Normalization of Historical Temperaments

[Greg Newell]

Absolute pitch of "A" for my purposes. Then I can adjust up or down as i see
fit through the use of offset. My 2 cents.

Greg

Robert Scott wrote:

> I have been wondering for quite some time whether I should normalize all
> the historical temperaments for TuneLab so that their average offset is
> zero.  This question has been touched on briefly here on pianotech, but I
> thought I might poll the users of historical temperaments to see if there
> is any consensus.
>
> Basically, the question is how to normalize a temperament that is defined
> by 12 offsets from equal temperament.  It seems to me that a very important
> goal is to be able to switch between an historical temperament and equal
> temperament without changing the overall pitch of the piano and thus not
> incurring any pitch-raise problems.  I have seen some historical
> temperaments that are defined by offsets that are all positive.  This means
> that every note is either at the same pitch or a higher pitch when the
> piano is tuned to the historical temperament.  The average pitch change can
> be as much as 5 cents.  Given the choice between tuning a piano that is
> already at pitch and a piano that needs a 5 cent pitch raise, what would
> you choose?  On the other hand, if the 12 offsets for an historical
> temperament are all uniformly raised or lowered so that their average
> becomes zero, then this minimizes the pitch-change difficulties when
> applying the temperament.  The musical properties of the temperament would
> be unaffected by such a shift since the properties of a temperament are
> dependent on the differences between the 12 offsets and not their absolute
> value.
>
> The other common way to normalize a temperament is to ensure that the
> offset for A is zero.  This goal ensures that if someone were to check the
> tuning of the piano using an A-440 fork, they would be satisfied.  While
> checking A-440 in ET may be valid way to check the overall pitch setting of
> a piano, I don't think it has as much meaning when tuning an HT.  But then
> if A-440 is used as a pitch reference for tuning an orchestra, perhaps the
> absolute pitch of this one note does matter, even in HT.
>
> So my question is, which is more important to you when you tune an
> historical temperament - the average pitch of the whole piano or the
> absolute pitch of A?
>
> -Robert Scott
>   Real-Time Specialties

--
Greg Newell
mailto:gnewell@ameritech.net