Don,
In a sense, you are right about " a subjective expression like
"better" always raises a red flag", so let me say some more about how
I have come to be so bold.
I've watched well tempered pianos leave the showroom before
their equal tempered siblings, consistently. If we 'rotated the
stock' by putting the et pianos in well temperament, they sold next;
if we put the new stock in well temperament the et ones stayed another
round. This shows something about what sounds people want to buy; I'm
not sure what it means re: what sounds 'better'...
More than once I've tuned recital hall pianos at colleges and
universities, in well temperaments , and the reactions of audience
'regulars' has been ,"Did you bring your own piano? Ours has never sounded
so good!" and "We have never heard the students play so well and sound
so good!" and "Has our piano been rebuilt? Maybe new hammers?" Need I say
it never crossed their minds that tuning could effect such a change.
I've heard reports from piano - string ensembles that this
'alternative' form of tuning gave the piano a real three dimensional
sound, and for the first time the piano and the strings could play in
tune with each other.
I hear reports of 'voices' in the piano that weren't there before,
that this 'new' tuning makes the clients piano sound bigger, deeper, brighter
and richer than before, ah, yes , and better.
I've presented two new pianos, same model, in ET and WEll Temp,
had a pianist play the same few short pieces on each, and asked the audience
of piano tuners, mostly, which piano sounds better, and which is in the
modern tuning. When they discover they have chosen the w.t. piano as sounding
'better' (there it is again!) and also chosen the well tempered as
the 'modern' tuning, they start trying to 'prove' that somehow the
better(theres the word again!!) voiced piano has been selected ,by
chance or on purpose, to recieve the well tempered tuning, so this
event doesn't really count. One way they "prove" this is to play single
notes, with the damper pedal left untouched, which they assume eliminates
the effect of the tuning. I've done this enough, and seen it done by others
enough, to know that the frequency with which the 'better' piano is chosen
for the well temperament is way beyond 'chance'.
In sum, there have been many positive reactions to well temperament
in my practice, and in my observations of others' practices; and very few
negative reactions.
How much experience do I need to gather before I can justify the
generalization that well temperament makes pianos sound better?
>Was it "better" in all keys? More resonant in all the keys? Yes, indeed!
>what music? Anything from Bach and Scarlatti to Babbitt and Sessions and
Carter. I can tell you how to make sense out of it (but it is a big project).
It's easy
enough to accept that the 'simple' keys are better in well temperament
because their thirds are closer to pure, in-tune 5/4 thirds. It isn't so
easy to come to terms with the 'fat' thirds in the four 'diminished
fourth' keys that are the legacy of meantone. Thirds on F#-Gb, Ab, Db and
B are supposed to be fat enough to sound harsh or sour, or at least
much more stimulating than the other 8 thirds. The four 'fat' thirds
carry the emotional legacy of the diminished fourths from meantone.
Strange as it seems to those of us who have grown up under the infuence
of equal temperament, the fatter those four thirds get, the closer to in
tune they become; but for this to work to the advantage of the music, the
service of an experienced, capable and sensitive pianist is required.
(actually here I've been speaking of temperaments with even more contrast
than orthodox well temperaments- in fact, most average-competent players
can make good use of well temperament immediately.)
When audiences hear these sounds in their proper musical contexts,
including Chopin and Rachmaninov and even Debussy ( oh, I know THAT
will draw fire!), they like it just fine. Some pianists understand
and use these sounds immediately, others grow into it, and some are
simply not able to accept and use these sounds; but the composers have
put the harsh sounds in the right places, every time.
>There is something to be said for a tuning system that has been so =
>successful for so long.
If you refer to modern equal temperament, pause and consider that
meantone has been in practice for near 500 .years, and well temperament for
over 300 years, and 'real' equal temperament is surely not yet 100 years in
general use.From a long range historical perspective, well temperament still
is the 'standard' tuning, followed by meantone, and equal temperament is the
'alternative' , the experiment- and the experiment isn't meeting with universal
success.
There is a major movement of composers whose methods and
output is essentially a reaction against the lack of musical expression
of 12 TET (equal temperament). (Not that they don't have other,more
positive intentions and goals.)
> But saying emphatically that one =
>makes pianos sound "better" than another is removing the possibility of =
>taste from the discussion.
Not exactly what I'm getting at: I've been accused of making political
statements by tuning other than ET, of 'limiting freedom of choice' (yeah, I
only have about 40 or 50 temperaments to offer) When there really is good cause
to tune an atonal homogenious sounding tuning, there are some rivals of e.t.
that
do have more harmonious qualities, making the piano sound better than
theoretically correct et.
There's lots of room for taste and discussion. Not all well temperaments
are the same. I discuss with my clients, I refine the temperaments I use;
sometimes
differences that look pretty subtle on paper have considerable influence on the
musical experience of the client.
But what is to be done about the 'academic authority' who praises
the tuning I did for the sound it creates and then rebels and condemns me
if the tuning's unholy name of well temperament is spoken?
What about the piano professor who was playing a Bach WTC recital to a
music history class, on a piano that, unknown to himself, was tuned in Valotti's
1/6 comma well temperament. Pausing between movements, he spoke to the class;
" ...in Bach's time, harpsichords were tuned in well temperaments, and the music
would have sounded different than what we are hearing today; not simply that the
instrument would have been different...."
I don't have time to wait for academic authority to get the
story line back on track, or to wait for the general public to learn
enough true history to know they should have choices. So I forge
ahead, sometimes a bit more boldly than my own comfort level. And
sometimes I do make mistakes, but not often.
By no means am I so autocratic towards my clients as I must
appear to many of my colleagues. How can there not be at least the
appearance of conflict if giving people what they want means giving
them something different that what they think they are asking for,
because they don't know the truth of history, or the right name
for what they want?
>So what, are just trying to stir the pot a bit and see what it smells =
>like?
Hmm, that's part of it, for sure.
It's not that I'm out to destroy equal temperament, and ideas
can't be destroyed, anyhow; witness the re-emergence of well
temperament, which was practically unknown 30 years ago...(and one
might ask how that condition came about)....
Many in our client base have musical instincts that cause them
to long for harmonically balanced tonal tunings. If we want the piano to
continue on a large scale into the next century, we had better learn how
do these tunings and let the clients know they have choices.
I see I'm not the only one entertaining such ideas, nor am I alone
in doing something about it.
Paul Bailey RPT
Paul N. Bailey wrote:
>Pianos sound better in well temperaments than they do in equal=20
temperament. <<
The use of a subjective expression like "better" always raises a red =
flag to me. What does this mean? You dismiss allotting this to taste a =
little to easily.
Was it "better" in all keys? What kind of music was being played? Was it =
more "resonant" in the F# and C# notes along with the Cs and Fs? This =
wouldn't make sense, at least not to me.
I'd like to suggest that a "better" way to express this would be =
something like "it sounded better to me and others present," under the =
circumstances at the time.
There is something to be said for a tuning system that has been so =
successful for so long. There is also much to be said for the =
alternatives under some circumstances. But saying emphatically that one =
makes pianos sound "better" than another is removing the possibility of =
taste from the discussion.
So what, are just trying to stir the pot a bit and see what it smells =
like?
Don Mannino RPT
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