<HTML>In a message dated 12/22/02 8:31:49 AM Pacific Standard Time, A440A@aol.com writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Dave writes: > When I listened to the 2nd movement of the Pathetique on Ed's >Temperament CD it was so obvious I couldn't continue listening.  As > an ET lover personally, I've not listened to the entire movement. > That's because my ear/brain have been forever altered by 63 years of > listening to ET.      AAAYYEEEE!  I knew it when we did it, and I did it myself at first!   "I feel your pain"... We debated the use of the Kirnberger for that piece, even listened to a couple of other tunings that had less tempering in those most remote keys.  However, the choice was made on a combination of Enid Katahn's musical judgement and my desire to place a full comma harmony out there where we could see what the world thought of it.  I have gotten two kinds of widely disparate, but strongly held lines of feedback from it, we could perhaps profit from at least considering the differences.      In Op 13 (Pathetique),  the 2nd mvt(marked "adagio cantabile) is in Ab.  In the particular tuning we used on it, this key has a full 21.5 cent third as its tonic.  This seems to represent the limit that any of the temperament authors allowed in their  WT's.  (the MT's in various degrees contain wider thirds than this, ranging from high 20's to the mid 30 cent range, 1/4 comma, of course suffering from the diesis, or 41 cents).        When we first listened to it, the tempering just killed me.  The hair stood up on the back of my neck.   I thought it was going to be pretty rough on anybody's ears.  The last few years among the technicians has sorta proven that out, though there are many techs that have told me they really liked the feel of it.  However, there are more than techs listening to this, and that is where an altogether different response came from.       When I voiced reservations about so "expressive" a third, Enid countered by saying, "It's the Pathetique!  It is SUPPOSED to create a very uneasy and gripping feeling in this section, this is torment, pathos"!  The idea is, of course, that you won't be left out there in horrible-land, and when you return to the home key, you will feel an emotional charge that you could not have gotten without the detour.  Basically, your "tight shoe" theory of musical harmony and feeling.  Cool, I thought, why question the informed artist on taste?     From the musicians and other listeners, there hasn't been a track on that CD that has caused anywhere near as much positive comment as the 2nd mvt of Op. 13 !  The non-technician musicians and listeners seem to find that particular piece of music strongly affecting. They feel it is most beautiful and expressive. More than one has said they felt "transported".  Can any music aspire to do more than "transport"?  I think not.        I was surprised;  what I had envisioned as a point of debate for us tuners,(what does a full comma sound like on a modern concert grand???) turns out to be the most captivating passage on the whole recording for people that could be our customers!  This tells me that we are all conditioned by our environment, but the technicians are conditioned on technical grounds and the music lover just might be responding to something less measurable. Something emotional.  The tenseness that techs hear in a third which is 8 cents wider than "normal"  is unpleasant. We aren't going to get emotional about a particular key being so far from "in tune", but the music listener is listening for different reasons, and THEY sure seem to be getting something attractive out of this.       So,  it seems that if we try to assign a value to this width of third, we have a paradox.  How can it be so reviled on one side of the audience, and so endearing to another. Is it any wonder that temperament debates so often seem wildly at odds?         I think the value question turns on the definition of meaning, ie, "Meaning is the result of a message being received, not a unique property of the message, itself".   So, what is the result of this 21 cents?  The same wide third carries a different message to the tuner than it does to the music listener, and both have very different responses, which indicate what "meaning" was created in the individuals. The former has the urge to quash the pain, "narrow that sucker down to where we can live with it".  However, the listeners often feel an attraction, an inability to listen to anything else while it is going on.  Several have mentioned that this is the one piece that they stop what they are doing to actively listen to.  I think that is good for all of us.         That is my goal, to make piano music so attractive that people will turn off the phone, or stop dusting the house, or anything else they are doing, and make the listening experience the activity of the moment.  Unequal tempering is showing  an ability to help in this, so I pursue it and encourage others to at least inform themselves and try it.        Dave, I know that from our tuning perspective, that section is harsh and distracting. However, if you can listen to the entire piece as a whole, you may find that Ab's expressiveness, when performing its musico/emotive role (setting the stage for the 3rd mvt), might come to have its own charm.  Maybe not, I know, but it's worth a shot, huh?? (I hate caviar, though some have looked at me like I was crazy for it). Regards, Ed Foote RPT </BLOCKQUOTE> My, my, my, how the boomerang does seem to return.  This is what was said about my use of the 1/7 Comma Meantone (a different but quantitatively milder temperament) for a Beethoven Sonata: [I said], "Yes, the temperament used on that occasion was the boldest and strongest [I have used in public] yet,  the 1/7 Comma Meantone." [The *unquestionably* knowledgeable response was], "I fail to see the reasoning that would couple so strong temperament with such a refined piece of modulatory art as the Waldstein."  [It was actually the Appassionata but all those Beethoven sonatas sound the same anyway, so who cares?] [I said], "It had many people very interested.  So much so, that people were gathering all around the piano, testing and listening to intervals and asking questions afterwards.  The great majority of the audience was very impressed." [There was, in fact a standing ovation and I did get many, many enthusiastic and positive comments afterwards, most notably from the late John Travis but the response to *believe* was], "I must indignantly disagree.  People will gather around a car wreck or a house fire, please don't think that is an automatic blessing.  I heard that recital, and it was the worst sounding Waldstein [sic] that I have memory of hearing. It was not helped that it was an amateurish performance by the young lady, I think she was in way over her head. I had been listening to Ludwig's stuff [sic] on a great many tunings, and noticed in the Baldwin performance a lack of the refinement I have come to expect from him."  [These paragraphs he wrote are so long, I just had to break them up]. "Even having this obtuse obsession [hmmm, time for the couch?] for tonality as I do,  I thought there were numerous places where there was way too much "salt".  (Beginning in measure 35!)   [He *counted* the measures of what he thought was the Waldstein Sonata until he heard something bad?  Time for the prescription pad!]" ... "The huge clashes of dissonance felt like they were in the wrong places.  This tuning may have worked on a fortepiano in front of a gallery of experienced early 19th century ears,  [I thought Beethoven lived in the 18th Century and so, generally did fortepianos come from that era but, what difference does a century here or there make?]  but I thought it was the wrong tuning for that instrument, composition, and audience." [Then, I said], "Yet, as you might expect, what might please, interest and titillate most listeners sounded objectionable to a few, a very few." [And the response was], "Half the people that I heard talk about that performance didn't notice anything different, and the other half thought it sounded out of tune.  I didn't think it was well received.  That is not a scientific poll, just what I remember getting in the way of feedback." [And yes, this was the time and incident when a small but very angry and vocal group of highly influential PTG Members (I won't name any names, they wouldn't like it at all if I did) approached Kent Webb and told him what they really thought about that downright terrible sound they had heard.  Kent Webb was visibly upset and shaken by their remarks.  He told me that although he personally liked what I had done, he had to go in favor of the lowest common denominator and present only ET for the foreseeable future]. [I said],   "The fact is that there will be no Historical Temperament performance at the Convention this year because there are a few people within the organization..." [My response being cut off was replied to in this manner], "Puhleeeeze!  There will be performances on a non-ET tuning, Thursday and Sunday.  All you have to do is put up with me talking in between them.   (No, I am not going to identify the temperament, that will be done in class, by attendees.......) If some factory rep hears it, and likes the sound, (many of those people have good ears and refined musical tastes too!), it may find its way onstage, you never know." [I stated my plea], "List, it is time to get real about this stuff.  [and was snipped] <snip> It is not a place for people to assert their desire for power and control over others." [And the retort was], "To get real?  I say way too much color was used in a very scrutinized venue, and people squawked.  For the tuner to respond by blaming political machinations is to sidestep responsibility for the amount of tempering done.  This is a no-no in my book.  If there is a negative reaction to one's tempering, then accept that as evidence of having missed the mark, and resolve to hit closer to home next time.  That will allow the door to remain open, rather than losing options for all the wrong reasons.  The acceptance of something new is the result of carefully matching the power (temperament) to the impedance (audience).  Doing this is a learned skill, and with my classes in K.C. I hope to be of some assistance to those that would like to add it to their expertise.  Clouding the issue with perceived personal vendettas and paranoia is counterproductive to progress and unpleasant as all hell to read in my email." [Then, the author of these remarks does pretty much what I have done all along but in a most decidedly *Uncle Tom* style], "( If it is of any interest,  Bob Seger just finished a week-long recording project here,  on a Victorian tuning after hearing both it and ET side-by-side.  I could have had a stronger tuning there, but the risk of it being rejected was too high, (IMHO) so I took the win with lower odds. I really think that temperament progress in the current music world is made one small step at a time, not by big jarring changes.)" Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't.  You can please most of the people most of the time but there will always be that one small fraction which is never satisfied, no matter what. I take it all with a grain of salt and just keep on doing what I know how to do, the best way I can. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin <A HREF="http://www.billbremmer.com/">Click here: -=w w w . b i l l b r e m m e r . c o m =-</A></HTML>