back from K.C. David A / Stopper

[Richard Brekne]

Interesting that you should like this tuning so much there David. 
Stopper uses his own version of the P-12th tuning stumbled upon 
independently in a far more pragmatic approach by myself, and 
essentially used without being so defined by hundreds of tuners through 
the years who place a lot of weight on the major 6th double decime 
(10th) test.  Essentially a P-12th is a very moderate stretch...that 
pushes the stretch in the killer octave area out there a bit more then 
octave priority tunings usually do. Jim Coleman did some looking into 
the Tune-lab P-12th approach I came up with a few years back and there 
is some of his commentary in the archives on it.

The interesting part about this is that just about everyone I've ever 
run into that uses one or another P-12th approach just ends up loving 
the tuning and specifically mention their enthusiasm for the stretch 
achieved. 

Personally, I find the P 12th approach to generally cause a too narrow 
bass and have come to rather lean heavily on an acceptably quiet 9:3 
coincident pair as part of my tuning tests. This tends to push the bass 
notes lower then a P-12th tuning would.  I find there has to be a nice 
compromise between what a P-12th wants and what the 9:3 coincident 
allows for. 

At some point in the bass...looked at from an octave priority 
perspective... the 4:2 and the 6:3 become more or less identical in 
terms of beat rates... nearly 0. At that point I let the 9:3 come into 
the picture. If its <<annoyingly>> fast...... then I need to push a bit 
wide.  I havent gotten into counting beats with this yet... one just 
finds a good compromise.

In anycase... that you like this approach of Bernhards re-enforces 
something I've suspected from your own discussions on tuning on the list 
for a long while now. That your tuning ends up very close to a P-12 result.

Cheers
RicB


    Special greetings right back at ya, Bernhard.  The Fazioli suite was  
    on my floor (the 36th) at the Hyatt; on Saturday, after my 6-hour  
    marathon of teaching, I followed an impulse to turn right into the  
    Fazioli suite rather than left into my room, and what I found was  
    magnificent: a 6'4" piano, which I had played and enjoyed on  
    Thursday, was now luminously beautiful; I played a little, and  
    immediately asked some guy there who had tuned it; he pointed to you,  
    hunched over a computer with Rick Baldassin in the corner of the  
    room. I played some more; this piano was tuned in a manner extremely  
    close to my protocol and stretch; it sounded, to me, like a million  
    bucks. My only quibble---and a teeny one, at that---was the slight  
    imperfections in the unisons, but the tuning was awesome. Then, as is  
    my wont, I expressed my satisfaction to you rather joyfully and  
    forcefully---hope I didn't freak you out with my enthusiasm, brother.
    That was one great piano tuning, Mr. Stopper. Thank you.

    xoxxoDavid A.