Jorgensen's Book "Tuning" available from Schaff

Billbrpt@AOL.COM Billbrpt@AOL.COM
Tue, 26 Sep 2000 15:04:46 EDT


Recently, Richard Brekne asked about where he could get Prof. Owen 
Jorgensen's book, "Tuning".  I had heard that it was out of print but when 
placing an order with Schaff Piano Supply Co. today, I saw that it was listed 
and asked if it was still available.  I was told that it is still available 
and that it is back in print.

Orders may be placed on the Internet by contacting their website at:

www.schaffpiano.com


Jorgensen wrote two other very important publications which are out of print: 
 Tuning the Historical Temperaments by Ear and a Handbook for Tuning the 
Equal Beating Temperaments.  Both of these have some very valuable 
temperaments which are not found in the big red book, Tuning.

One of my Chapter Members, Tim Farley RPT got permission to photocopy the HT 
by Ear book and made dozens of copies which were sold at cost.  Jorgensen 
will grant permission to anyone who wishes to photocopy his out of print 
publications.  I also have a photocopy of the Handbook.

One temperament which has become popular and been the subject of discussion 
and controversy, the 1/7 Comma Meantone Temperament can only be found in the 
HT by Ear book and does not have electronic tuning "correction figures".  
Since this particular temperament has been found to be so useful however, 
several years ago I made a single sheet print out of the material in the book 
*plus* the electronic tuning data (as was calculated by Paul Bailey RPT) not 
only for the 1/7 Comma Meantone (7MT) itself but for 2 variations of it, the 
1/7 Comma Modified Meantone Temperament and the 1/7 Comma Victorianized 
Modified Meantone Temperament.

I can scan that sheet and send it as a TIFF file to anyone interested.  For 
that matter, I could scan any temperament from the Handbook too.  I should 
also mention that Tim Farley invented a variation of the 1/7 Comma Meantone 
where he tunes the B3-E4 4th pure.  This leaves the top of the Cycle of 5ths 
the same but takes the edge off of the harshness at the bottom and makes the 
"Wolf" less wide (and less dissonant) by 2 cents.

Theoretically, the same modification could be made to the two variations 
mentioned above.  Making that modification to the Victorianized version would 
render another Equal Beating Victorian Temperament (EBVT) although it would 
not be the same as the one I designed.  It would, however, be an excellent 
choice of temperament design to use on the modern piano as a universal 
substitute for Equal Temperament (ET) as would the 7MT or any of its 
variations.

If you have been looking for something in the way of a Historical Temperament 
for the modern piano but have not found anything that you really like yet, I 
would highly recommend trying one of the above.  While I don't have the 
"numbers" for the 1/7 EBVT, they could easily be calculated.

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin


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