(careful, it is about temperaments)

[A440A@aol.com]

Greetings, 
       I wrote: 
>    I have even tuned for one well known and respected performer/teacher, 
>(Julliard and Curtis) that didn't even realize he was playing a piano in a 
>Young temperament while giving a master class, side by side with an ET
piano.   >>
 
Don asks: 
>>Why should a pianist notice it? The smallest interval they regularly train
to listen for is 100 cents.

      I don't know that pianists regularly "train" their sense of intonation, 
at all.  It seems that, unlike almost all other instruments, the pianist is 
not conscious of intonation because they can't do anything about it.  When we 
are talking about temperaments, we are talking about 300 and 400 cent intervals 
being changed by 8 cents or less. This isn't a pitch thing, it is a tonal 
thing.  
     I understand that pianists have more on their minds than tuning, aside 
from unisons and octaves.  I don't think that absolves me, (as their pit crew), 
from seeking the maximum response from the instrument.  It is a 
scientifically proven fact that the involuntary, physiological, response to musical 
consonance and dissonance occurs in consistant fashion.  The more consonant an 
interval, the slower the respiration, heart-rate, etc.  These are the manifestations 
that indicate the emotional state.  Creating contrasts, in a musical plan 
such as the sonata, at this subliminal level, creates more of an emotional 
response than the lack of contrast.  My exprerience is that the rising and falling 
levels of musical tension more fully engage the listener than when all is the 
same. 
     As I said, we tuners listen differently than the "normal" music 
listener.  ET is measurable on the intellectual plane.  With no change in tonal value, 
the differences between keys is no more than a change of pitch center, there 
is nothing to heighten or lessen tension other than the distance between keys, 
and that is registered at the conscious level.  We bring our baggage from the 
past with us, and are conditioned to expect things a certain way.  Those with 
perfect pitch know the key of C by the Hz.  From what I read, the musicians 
and listeners of the past recognized it as well by the amount of tempering.  
    Ah, so much to experiment with, so little time. 
Regards,  
Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html