hysterical temperaments

[DougHersh@aol.com]

Dear list,
   The recent thread about historical temperaments has been very interesting
to me. I have a harpsichord that I tune every week or two and it sounds alot
better in a more historically correct temperament. I have a copy of the book
on tuning the equal beating temperments by ear by, Owen Jorgensen. I suspect
that all this talk about well temperaments works better in theory than in
real life when it comes to tuning these temperments on modern grands. I tried
the Kirnberger well-temperament in C Major on a Steinway B that I was
prepping, just for fun, for my own education and it sounded pretty weird. It
sounded so foreign to my ear, like when you hear an Indian scale or
something. Trying to tune a just third on a Steinway B is very interesting. I
also tried the Classical Piano Concerto Temperament and I liked the effect of
that one. I have a couple of questions about this particular book if anyone
is familiar with his work(Owen Jorgensen). I'm probably going to show my
ignorance, but here goes; Why does he call it equal beating temperaments?
When you are done with the temperament the intervals are anything but equal
beating. Maybe it is because when you are actually tuning you are tuning most
of the intervals just. Second question, when you are extending outside of the
temperament by octaves are you tuning pure octaves, what test do you use? Mr
Jorgensen says in his book that trying to tune the piano in Equal T. for
playing Bach's well tempered Clavier is ridiculous since it was written to
demonstrate tone color changes in the different keys.
   I am pretty much a novice when it comes to this stuff but the book I speak
of is excellent and practicing these temperament was probably the best tuning
excercise I've ever done. Mr Jorgensen is in my opinion one of many great
thinkers we as Piano techs have amongst us.I believe I followed his
directions correctly on putting a well-temperament on the above mentioned
Steinway B but it sounded so weird I've dubbed that temperament a hybrid of
the Widowmaker III and the Crankmeister II Temperament.
So Long,
Doug Hershberger, RPT