Synchrony: was A Bold Move

[Jason Kanter]

Working with charts and studying these temperamsnts, I have become convinced that there is a "new" element in evaluating a temperament that my charts do not clearly show, yet which is extremely important. (I am NOT claiming that no one has thought of this before ... but I am suggesting that we ought to be looking more closely at this phenomenon.) This is the low-whole-number-ratio between the major and minor third within a major triad. When the minor beats exactly two to one beat of the major, they fall into synchrony and the effect is a "tremolo" that is extremely pleasing. This may be the secret of the appeal of EBVT, because its C major synchrony is exactly 2:1. When the fifth is exactly just, the m3/M3 synchrony is 3:2. Some of the older temperaments, but not all, have pleasing ratios. Ron Koval, Bob Wendell, and Paul Bailey are each developing new temperaments with synchrony as a primary consideration. Me, I'm working on ways to chart them and hear the clear differences in synchrony. I've been using that wavegen program to create models of the m3/M3 beat rates in the C Major and C# Major (which are generally the slowest and one of the three fastest M3 beat rates ... I chose C# instead of F#, the fastest, because its pitch is so close to C, it is easier to compare the emotional effect of the extremes). I have added the slow beat of the fifth, which occasionally contributes to the beat synchrony (this is especially striking in one of Paul Bailey's very extremely bold temperament experiments, where both the C3 5th and the M3 beat at 2.8/second). I will put these sounds in some logical way on my website within the next couple of weeks. Is this of interest to anyone?
..........
.  jason kanter . jason.kanter@wamu.net . jkanter@rollingball.com
.  vp/manager . learning & performance development
.  consumer loan servicing . washington mutual bank
.  office 206 490 6708 . cell 425 830 1561
...............................

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jon Page" <jonpage@attbi.com>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 3:02 PM
Subject: Re: A Bold Move


| At 06:23 PM 1/15/2003 +0100, you wrote:
| >Hi Jon
| >
| >I decided to put Broadwoods best on trial at the UiB. A week ago I put it on a
| >Yamaha U3 and boy am I getting some comments. Odd too, as I had both the 
| >BBEBVT and
| >the V-Young Well on and hardly anyone said a word.
| >
| >So, anyways... today I decided to try this Broadwood Best # 5 Quasi ET on the
| >Hafner pianoforte' we have and boy does that fit the bill. That instrument 
| >has not
| >sounded so good when played ever.
| >
| >Anyways... just thought I'd pipe in with a little bit of reactions from 
| >Bergen.
| >
| >Cheers
| >
| >RicB
| 
| I tuned a S$S B today for someone. I went armed with a few charts printed 
| out from Jason's site for visual aides.
| She was very receptive to the WT idea and I suggested the Broadwood Best. I 
| tuned the center three octaves and let her sample
| and she liked it. I tuned the rest of the piano...she loved it.  It is the 
| sound she has been looking for, trying this tuner and that tuner.
| 
| She liked the warmth it gave to the piano and the enhanced intonation.
| 
| Driving home, I got to thinking; the 20th century gave us the dumbing-down 
| of education and the toning-down of intonation.
| 
| Regards,
| 
| Jon Page,   piano technician
| Harwich Port, Cape Cod, Mass.
| mailto:jonpage@attbi.com
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| 
| 
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