pile
>of bill-bull about Romantic Era composers writing quiet, serene pieces,
>"filled with p's, pp's, ppp's and even more when writing in the foreign
>keys.")>>
>
>I guess if Les says these composers didn't do this then we have to take his
>word for it.  When the head of any pecking order pecks, then you've just got
>to back off or you'll be pecked again.  Please don't check any of your 19th
>Century literature.  You cannot argue with whatever those who only want ET
>think.  *They* are right now, always have been and always will be.
>
>I assume too that if the piano had been tuned in a, God forbid, HT, the
>intensity of the musical moment that Les spoke of would have been just a
>little *too* intense.  Therefore, we *need* ET to moderate it.
>
>Take it from the one who knows, folks, he's been here since the days of the
>"real tuners".  They all *know* about those HT's but as everyone already
knows
>without it being written anywhere:  No one ever tunes anything but ET, except
>when the artist points out the note he wants to be *more* ET.
>
>Bill Bremmer RPT
>Madison, Wisconsin
>
>

Susan Kline
P.O. Box 1651
Philomath, OR 97370
skline@proaxis.com