Out of tune(probably an argument, here)

[CChristus]

Ed, 

Enjoyed the depth of your post.  This is something you've obviously been
thinking about for a while.

I hear what you're saying about the extra flavor, if you will, that some
out-of-tuneness might add to certain genres of musical performance.  I can
understand how old blues might not sound so "blue" with a highly "tampered"
tuning, with super-clean unisons, etc.

I wonder how many times, though, that a piano was intentionally mistuned to
produce such an effect.

I do know that when I re-listen to a lot of the music that I rocked to in my
youth, (rock, jazz, and blues, for example) I have a hard time bearing the
out-of-tuneness that apparently was more than tolerable then.  Now you're
making me re-think the level of my musical sensibilities as I've
"progressed" in this trade.

Appreciate the wisdom of your experience, helping us maybe alter our
perceptions about tuning, or at least music appreciation.  

Chuck Christus



       Maybe, but there will be a change in the message.  To some, it will
be 
an improvement, ( to many, nothing would be noticed, either way), to others,

a loss,.  What that loss means depends on the listener, ("meaning" is a 
product of a message being received, it is NOT a unique property of the
message, 
itself). 
    It borders on conumdrum-ness for a tech to be promoting anything other 
than "in tune", but exactly what is "in tune".  Certainly not an equally 
tampered scale!  There, almost everything is out of tune, and through the
trick of 
making it all the same, we learn to not listen to the dissonance, (for the 
simple price of foregoing hearing consonance).  Is this same fixation on
exactitude 
good for other aspects of music? 
   What am I to make of an artist, (on the Steinway roster) who tells me
that 
the piano sounds good when I finish, but better after a day of playing?  I 
checked this piano and the unisons still stopped the lights on the SAT but I

could hear that they were looser than when I left them.  This artist hears
the 
change and likes it!   I still go for as clean a unison as possible, but
that is 
just to insure the longevity of the tuning.  
   There are many musical instances where departure from unison is not only 
desired, but actively promoted.  Choirs provide a choral effect simply by
the 
slight variations between singers, and an orchestra that had every single 
violin hitting the exact same pitch would be empty sounding, at best.  Blues

singers and Jazzer crooners, too, bend their pitches against the
accompaniment for 
the special effects.  Is that "out of tune" or "expressive"?  
    The musette has unisons out of tune by 20 cents,  the chanterelles on my

hurdy-gurdy sound dead when exactly alike, but the thing comes alive with 
about 7 cents between them.  Heaven only knows what some accordians are
doing, but 
they often sound really good.  
    There is an identifiable sound that comes from an "old out of tune 
upright" that some producers here specifically ask for, (I use a Kirnberger
and 
leave the unisons all over the place).  Listen to some of the music of the
Doors 
and you will hear a piano that is mind-blowingly "out", but those tracks are

still selling.  Did the out of tuneness help or hurt?  
    Often, it seems that some of the old jazz artists make use of the out of

tuneness, driving home a passage with a really wild unison.  More recent
usage 
abounds.  If you listen to the track "Flaming Sword"  by Dr. John on his
Duke 
Ellington tribute, you will hear a very loosely tuned piano and it sounds 
great.  If it had been perfectly tuned to modern standards, I think the
music 
would have suffered.  
      The "sound" of choral unisons is as much a part of the old jazz genre 
as Picasso's cubist angularity is in the art world.  His paintings do not
look 
like photographs, if they did, we would have heard little about him since.
It 
is because he was abstracting reality that he is so well known. There are
many 
artists to look at, so there is a place for this, (I would hate to have 
nothing but cubist art available!!).  I submit that there is a use for a
wide range 
of sounds.  As tuners, our goal is to provide the musician with what they 
want, and that exact, standardized, sound has been the most marketable
approach.  
However, that doesn't mean it is the only one.  
    There is a wide range of pursuits available to all technicians today, 
whether in regard to temperament or unison, stretch or voicing,  and there
are 
customers out there that will pay for any and all of this.  All they need is
the 
education necessary for a wider perspective, and that is where the
technician 
can begin to shape his/her own individual career.  We only have one trip
here 
on Spaceship Earth, and it is up to each of us what that life is to look
like 
when it is complete. Before its over, I want to try it ALL!  
Regards,       



Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
 
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