---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment List, Writers in the last 24 hours on both sides of this issue have made my case often better than I could. Jorgensen's book clearly explains that the mild forms of WT used in the Victorian age were thought of and considered to be ET. I used to make the very same errors when I was learning to tune back in the 1970's. I had a C fork and followed a typical 4ths & 5ths sequence. I was told by a PTG member at the Minneapolis Convention where I sought tutoring that I was tuning the way a great majority of tuners at the time were also working. I faithfully followed the instructions, timing my 5ths to beat 3 in 5 seconds and my 4ths to beat 1 per second. The only thing my instructions said about 3rds were that they would be very rapid, too rapid to count but if there was no rapid beat, something was incorrect. My instructions said that at the end of the sequence if the last 5th didn't work out that my timing must have been off. The solution then was to either start over or work backwards through the sequence until a point of reconciliation was found. This inevitably resulted in a crude, unintentional and misunderstood form of a Well Tempered Tuning. Not that it sounded bad, mind you, it sounded just fine. I toured for a year and a half from late 1971 to early 1973 with an Ice Skating show called Holiday On Ice. I was the Bass player but we had a Baldwin Hamilton that went with us which I earned an extra $25 per week tuning as the show was being set up each week. Both the conductor and the pianist always said I had done a fine and acceptable job, particularly for someone as young as I was at the time. I had never even heard of Meantone or anything other than ET although I really didn't think of the "equal" part of it much at all. It was just "the temperament". I did certainly understand that I could not tune the 4ths and 5ths perfectly pure and avoided that. It was only when I attempted to take the PTG tuning exam in 1979 (just before the implementation of the standardized version) that I was told by my examiners that my temperament was "sweet & sour", only apprentice level. Needless to say, I felt quite defeated by that and showed my PTG card with the big word, "Apprentice" on it to no one. I had the good fortune of attending the famous lectures by Jim Coleman and George Defebaugh in July 1979. This was the first time I had heard of anyone trying to control the rapidly beating intervals. I only understood part of what George Defebaugh said and could not really discern the fine distinctions he was making very well at all. But I took what I had understood and began to work with it. Fortunately, I got to see George's lecture again soon at a Regional seminar and a Chapter meeting. It took only until 1982 to be able to pass the newly Standardized Exam at RPT level with only one score below 90 and then again in early 1983 with all scores above 90, Temperament 100, also pitch, unisons and stability with my lowest score at 92 in the high treble. (I still tune too sharp up there for the PTG Exam). This success, however lead to what I have often seen: the desire to get the 5ths pure, at any cost. In only a couple more years, I was doing what people call "ET with pure 5ths". And, I wasn't getting it to work all the time either and the result was Reverse Well. It was around 1986 that my fellow Chapter member, Tim Farley became interested in Owen Jorgensen's teachings and he pointed out to me that trying to make all of the 5ths pure wasn't really making the piano sound better. Learning to tune the HT's really meant that I had returned to the original way I had learned to tune, it was just more refined and on purpose. Helmholtz and White's work are important contributions to the understanding of the tuning profession but neither one provided all there is to know. I remember when I was in college in the mid 1970's that Helmholtz' book along with Darwin's and Freud's were in the *literature* section of the bookstore, not the science. And yes, I read all of them, they were required reading. (I did not keep Helmholtz' book in my library, I sold it at the end of the term, nearly 30 years ago). And yes, after reading Helmholtz' book, I thought of the crude WT I was doing as the ET which Helmholtz claimed to be the solution forevermore to the problem of temperament. (Ironically, Isacoff calls ET the "Final Solution". When I joked about that on this List a few years ago, I got severely criticized for it). I conclude from my own experience, the observations of others and the careful reading of the words which have been offered here just within the last 24 hours that yes, the concept of and belief in ET have been around for centuries but true ET in practice is yet today a fleeting goal. Moreover, many who really achieve ET to a high degree of perfection often observe some kind of disappointment. There is still a desire somehow to alter it by some small degree. Some observe that a quick (meaning somewhat inaccurate) tuning often sounds more appealing then one where much effort has been made or that a slightly aged and thus imperfect tuning also sounds more appealing. Some adamantly claim that they can hear and that there should be the kinds of distinctions known as "color" or "affectations" of the keys in ET even though by definition and design, there are none. During the 33 years I have been tuning, great progress has been made. Many recordings made when I was a teenager in the 1960's have a poorly tuned piano. I'm sure that no one ever thought at that time about anything other than ET. Today, I believe that the "only one way to tune" concept actually facilitated such loose standards that many kinds of temperaments could have been called ET, all the way through the 20th Century. Without precise and exacting standards, each person's work becomes their own version of that one way. Today, there are obviously many more people who can and do tune a true ET. We have the knowledge and skill to make the smallest of distinctions. We also have the ability to make judgments and decisions. But not everyone in the tuning profession has the highest degree of skill, even those who are the regular tuners at concert halls. I've often heard Reverse Well in performances. I know of a new video by a big name New Age artist which is in Reverse Well (but I'm not going to reveal the information). I attended the concert last night where I had tuned the piano for music which was all from the last decade and the newest, a world premier piece written in 2001. The latter turned out to be a cappella but the piano would have been used in rehearsal. It seems to me that all of the wild, dissonant and atonal music was much more a part of the early 20th Century and that today, composers have reverted to much more consonance although there is a clear difference from choices and textures used 100 years ago and more. I took the time on Friday to redo the program I had for that Kawai grand for nearly 10 years. It took me 2 hours to just change things slightly but I did hear an improvement. I sat up close and saw the pianist beam when he played octaves in the 6th and 7th octave ranges. The piano sounded silky smooth and even, crystal clear and harmonious, with a beautifully resonant vibrato throughout. I got handshakes, smiles and polite bows from the conductor, the pianist and the composer whose work did use the piano. He is the principal French Hornist of the local symphony and a faculty French Horn professor at the university. His piece sounded contemporary but very much Romantic in its style, very sweet and melodious, ending in a a very consonant sounding C Major chord with Major 7th and 9th extensions. I, of course, said nothing to anyone either before or afterwards about my tuning style. I didn't ask and I didn't tell. Only the theater manager knows that I do something different from most other tuners. I don't think he understands too much about it but he knows that he likes it and he has never heard a single complaint about my work, only good compliments. That piano has always been tuned in EBVT with tempered octaves. I only occasionally attend a performance that I tune for at that theater. I often have another conflict or the show doesn't interest me. I most often never know who the pianist will be. I may at some point use another HT if I think that a stronger one will make a positive difference but as far as I am concerned, the program I have carefully made for the EBVT is that piano's normal tuning. I can't think of a single possibility where I would ever tune it in ET. Next weekend, there will be another salon concert at Tim Farley's. I'm not the house tuner there, Daniel Eberhardy is. It will be an all Chopin recital. The pianist is from Russia. The piano will be a remanufactured, meticulously restored grand (Steinway, I think) from the late 19th Century. If I know Farley well, the temperament will be 1/7 Comma Meantone. He will purposefully not discuss how the piano is tuned with the artist. He'll just say, "Here is your piano". As far as I'm concerned, the choice of temperament is generally not something to be discussed with the artist just as any manipulation of the regulation or voicing is not. There can be exceptions, of course but generally, these decisions are the technician's domain and responsibility. To ask for the decision from the artist is to ask for an uninformed opinion to dictate how the technician will do the job. I would rather do my job to the best of my ability based on my years of experience and developed skill and allow the artist to take over from that point to make the music. 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> ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/2f/97/8f/c3/attachment.htm ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC