For your Listening Pleasure - tuning thoughts

Richard Brekne Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no
Thu, 27 May 2004 12:35:14 +0200


Hi Bernhard.

You are the third person I've run into that lay claims to this tuning. 
Evidently a couple fellows from the states also thought of this idea 
independently of your own publications about 15-20 years back, and 
another a few years later.  Myself I was unaware of anyone having done 
this before and developed my own P-12ths tuning with the help of Tune 
Lab 97 whilst learning a good deal about tuning theory that I had 
skipped over earlier in life. 

While I am happy to acknowledge any prior invention on the part of 
yourself and anyone else, the fact that this actually has been thought 
of independently and successfully (very successfully I might add) used 
in different places in different times strikes me as significant with 
regards to its usefulness and viability....  A good thing is often 
pondered by several different minds in different places.

What I really like about it is its easy of implementation from an ETD 
standpoint... and... if you get the knack of it... from an aural 
standpoint as well. Kind of redunditates all these extremely fancy 
methods of contriving a tuning curve.

In any case... I wouldnt call you crazy... in fact I cant see how anyone 
who knows enough about tuning theory to be able to run some basic 
numbers around could avoid seeing the basic sense in the approach.  
Clean as a whistle as it were.

Cheers
RicB

Bernhard Stopper wrote:

> Ric,
> thank you very much for your statements about the pure 12th tuning...
>  
> 15 years after its publication in euro piano 3/88 ("Stopper tuning - 
> Equally temepered scale based on pure dudecimos (12th, pure octave + 
> pure 5th) it seems to become accepted.
> At the time i did the publication, most technicians called me crazy 
> and there were only a few who understood what my intention was.
>  
>  
> Isaac,
>  
> maybe your opinion about the pure 12th may change if you hear this 
> tuning done by someone who is familiar with tuning it. I can not agree 
> that the 5ths are more strange than in normal tuning, since they are 
> less sharp than your preferred normal VT tuning.
>  
> best regards,
>  
> Bernhard Stopper
>  
> for more information about the pure 12th tuning (in german):
>  
>  http://www.piano-stopper.de/html/stotun.htm
>  



This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC