A confession - MSIPC

[Billbrpt]

In a message dated 4/28/98 6:38:04 PM Central Daylight Time, RptBob1@aol.com
writes:

<<  An observation from many years:  They didn't notice [the out of tune
piano] because by and large they cannot really hear a difference.
Instrumentalist-especially string players
 and oboists may, but many pianists have never really learned to hear in tune
or out-of-tune.
 And we knock ourselves out worrying about which Temperament they would like
their pianos tuned in?  Do they really know or care.  By and large IMHO the
answer is "NO"
 34 years experience talking here ina very cultural center of Cleveland area.
>>

This is a very important point to make.  While it is not true for every
pianist, it is for many, if not most.  There are the very few, the kind that
Ed Foote works with for example, that have the luxury of always playing on a
freshly tuned piano.  They have learned to appreciate that one quality and
will accept nothing else.

Once, when I discussed the idea of using an HT for Corky Siegel's piano, he
told me to go ahead.  I tuned the Rameau-Rousseau-Hall, 18th Century Modified
Meantone Temperament for his playing which is Blues-Jazz-Rock.  He told me
afterwards that the piano sounded great but that he really couldn't tell what
it was that was "different" about it.  He added that perhaps the reason was
that he, as a working and practical musician, had to play on a piano that was
slightly imperfect most of the time.  He added that he actually preferred the
slightly "ripened" sound of a piano which was not "perfectly in tune" over one
which had been freshly tuned.

I asked specifically if he actually enjoyed the sound of the piano as I had
tuned it.  He said, "Yes, very much so".  I told him that this tuning had
perhaps that very irregularity that he craved "built in" in a very specific
way.  That is what makes it so appealing.

I'll say again what I said long ago.  There never will be one right answer to
what is really the "best" tuning, a temperament and octave stretching
combination that is better than any and all others in all circumstances.  The
idea that a totally refined ET is always the best answer is an opinion that I
understood long ago to be a self-defeating restriction.  To have a repertoire
of temperaments with a thorough understanding of each of them and to know how,
when and why to stretch octaves by differing amounts are what the skilled
piano technician of today and the future need to know.

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin