Don Mannino

[Leslie W Bartlett]

Could some of this "better" be the fact that it is "different", and
therefore "fresher".  I do recall listening to John Bayless and
preferring the Hamburg Steinway, not knowing the temperament was
alternative.  But it may seem better in some measure because it simply
isn't what we've become used to hearing.


Leslie Bartlett M. Mus
Houston Chapter PTG
lesbart@juno.com

On Tue, 11 Mar 1997 21:49:16 -0500 (EST) "Paul N. Bailey"
<103445.713@CompuServe.COM> writes:
>
>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
>
>