Coleman vs Coleman Tuneoff

[Jim Coleman, Sr.]

Hi David:

We missed you this year.

I played in the best and worst of keys. Chopin Nocturne in F#minor,
Chopin "Raindrop Prelude in Db Major, Schumann Traumerei in F Major,
Scenes from Childhood G major, modern Gospel song "I love Him" in
F major, chords and octaves in many different keys. After identifying
the Well Tempered tuning, I played the Raindrop in Db and then in C
to show why Chopin chose to write it in Db to take advantage of the
popular style of tuning in his day. It really adds intensity to the
macabre nature of the piece.

Jim Coleman, Sr.


On Tue, 16 Feb 1999, David ilvedson wrote:

> Jim,
> 
> Unfortunately I wasn't at the Cal Convention this year, but I 
> have got to ask what you played?  I would think you would have 
> to play a number of pieces in different keys to get a real 
> judgement from those poor defenseless tuners.  Did you play a 
> piece in the best sounding key for the Moore tuning?  
> 
> David Ilvedson, RPT
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > Date:          Tue, 16 Feb 1999 16:32:37 -0700 (MST)
> > From:          "Jim Coleman, Sr." <pianotoo@imap2.asu.edu>
> > Subject:       Coleman vs Coleman Tuneoff
> > To:            pianotech@ptg.org
> > Reply-to:      pianotech@ptg.org
> 
> > I thought there may be some who would be interested in the latest Tuneoff.
> > 
> > At the California State Conference Feb 12-14, I taught a class on Advanced
> > Tuning. At the beginning of each class I presented two identical pianos
> > which had just been tuned in different temperaments. One was just a standard
> > SAT FAC tuning which incidentally is a very good tuning on a Yamaha C3. The 
> > other tuning was the Moore 18th Century Well Temperament which had some 
> > notes tuned 2.5 and 3.0 cents off from equal temperament.
> > 
> > After playing identical selections on the two pianos, I asked the class
> > which piano they thought was the one with the "funny" tuning (actually, I
> > used the words Moore Well tempered tuning). In the Friday class, the voting 
> > was fairly even. 54% thought the FAC tuning was the Well Tempered Tuning and
> > only 46% guessed correctly. In the Sunday afternoon class, 80% thought that
> > the FAC Tuning was the Well Tempered Tuning. I next asked which piano they
> > liked best as far as tuning was concerned. It was almost unanimously decided
> > in favor of the Well Tempered Tuning. All of the voting was done without the
> > audience really knowing which piano had which tuning.
> > 
> > I asked for a show of hands as to how many in the audience were musicians.
> > My estimate was at about 95%. I confessed my ulterior motive for doing this
> > kind of demonstration. In 1977 Dr. Sanderson and I were asked by the then
> > President Don Morton to develop a standardized Tuning test for the Guild. 
> > We adjusted our scoring procedures so that 80% of the then RTT members would
> > pass at the 80% score. Being a perfectionist as I am in some areas, I began
> > pushing for tighter scoring in the Temperament area. We later adopted a 
> > multiplier system such that the total error points would be multiplied by
> > 2.5 and then subtracted from 100% to give the final Temperament Score. 
> > We have used this tighter scoring procedure for almost 20 years now. The 
> > question in my mind is: "Have we tightened our scoring to satisfy the
> > elitests? Are we now just 'gilding the Lily'? If an audience of piano 
> > technicians who are also musicians cannot tell the difference between
> > equal temperament and a mild historical temperament, are we on an ego trip?
> > Are we setting standards to protect our little clique? Are our standards set
> > to protect the public from shoddy work? Which is it?"
> > 
> > I asked for a show of hands in the advanced tuning class for those who think
> > we have elevated our temperament standards too high. The voting was almost
> > unanimous. I mentioned that I had talked to some very well respected tuners
> > who also agreed with me that we are guilding the lily. I do believe that
> > we should keep the 1 cent tolerance for scoring the points in the mid-range
> > and temperament section, but that we should relax the conversion 
> > multipliers. I further believe that we should add some questions in our
> > written test to include various test intervals to be used in making 
> > decisions as to whether an interval is too wide or too narrow. With this
> > covered in the written test, we can save time during the tuning test scoring
> > by eliminating much of the hesitancy on the part of the examinee in
> > aurally verifying his penalty points. I do still believe that Equal 
> > Temperament should be our testing standard, but that we have just
> > made it more difficult for associate members to upgrade because of our
> > arbitrarily tightened standards.
> > 
> > This is the third year in which I have conducted this type of test in my
> > classes. The results have been even more demonstrative in other classes. At
> > the Arizona Conference this year and at the Calif. State Conf. last year,
> > almost the entire audience guessed wrong when asked to identify the piano
> > which had the Well temperament.
> > 
> > My question to this group is: Do you feel that our temperament standards 
> > are a little too high? I would like some feedback. I am not promoting
> > Historical or hysterical tunings. In all of the classes where I have done
> > this type of test, it was conceded that both tunings were good tunings.
> > 
> > Have I opened a "can or worms" or what?
> > 
> > Jim Coleman, Sr.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> David Ilvedson, RPT
> Pacifica, CA
> ilvey@jps.net
>