tuning<>TUNING

[pbailey]

Isaac,
	

	I will try to tell you, briefly, how I have come to tune Well 
Temperaments.

	When I was a child and an adolescent, I had a great interest in 
music, classical music, piano music.
But I did not enjoy recordings or live performances - which puzzled me! 
I assumed I didn't know how to listen.
Emotionally I felt frustrated and stifled by what I heard, it made me 
feel anxious.  Eventually I started to recognize
that my mind's ear heard the music, and what I heard in recordings, 
performances, and freshly tuned pianos that
I played did not correspond to what was in my mind's ear.

	As a young adult I became a piano tuner, and promptly turned the 
tuning skills
to the task of altering the sounds of the pianos I tuned to try to 
realize what was in my mind's ear. Before long, I could
tune so that actual piano sounds were very similar to what I heard in my 
mind.  A substantial majority of my tuning
clients also preferred this 'made up' style of tuning.

	In due course I came into contact with scholarship which showed me 
that I had 're-invented' an old and supposedly
obsolete wheel. Since my musical instincts were satisfied, and since 
most clients were grateful, I continued, though I was
a 'loner' in the profession, at that time.  By now things have changed 
considerably.....

	Many times over the years I have presented two or three pianos of 
the same make and
model , and as similar as reasonably possible, EXCEPT FOR THE 
TEMPERAMENT of the tunings, to various groups of
technicians and/ or   pianists.   In listening trials, the WELL TEMPERED 
piano is often mistaken for the Equal Temperament
piano   -  because  ''everybody'' knows that the 'modern' tuning system 
sounds good and the old style is no longer practiced for good
reason: it doesn't sound good!

	And, quite apart from musical aesthetics, it is almost always the 
consensus that the Well Tempered piano simply sounds more
focused, sings more, has perceptibly more sustain and volume.

	To sum up, I'm following my own musical instincts, and pleasing 
lots of pianists and audiences.  When a newly exposed pianist
can hardly stop playing, but does blurt out a few words about how the 
piano has never sounded this good, this deep and rich; and
NOW he/she knows  WHY Beethoven wrote which sonatas in which keys, I'm 
sure I was right to follow my musical instincts and leave
the fold.  I'm also sure that I'm not forcing my taste and ideas on 
others, but rather giving them the opportunity to explore and experience
their own musical instincts.

												Paul Bailey RTT

												Modesto CA