The temperament crusade continues

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 12/11/99 5:10:57 AM Pacific Standard Time, A440A@AOL.COM 
writes:

<<...it seems that there was meantone tuning that was still going of in the 
18th and 
 19th century.  The Broadwood records seem to indicate that some tuners were 
 still tuning this way. >>

In my not so humble opinion on this matter, it continued well into the 20th 
Century and is common practice among certain technicians today, notably but 
not limited to Madison, Wisconsin.  The leader of this movement here, Tim 
Farley RPT noted that one of Madison's finest and most tenured tuners, Mr. 
Chris Teig, who died about 15 years ago and who tuned way into his 90's, 
effectively tuned a mild Meantone Temperament, possibly a 1/7 or 1/8 Comma.

This was accomplished if not intentionally but by default by the specific 
temperament sequence he used and by the amount he tempered his 4ths & 5ths.  
"You always got to have a "wave" in them, you can't make them too pure", he 
would say.  This would leave his unresolved G#(Ab)-Eb 5th slightly wide along 
with its extra wide Ab-C 3rd.  It gave this key an extra vibrancy and it was 
his favorite key to play in when he finished tuning.  He was the most popular 
and in demand tuner in town while he was working full time.

So, I believe that it was probably true that the Broadwood tuners held fast 
to certain ways of tuning, even if they really did not understand exactly 
what kind of temperament they were creating.  Ironically, this happens quite 
a lot today too but I'm afraid that instead of creating some nice Cycle of 
5ths based harmony, the urge and the zeal to make all of the 5ths sound pure 
ends up creating just the opposite kind of effect.  It is truly a tragedy 
that it goes unrecognized but it is not a lot different from the Broadwood 
tuner believing his Meantone Temperament to be "equal".

Consider this very recent statement by the esteemed Dean Reyburn RPT:  

<<Certainly some tweaking could be done by ear on this
tuning even if it's tuned to a 3rd partial smooth curve across the
breaks, but it's unlikely any changes will be more tha[n] 0.5 cents, and
these would have to be done carefully, checking *all* the aural
intervals or it's easy to make one interval better at the expense of
another.>>

I often hear technicians dismiss the importance of very slight errors in the 
Rapidly Beating Intervals. But really, all it takes are a few very small and 
seemingly insignificant errors to turn a well-intentioned attempt at Equal 
Temperament (ET) into the most commonly found error in tuning today, Reverse 
Well.

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin