temperament

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

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In a message dated 11/18/00 7:49:17 PM Central Standard Time, 
caccola@net1plus.com (Clark)
 writes:


> > The G-D, D-A, and A-E fifths were tempered  by 1/3 syntonic comma 
> > ( 7 cents).
> >  Stanhope considered these fifths "offensive".
> 
> Interesting that fifths about this wide aren't so grating as these flat
> ones, and I gots instruments tuned with both!
> 
> 

Whoops, sorry about the previous post, I hit the send button unintentionally. 
 Yes, it is interesting that a wide 5th somehow sounds much more tolerable 
than a narrowed one.  But consider the octave, it does too.  While 
Werkmeister taught that a wide 5th would be counterproductive, there were 
others during the same time period who created the Modified Meantone 
Temperaments (MMT) and the milder, 1/6 & 1/7 Comma Meantones.  Many of these 
can be used in the same way that a WEll-Temperament (WT) is used.  The power 
of the mild "Wolf" can be astonishing.

I had a German style diatonic accordion made by a Cajun friend of mine in 
Louisiana who makes these as his business.  I had him tune my reeds with 2 
cent wide 5ths rather than the 2 cent narrow 5ths that the builder gets from 
his strobe tuner.  Everyone who plays my uniquely tuned accordion is 
atonished by its sound, including the maker.  As hard as I tried to explain 
to him the reasons for what I did, he could not grasp it.  

As many who stick to the original way they were trained to tune in spite of 
knowing of other methods, he still tunes his accordions with StrobeTuner 2 
cent narrow 5ths and 3rds that are technically narrow (he flattens the 3rds 
by 15 cents).  He sticks to this way of tuning because he says it is 
"traditional" and that even though my way sounds good to him, he is afraid of 
it because no one else has ever proposed anything remotely like it.  He is 
afraid to simply tune an accordion this way because he thinks someone may not 
like it.

Below is a chart for the way I had my "C" Accordion tuned.  When a C Major 
chord is played on mine, it has a bold and clear but slightly lilting sound.  
When the same kind of accordion is played tuned the usual way, it sounds 
distinctly flat and slightly out of tune by comparison.  My tuning actually 
matches the wide intervals that the Cajun musicians and vocalists use while 
the usual tuning always has a distinctly "off" and slightly flat sound. 

In those musical circles, the accordion is often talked about (with some 
degree of frustration) as being slightly out of tune in much the same way as 
other instrumentalists remark that the piano is always slightly out of tune, 
even at its best.  The amazing thing is that there is no reason whatsoever to 
use ET values when tuning it but that is how deeply rooted the notion that a 
scale *must* be equal just to be a real scale is.

  Tuning Chart for C Accordian

Bill Bremmer RPT


PUSH            PULL

E2: -14          G2: +2 

G2: +2           B2: -14 
  
E3: -14          F3: +8 

G3: +2           A3: 0 

C4: -2            B3: -14 

E4: -14           D4: -2 

G4: +2           F4: +8 

C5: 0             A4: 0

G5: +4           D5: 0 

C6: +2            F5: +10 

E6: -10           A5: +2 

G6: +6           B5: -12 
 
C7: +4           D6: +2 

E7: -8            F6: +12 

G7: +8           A6: +4 

Note: the usual way to tune this instrument has all values at 0 except the 
E's and the B's which are tuned at -15.

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin

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