[CAUT] ET vs UET

[Ed Sutton]

I haven't tested it. I hope to write about it before too long. (I'm also 
over a year behind in my shop work, so if someone can loan me a few 10 day 
weeks or 36 hour days, it'll happen sooner.) Besides just measuring the 
pitches, I would like to use it to tune a mid-19th century piano, when the 
opportunity appears.

The device is a box with a single string and a clever movable fret that fits 
into a series of slots covering two octaves.

Just how well it would work would depend on the patience of the user and the 
particular scaling of the piano. If, for instance, the scale and wire of the 
piano were the same as the scale and wire of the monochord (a possibility 
with the Blanchet device), the the result could be fairly accurate.

In itself the device will be about as accurate as a guitar or mandolin with 
normal frets. As a guitarist, I can tell you that guitars may produce 
distortions from perfect intonation, for many reasons, but is anyone 
prepared to argue that a 19th century guitar with ET spaced frets was not 
intended to produce ET, and actually played in a modified meantone or WT?

(17th century harpsichords exist with built in tuning monochords, scaled in 
meantone. Whether or not the result is a perfect meantone tuning, is anyone 
going to argue that the intention was not really to produce meantone, and 
that the result was not a "meantone-like effect"?)

My point is that, given the way Jorgensen has tried to argue against 
everyone who claimed to produce ET, including Montal, usually using some 
version of his "equal-beating" argument, these two devices indicate that 
there were people who knew exactly what they wanted to produce, whether or 
not the result would pass a PTG exam. There is no way it could produce a 
meantone ot WT tuning. At some point, despite inaccuracies, a tuning is no 
longer producing the effects of meantone or WT, it is producing the effects 
of ET.

Incidentally, Bootman was also a composer. I'd like to tune the "Ford's 
Theater" Chickering in the Wyatt Museum with Bootman's scale, and record his 
music. Anybody got a trust fund you're not using?

Ed Sutton


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Laurence Libin" <lelibin at optonline.net>
To: "David Ilvedson" <ilvey at sbcglobal.net>; <caut at ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2010 5:42 PM
Subject: Re: [CAUT] ET vs UET


> Bootman's is a neat device. Have you tried using it to tune a piano, and 
> have you gotten true ET? What is the range of the monochord, an octave or 
> more? The question whether or not it works is the critical one for me, not 
> Bootman's intention. Also, I'd stress his remark, "All tuners try to 
> obtain an equal temperament, but only a few . . . succeed." Right.
> Laurence
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "David Ilvedson" <ilvey at sbcglobal.net>
> To: <caut at ptg.org>; <ed440 at mindspring.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2010 4:05 PM
> Subject: Re: [CAUT] ET vs UET
>
>
>> Explain a little further.   A monochord with the ET divisions marked 
>> below.   You touched a spot on the string to produce a tone in ET...in 
>> theory
>>
>> David Ilvedson, RPT
>> Pacifica, CA  94044
>>
>> ----- Original message ----------------------------------------
>> From: "Ed  Sutton" <ed440 at mindspring.com>
>> To: caut at ptg.org
>> Received: 4/20/2010 12:52:47 PM
>> Subject: Re: [CAUT] ET vs UET
>>
>>
>>>Laurence-
>>
>>>You may recall our correspondence about Bootman's Piano-Forte Tuning 
>>>Scale, a
>>>monochord sold in New York in the 1860's. It is scaled in ET, as is 
>>>Roller and
>>>Blanchet's device (Paris, 1820's). Whether or not these gadgets worked, 
>>>they are
>>>scaled in ET, not some other temperament. They speak unambiguously of 
>>>their
>>>makers' intentions.
>>
>>>My copy of Bootman's advertising flier states "....All tuners try to 
>>>obtain an equal
>>>temperament, but only a few, who have constant practice and a perfect ear
>>>succeed, while with this scale all can obtain it more perfectly than can 
>>>be done by
>>>the ear alone...." It is endorsed by William Mason, Gottschalk and 
>>>Steinway and
>>>Sons. Steinway calls it "the best of its kind," so one wonders what other 
>>>tuning
>>>devices were available in the mid-19th century.
>>
>>>They are listed as sold by eight music merchants in New York, Buffalo and 
>>>Chicago.
>>
>>>I have two of these devices, one in working condition, both purchased on 
>>>eBay in
>>>recent years, so I don't suppose they were rarities.
>>
>>>Ed Sutton
>