In a message dated 12/5/99 8:19:34 AM Pacific Standard Time, kswafford@earthlink.net (Kent Swafford) writes: << My personal preference when dealing with a large difference in inharmonicity at the tenor break is to give up on smooth beat rates in the 3rds in favor of smooth beat rates in the 4ths, 5ths, and octaves. >> Dear Kent, With all due respect to you as someone from who I personally have learned a lot, how do I say it without being inflammatory, condescending, insulting or just plain irritating? The above statement suggests that one ignore errors or variances which can easily result in the piano being tuned in Reverse Well. Between the two of us, we have made many fine points about ET. One principle that I have always believed in regarding ET is that *all* intervals must be given *equal* consideration. Your own words here, <<...to give up on smooth beat rates in the 3rds in favor of ...>> will make your outcome not really be a true ET. Granted, the variance may be so slight that it is of no musical consequence but unless you pay attention to the new beat rates of these 3rds, you may not realize that you have actually created a kind of pattern which is actually adverse to the desired musical outcome. I hear of your idea quite often. It seems that piano technicians believe that the tempered sound of 4ths, 5ths and even octaves is unacceptable. We all wish we could make all of these perfectly pure. In the quest to do so, many people make the error of ignoring the pattern of beating among the 3rds. In my opinion, these Rapidly Beating Intervals (RBI) are actually more important to a good musical sound from the piano than are the Slowly Beating Intervals (SBI). The reason is that the RBI's produce the resonance and vibrato-like effect that we hear from the piano. In a musical context, slight impurity and/or inconsistency in the SBI's is virtually imperceptible. Of course, to the technician who is *constructing* a temperament and tuning, one string and one interval at a time, the impure sound of a tempered interval is quite apparent. It is easy to argue that 2:1 octaves sound "purer", for example. And while this kind of octave has its own characteristic and value, it is not necessarily "better" simply because of the way it is perceived in a certain context. Your idea of using a minimally stretched octave when tuning a high inharmonicity scale on a spinet seems contradictory to logic at first consideration. But as I have learned from both you and Virgil Smith RPT recently, you can give the piano a sweeter, more harmonious sound by doing so. So, I think it is a good idea and one which should be tried. If it appeals to the technician doing it and the customer, then it is a good approach to use. However, deciding <<to give up on smooth beat rates in the 3rds in favor of 4ths, 5ths and octaves>> as you have suggested, without considering the consequences can end up making the piano sound just as unpleasant as some other kind of approach such as the ET with pure 5ths which creates harshness in all RBI's. You would need to be aware of the Cycle of 5ths and Andreas Werkmeister's Rules for Well-Tempered Tuning to avoid this error. If you really do end up with uneven RBI's, you will no longer have ET. You may have a Quasi ET or a Victorian style temperament. There is certainly nothing wrong with either of those. If the piano sounds good and so does any music played on it, then it is good. To ignore that these variances create something other than equality merely to avoid the idea that the piano could only be properly and ethically tuned in ET is frankly self deceiving. It gets into the indefensible position that "It is ET if I say it is and if I mean it to be, any of those little variances don't matter. No artist or customer *ever* complained about that. And by the way, I don't like HT's". In my experience, such thinking *invariably* leads to a piano tuned in Reverse Well but of course, the person who has tuned it that way does not and cannot perceive and recognize that fact. I completely agree with your opening statement, <<These are all _very_ successful pianos so we must be careful about how we discuss the tuning of these instruments. >> Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC