<html> Message from Ted Sambell, Thanks for forwarding Bill Bremmer's and Susan Kline's posts. I had put all this behind me and gone on to other interests, but since Bill Bremmer quoted me, I think I should respond, in order to clear up any misconceptions about where I stand on the question of historic tunings. I do not subscribe to the pianotech list because of its sheer volume, so if it is possible for you to forward what I have to say to them you would be doing me a big favour. The occasion in Quebec City which Bill Bremmer mentions is very clear in my memory, and is substantially correct, except that I deny doing any finger pointing. It is simply not in my nature, and I dislike that sort of behaviour anyway. My criticism of the tuning that he did was twofold, first that the octaves and unisons were unacceptable and secondly, that his rationale was based on his demonstrating a very limited range of benefits. This was to play a dominant chord and resolve it in the usual way to the tonic. The dominant was excruciating by any standard of observation, and resolved to a slow beating tonic chord, which of course, sounded very tranquil. He obviously enjoyed this effect, which was his absolute right to so do. The problem with this is that it is restricted to a very small number of keys and tonalities. The post might give the impression that I am opposed to the use of historic tunings. Nothing could be farther from my intentions. To be fair, I have heard Bill Bremmer's tunings since and his octaves and unisons are now first class. What I heard in Quebec City was no doubt during his formative years. My own attitude to historic tunings is that no tuner can call themselves well rounded without devoting some study to them, to be able to satisfy the requirements of the musical population who want them, and to demonstrate that we are professionals well versed in our craft. What I object to is the imposition by some of our fraternity of these tunings on their customers, who usually cannot be very aware or knowledgeable of the complexities involved. It is not enough for one to put forward the argument that one did a historic tuning for such and such a client and they declared it the best tuning they ever heard; it is merely anecdotal, subjective, and open to all kinds of interpretation. Besides, such opinions can come about through proselytizing, and any Well tuning will certainly be an improvement on an out of tune piano. When one normally tunes In Equal Temperamant this is not being in any way imposed on the client. One is working to an official and accepted standard, in every way comparable to other standards, like the length of a foot, the weight of a kilogram, the size of an acre. I am only too happy to tune whatever temperament the customer requires, and have indeed done so quite frequently. But I do not try to pretend I am providing something uniqe or superior they cannot get from my fellow tuners. This would just be dishonest salesmanship. Additionally, some of the proponents of historic temperaments are paranoid in their hatred of equal temperament to the extent of refusing to tune it at all, and 'blame' it on the piano tuning fraternity. This is not only absurd, but places them in the position of doing exactly what they accuse others of. There are two aspects of the whole discussion on historical tuning which I feel could use more attention. The first, which I have mentioned several times, yet seems to be ignored is that 1/4 comma meantone has one extraordinary characteristic in common with equal temperament, namely, that all its usable keys are alike each other. The arithmetic is straighforward enough, being based on the Meantone 5th. frequency ratio, the 4th. root of 5 ,and the Meantone itself, the division of the Just Major 3rd. into two equal tones instead of the Major whole tone of 8:9 and Minor whole tone of 9:10, calculated as the square root of the the Major 3rd. ratio of 4:5. All the Major 3rds. are tuned Just, the fourths and fifths are mistuned by the same amount, and playing a diatonic scale elicits the same ratios from note to note in every key. This being so, one would think that the condemnation of Equal Temperament on the grounds that 'all keys sound alike' would apply with equal force to Meantone. Yet this is not so. Meantone enjoys an unassailable place in our musical heritage, there being clear evidence of it having being the dominant tuning system for a considerable period. No historian condemns it..It so happens that I really like Meantone, but the music for it must be chosen with great care. And this is the crux of the matter. There is no such thing as a perfect temperament for all music, and to tune a Well Temeperamant in the belief that anything is 'better' just because it is not Equal makes no sense at all. (Incidentally, I put forth the notion that key colour does exist in Equal Temperament, on the grounds that beats are a component of the tones we hear, and that transposing from one key to another speeds or slows them).I am fortunate enough to own a book which is quite rare, called 'The Recognizable Structure of Diatonic Tunings' by Easley Blackwood, and published by Yale University Press.He covers the subject of suitable tunings for different compositions from the musician's standpoint. I have Ed Foote's CD of three Beethoven sonatas, The first and last movements of the Pathetique, which are in C minor, seem to work very well, with excellent performances from the artist, but I find the beautiful serene melody of the middle movement.very jarring, particularly any time it moves into the dominant harmonies. Retuning to accomodate the music would have solved the problem, but this would be logistically awkward. The second matter which deserves mention, is that the proponents of Historic temperamants never seem to begin at the beginning but launch straight away into the complexities of various Well temperaments. Well, what is the beginning? Just Intonation is where any discussion of tuning should start. As a purely aural tuner I believe an aural tuning student should first learn to tune perfect intervals before even attempting to introduce beats. Even Owen Jorgenson, in his truly monumental and magnificent book* dismisses Just Intonation as 'a system of tuning based on simple ratios'. This is correct of course, but deserves more. Who has heard Just Intonation tuned on a piano? Not many, I think. . Now, I am aware that people with an interest in the subject will immediately say"it's not possible", and they will be right. But there is a way to tune a piano, at least for the key of C so that a simple tune may be played entirely with perfect intervals. It is almost ridiculously easy to do! But I will not describe it here, as I am including it in a projected Journal article. I first did this in the 1950's at the university where I worked. The entire faculty and student body attended, and it made a big impression, more so than if I had tried to explain the subtleties of Well temperamants, which are much more suited to the gatherings of piano technicians. In truth, I knew little about them anyway, and not many others did either back then. But it seemed the most logical thing to do. I have done this on a few occasions since, the last, four years ago at the Banff Centre, when I was invited to give a lecture on tuning by Randolph Pandolfi, first horn of the Louisville Symphony. The audience was composed of very high powered, in fact famous musicians. Unaminously, they all agreed that my Just Intonation was out of tune! Which only reinforces what we already know, that to a great degree we are conditioned by our traditions. Realistically, we cannot expect to abandon Equal Temperament, any more than the Scottish bagpiper can be expected to abandon his pentatonic tuning. Indonisia, Japan, India, Korea, China, the Middle East are unlikely to destroy their musical heritage by changing their tunings, despite the way Western music has swept the world. And this is as it should be. I have tuned special tunings for avant garde composers too. Prof. Robert Kyr of Oregon University, has been influenced by Idonesian gamelin music and their five-tone scales. My then colleague, Denis Brassard, worked with him for many hours to devise a tuning to effect the gamelin's shimmering quality by tuning each string of the triple unisons to a different pitch, and, moreover, providing a printout for the Accutuner so that the tuning could be readily duplicated by anyone suitably equipped. One Mexican composer asked me for a Just Intonation, and told me his parents owned a piano dealership in Mexico City, and had been familiar with piano technicians from an early age. I did my best to provide what he wanted, and he seemed well satisfied. And so it goes.Personally, I do not wish to go round and round in circles of futile and fruitless argument about temperaments. I think Bill Bremmer is mired in his own obsessions. He is very intelligent and should find something beyond to engage his talents. If he ever does he might make a real contribution to our craft. Ted Sambell At 10:15 AM 4/27/2002 -0400, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>In a message dated 4/27/02 8:53:23 AM Central Daylight Time, sckline@attbi.com (Susan Kline) writes: <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>I had just finished Ted Sambell's tuning course in Toronto (back in 1980) and he'd done me the honor of choosing me to be one of the two apprentices he took every summer to Banff. We had all just arrived, and there was a reception the first night. I was very excited, and a little shy. William Primrose was there! (One of the greats for string players!) He was at the reception; he had a gin and tonic, and I had a tonic unimproved by gin, especially since I was not yet adjusted to the high altitude. I gathered my courage, and asked him if his students had trouble adjusting to equal temperament when playing with piano. I waited breathlessly for his response -------- He sighed. "If only they could play as well in tune as the piano!" he said ... </blockquote> In 1990 at a Regional Seminar in Quebec City, Marshall Hawkins asked Ted Sambell to speak to me about these *ideas* I had about tuning.  Instead of going on the bus tour, I stayed at the hotel and tuned a piano in the Vallotti temperament.  Everyone asked why I would do that instead of taking the liesure/pleasure trip.  Well, for me, I already knew Quebec and the exploring I was doing in that small room was infinitely more interesting. Ted condemned my tuning and pointed his finger at me saying, "Young man, you'd better stop doing this or you're going to get in a great deal of trouble".  He was right. What I have also noticed since this time and on many, many occasions was that small string ensembles do have better intonation with a piano in and HT.  The conductor who spoke the above words obviously had no experience with HTs in piano tuning.  Obviously, a well tuned piano in ET provides a string ensemble whose intonation may range from shaky to superior with a solid foundation for playing in tune.  Experienced musicians and conductors rely on this.  With an appropriately chosen HT however, the foundation is even stronger and far more musically appropriate.  Most people of this caliber haven't had a chance to experience this yet and dismiss the idea out of hand if it ever even comes up. I've never tuned a piano in ET for anything since well before the "lesson" from Ted nor after.  I don't usually say anything about it either because I know that most people have profound misconceptions and misunderstandings about the concept which run very deep and which cannot be overcome in any one instance, no matter what is said or not said. I have never once found any music or situation where I was tuning the piano where I thought ET would be the best temperament suited and so I have always chosen something else.  When I see or hear any argument or information that convinces me otherwise, I'll say so. 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> </blockquote> <x-sigsep></x-sigsep>  <a href="http://www.cadvision.com/cgregg"= eudora="autourl">http://www.cadvision.com/cgregg </a></html>