HT's (was: Re: May the 4ths be with you)

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

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In a message dated 8/25/02 12:20:28 PM Central Daylight Time, 
jonpage@attbi.com (Jon Page) writes:


> I'm finishing a concert series today and the requested temperament is the 
> Moore WT after the Artistic Director
> heard the tuning in my shop last winter. So far the WT has been used in 
> this series on a S&S B, a long A, and a Yamaha 7'4"
> with great success. Today it goes on a D for a performance with Dawn 
> Upshaw.  They rehearsed on the Yamaha on Friday
> and requested the WT for today's performance.
> 
> Another series last month requested the same tuning after hearing a piano 
> tuned in the Moore WT in performance.
> More and more musicians are requesting the change.
> 
> I like the Moore, it is real close to ET but just askew enough to give the 
> tuning more character. ET sounds bland now.
> 
I'm so glad to read about this happening.  Folks are finally beginning to 
understand what I've been trying to say for so long.  I've found a couple of 
other lists and have seen that everyone has the same set of 
misunderstandings.  It's what people have been taught, it's what they read in 
books, things which are not and never were true.

I'm thrilled at reading about Dawn Upshaw.  I saw her rehearsing at Carnegie 
Hall when I was studying at Steinway with Scott Jones.  I heard her just 
yesterday on the radio singing a couple of Bernstein songs.  Brian Lawson 
sent me an essay he found in which Bernstein and ET were cited.  It was 
perpetuating the same misinformation that Isacoff in his book, "Temperament" 
did:  that ET in and of itself was *responsible* for the way music evolved 
and sounds today.  Ted Sambell tried to tell me that too.  It just is not 
true.

What is true is that temperament did evolve away from the restrictiveness of 
the early Meantones, Pythagorean and Just Intonation tunings.  It evolved to 
a point where all 24 Major and minor keys became useful but tuning did not 
take a quantum leap to what we know today to be ET.  The early Well Tempered 
Tunings such as Kirnberger and Werkmeister, even up to the Milder ones like 
Vallotti and Young are still too unequal and harsh sounding to be generally 
accepted today.  They can only be used in certain specific cases which are 
rare.

The Temperament Festival where I demonstrated the EBVT side by side with 
Virgil Smith's ET was not a contest nor a fight.  I did not "win" nor did I 
"beat" Virgil Smith.  The whole purpose was to show that the very best of 
standard practice is not the only acceptable way to tune.  It is not the 
"final solution" as Isacoff put it.  Nor is EBVT or any other idea the one to 
end all ideas.

I have said anytime I have been asked to speak about the EBVT that what I do 
is only an example of what anyone can do who wants to.  I learned what I know 
from PTG.  But rather than simply copying some numbers out of a book and 
dialing them into an ETD, I took the ideas I had learned, digested them and 
set about to tune the piano differently and *tempered* it according to what I 
know would work in today's world.

I thank David Anderson for his interest.  I am originally from Los Angeles 
and often go back there at Christmas time.  So, I may be available in a few 
months, it depends on a few things which are pending here right now.

But as for presenting these kinds of ideas at Regional Seminars and the 
Annual Convention, I have no choice but to once again point the finger (the 
way Ted Sambell says he never does) at the Institute Committees.  They don't 
want it.  They'll tell you that they have had this and that to show that I am 
wrong when I say this but the truth is that they don't even want it on the 
schedule and never have.

That Temperament Festival in 1998 was hugely successful and much was written 
about it in spite of everything the Institute Directors tried to do to 
downplay it.  It was never to be allowed again.  Yes, they gave Ed Foote a 
couple of classes and everyone liked them and wrote lots of things about 
them.  But Ed was only allowed a little time and limited resources.  From 
what I read, he did well with them.

The Chicago Convention was great by all accounts but I read absolutely 
nothing about Dave Lamoureaux's class.  This is exactly where the Institute 
Directors want the discussion of tuning alternatives:  in the closet, in that 
one, odd ball class, in the hallway on a junk piano.

It will be a long, long time before any of the people I know of who make 
these decisions and run these events will ever do what seems to be the 
obvious.  They'll organize big, marathon sessions about anything else, 
soundboard, pinblock installation, they'll rebuild an entire piano right 
before your eyes but they'll *NEVER* allow you to hear what you really want 
to hear.  They'll always have a good excuse too:  not enough room, not enough 
interest, we're all volunteers, we're overworked, that's too much stress on 
us and most importantly, there is that one guy behind all of this that we'd 
kick out of PTG if we could.

the Institute Directors always say they listen to the membership about what 
classes they'll offer and want to do what the membership wants.  Now is the 
time when they are making their plans and decisions.  It is up to the 
membership to let the Institute Committee know what it wants to see and hear.

I don't expect anything to happen this coming year nor for the foreseeable 
future.  I hope this is one thing I can be proven wrong about.

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin
 <A HREF="http://www.billbremmer.com/">Click here: -=w w w . b i l l b r e m m e r . c o m =-</A> 

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