In a message dated 6/18/00 9:09:32 AM Central Daylight Time,
Vinny_Samarco@ima.connections.com writes:
<< Besides studying piano tuning, I am a music History teacher and have
been writing and researching a college-level course for a number of years.
I had always read that Bach tuned in equal temperament.
Recently, a former tuning teacher from PHTC told me that Bach
tuned in well-temperament, not equal.
First of all, Could someone tell me what is well-temperament? and
Secondly, could you tell me hhow you know that Bach did not tune
in equal temperament.
Here is a quote from a booklet accompanying a recording of
the Wtc.
"The only vague testimony we have on the subject comes from his
obituary written by his son C.P.E. Bach, and his pupil J.F.
Agricola. where it states that in the tuning of harpsichords he
achieved so correct and pure a temperament that all the keys
sounded pure and agreable. He knew no keys which because of
impure intonation, one must avoid"
Now, that is all I have ever seen on this subject.
Since I want to teach my students correctly, if any of you
have more insite and information on this subject, i would love to
hear from you. >>
It's truly amazing to me how often this kind of question recurs. There has
been a lot of discussion about it in recent years but it is also true that
many books and other sources such as the liner notes found in recordings
offer information that is either misleading or downright incorrect. Any
teacher of music history ought to locate Professor Owen Jorgensen's 1991 book
of research called, "Tuning" (Michigan Sate University Press) from the
library. It presents a great deal of information, anecdotes and quotations
that cannot be found in any other collection.
Just browsing through it will be quite revealing. It will become more than
obvious that indeed, "Bach did not tune Equal Temperament (ET)". It is easy
to see how the CPE Bach statement would imply ET, given the commonly held
beliefs of today and those of the entire past century but with a greater
understanding of the whole subject of tuning and temperament, it is also easy
to see that the statement could also apply to any number of ways to tune a
keyboard.
Today, it is known that even a very small error in temperament, just one
error of just one cent will turn an ET into something else. Today, there are
Electronic Tuning Devices (ETD) that help a technician produce ET which is
the most difficult of all temperaments to tune accurately. There are also
advanced aural tuning techniques that were largely unknown before 1980.
Previous to that, only the most highly skilled aural tuners could produce a
temperament that was really equal. All others produced only some kind of
approximation, maybe something that wasn't so approximate at all, maybe, even
probably, in many cases, a backwards version of what Bach may have used.
In Bach's time, the Baroque era, it was commonplace to use a tuning system
that is really at the opposite end of the spectrum from ET. It is called the
1/4 Syntonic Comma Meantone Temperament (1/4CMT). It is often called simply
"Meantone" but even this label leads to a great deal of confusion because
there are many different kinds of temperament arrangements which can properly
be called "Meantone", including ET, which can also be defined as a 1/11
Syntonic Comma Meantone Temperament.
The 1/4CMT of Bach's time had 8 pure 3rds. The 4 remaining intervals that we
might think of as 3rds today were not considered to be musically useful.
Additionally, there was a very wide and dissonant 5th produced that was
called the "Wolf" interval. Music of the time was not very harmonically
adventurous: the usual I, IV, V type progressions. In recent years, people
have begun to notice that the music of today that still adheres to these
simple harmonic constraints may also be played in this ancient way of tuning
and have by doing so, have a special quality that cannot be achieved in any
other way.
Beginning with J.S. Bach, there was a desire to find a system of tuning which
would not have these perceived restrictive barriers. The Well-Tempered
Tuning [often called "Well-Temperament"] (WT) was born. It effectively
combined two different ancient tuning systems, the Pythagorean type,
(characterized by pure 5ths and very wide 3rds) and the Meantone
(characterized by highly tempered 5ths and pure or nearly pure 3rds).
This combination of ideas left most of what was considered pleasing about the
MT idea intact but turned the non-useful side of the cycle of 5ths into a
group of useful tonalities that had a strong and vibrant character to them.
The fact that now, with this system [of which there may be literally an
*infinite* number of variations], there were no longer any restrictions, no
reason not to use certain keys, such a temperament came to be called "equal"
by many who tuned and used it even though none of them were really what we
know of as ET today.
The concept of ET is actually very old, as far back as the 27th Century BC in
China. Early fretted instruments even before Bach's time were made in a way
that suggests they would be tuned in ET even though it is possible to tune
them in other ways. Where all of the confusion began was a long time ago but
the end result is that today, almost everyone has been brought up to believe
in something that was never really and entirely true and that virtually never
did exist until quite recently.
Jorgensen writes about this in the first few pages of his book.
"...theorists published several books. Influenced by these, 19th and 20th
Century historians (who had no experience or knowledge concerning the aural
requirements for tuning ET by ear and therefore could not distinguish between
philosophic theory, temperament propaganda, and actual practice by musicians)
published the *false statement* [emphasis added] that J.S. Bach introduced ET
in keyboard practice in 1722 and that most musicians have been using it ever
since. Even today, some uninformed writers state that J.S. Bach *invented*
[emphasis added] ET. This erroneous information is often repeated by today's
musicians."
I would add that this erroneous information is repeated in textbooks,
magazines, record album liner notes and also by many music teachers and piano
technicians. Groves Dictionary of Music, a very important source of
information about music, musicians and composers, apparently contributed to
this misinformation by publishing it for several decades.
The scientist, Helmholtz and the piano technician, Dr. William Braide White
also contributed to this misinformed set of values. Helmholtz could not find
any rationality in the many different ways there were (and still are) to
divide the scale. He ended up proposing the Soloman-like, arbitrary idea
that it should simply be divided equally.
As a scientist, he could produce a table of frequencies. Such things look
authoratative when they are published in books. The result is that most
people today believe in the concept that any particular note of the scale has
an *assigned frequency* To go against that belief is to go against most
information that is readily and commonly available on the subject.
In the early 20th Century, Dr. White picked up on this idea and taught it to
people who wanted to learn to tune the piano, as the only one and correct way
to tune the instrument. His book, "Piano Tuning and the Allied Arts" was the
definitive book of its time. It contained much good and valuable information
which is still useful today. Although and without a doubt, White was a
skilled technician, the information he provided is incomplete by today's
standards. It would be interesting to discover today with what is known
today, how close to a true ET that even White's tunings were.
It seems that no matter how good a text or reference book is, it eventually
becomes obsolete. It is not necessarily that the information is wrong, it is
that it is incomplete. White only recognizes two kinds of temperament:
1/4CMT and ET. The former being considered obsolete, the latter must
prevail. The fact is that there are other ways to tune the piano that are
not temperaments at all and that between 1/4CMT and ET, there are many kinds
of MT, Modified Meantone Temperaments (MMT), WT's, Victorian style WT's,
Quasi-ET's and other possibilities that don't seem to have much of any
precedent but still present an interesting alternative.
White taught factory workers who were often not musicians how to tune and
service the piano. If those people were taught only what White had to teach,
it is easy to understand why today, most people have grown up with ideas
about tuning and temperament that are very fixed and difficult to challenge.
ET has the same appeal to everyone today as it did to Helmholtz and White.
An equal and equitable division of the scale *seems* like the best solution.
Why study or learn anything else?
The problem is that with ET as the sole concept but the difficulty of really
doing it correctly always being there, many people have become content with
whatever attempt or approximation of ET is offered. As it turns out, in most
people's minds, ET is what they want, whether it is said or not and it is
what is expected, whether it is delivered or not. It really is not a lot
different from the way it was thought of in Bach's time: if all 24 major and
minor keys have an acceptable musical quality, that is all that is called for
and that is as close to *equal* as it ever gets.
Unfortunately, as soon as the concept of ET is challenged among piano
technicians, music professionals and amateurs, it provokes strong, deeply
seated emotions and defensive posturing. People begin to think that
"everything I was always taught and in which I always believed is now wrong".
It causes people to dismiss any talk about it as crazy or fanatical. Many
say outright, "I am not interested" and do not read any articles or books nor
attend any lectures nor ever try anything other than what they were first
taught, even if that procedure produces erroneous results every time.
This kind of reaction is just not necessary. One should realize simply that
there is far more to the art and science of tuning than has previously been
taught, discussed, effected and enjoyed. It is not "wrong" to teach students
the music of Bach nor that of any other composer in ET. As many ET stalwarts
have pointed out, the music itself does not change. Bach did not have a
piano as we know it nor any of the other modern day instruments that his
music is often performed on today either. Using a modern instrument in a
temperament that was never used at that time does not mean that the music is
being performed incorrectly.
What is to be discovered however, is that this kind of interpretation is but
one idea and one possibility. In the Renaissance era, new ideas replaced
centuries old, commonly held beliefs that were discovered to be without
foundation. The whole idea of tuning the piano in ways other than ET was
seen by a small minority of technicians as something that would blossom in
the 21st Century. Jorgensen's and others publications gave us the
information we need. A few people practiced and promoted these ideas prior
to the turn of the Century.
The new Century is still quite young, some say that it is still the last year
of the 20th Century. The idea of tuning the piano and other keyboards in
anything but ET still has a great deal of resistance. Most people still
dismiss the idea entirely. But with modern technology, computers and ETD's
to help people explore these ideas, it is expected that the resistance to
tuning alternatives is expected to beak down quickly. It will be interesting
to see what the average person's thinking about this subject is by the years
2010, 2020 and beyond.
At this point, I believe that the most important point to understand is that
virtually all music which people learn, practice, perform and enjoy today is
*tonal* in character. ET is, by definition, an *atonal* temperament. In the
quest to make the keyboard able to perform *all* kinds of music, the tuning
system proposed goes much further than is necessary to accomplish this
versatility. It makes a great deal of sense, therefore, to begin to explore
and learn what other possibilities there are and which of those provide the
most satisfactory compromise for general use and also, which of those may be
desirable only in special circumstances. There simply has to be something
more at our disposal than a "One Size Fits All" system of tuning.
Let's get back to the Future, not the Dark Ages.
Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin
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