Convention

[Billbrpt@aol.com]

In a message dated 7/13/98 10:50:58 PM Central Daylight Time,
jpage@capecod.net writes:

<< At 08:02 PM 7/13/98 -0600, you wrote:
 >Hi all,
 >Boy, those of you who were not able to go missed a great, ( as usual )
 >convention. <snip> To you Bill thanks for opening my ears
 >and removing some of my doubts about HTs and their use in contemporary
 >music, as well as music of the age in which they were used.  I think that
 >one could hear the difference in the temperaments, Equal, Victorian, etc.,
 >but the difference was, for me not that drastic or objectionable, like I
 >expected it to be.
 >Joe Goss
 
 I regret not meeting everyone.  So many people, so little time.
 So, to everyone I missed, HI.
 
 Bill's EBV was quite pleasing.  I would like to look into it further.
 
 The Fandrich upright had a superb touch and sound.
 I wish more of them were out there.  I wish I HAD one.
 
 I'm still digesting all the info. 
 
 And . . . thanks to all involved who made it possible,
 
 Jon Page
  >>

Thanks for these remarks, folks.  I had the pleasure of meeting Jon Page and
am now confident that I could win in a real fist fight if I had to although
I'm sure I would suffer some damage (just kidding).  It was a pleasure to meet
some of the people I had known only through the List.

I spent most of my time at the Convention preparing the Walter Grand.  The
family is so genuinely friendly, trusting and open-minded that you can't help
wanting to offer them everything you have in the way of expertise.  Charles
Walter was not present because of the untimely death of his sister-in-law.
This caused his son-in-law, Virgil Wesco and his three sons, Charles, Jonathan
and Virgil Jr., who all work at the Walter Factory, to be delayed.  I began
the preparation of their pianos at their booth and stood by with son-in-law
Richard Counselor for the first day of the Exhibits.

While at the Factory this spring, I had encouraged 24-year-old Charles Wesco
to go through the RPT Exam process.  He took his written exam in Chicago then
a prescreening and tutoring session with Virgil Smith RPT (who incidentally
received one of the Hall of Fame awards along with Steve Fairchild RPT).
Charles did very well and is now one of our new RPT's.  He missed qualifying
as an Examiner Trainee only by 2 points on one of his scores.  His pitch and
unisons were absolutely flawless.  Congratulations, Charles T. Wesco RPT!

I also went on the Mason & Hamlin Factory tour and attended Jim Coleman RPT's
tuning class.  The factory tour revealed a very well and carefully built piano
as opposed to a quickly assembled, mass-produced one.  Jim's class was very
interesting but it also revealed that the ET/pure 5ths temperament is not all
that easy to tune.  He was working on a Baldwin 7 foot grand which has
relatively low inharmonicity.  It is my belief that it was the piano itself
which resisted this kind of temperament.

I received some welcome encouragement from Jim.  Although I did indeed "win"
the competition, I don't really consider that it was a true contest, just a
demonstration of 5 different temperaments, including ET and that the group
preferred the sound of the Equal-Beating Victorian over the others.  That did
not surprise me but I would have rather tuned the 1/7 Comma Meantone, which
would have had a sound similar to that of Paul Bailey RPT's Meantone.  While
there were a dozen or so people (including me) who preferred and voted for
Paul's temperament, it was too strong and unusual sounding for the majority.
Between Karen Hudson-Brown RPT who tuned and performed with it however, it was
our clear favorite.

There were only two unfortunate consequences, as I see it.  First, that not
everyone on this List who has expressed doubt and even made accusations of
unethical, if not illegal "behavior" on my part for developing and putting
into everyday practice true tuning innovation, got to hear what they assumed
they would not like.  Virtually no one who came to the Walter booth realized
that the tuning was not ET and that because of both the temperament and highly
stretched octaves, it would fail the RPT Tuning Exam.  Upon hearing this
information, some were intrigued and others such as Karen now had the
question, "Do I like this piano because *it* is so good or because of the way
it is tuned?"

The other unfortunate result was that Virgil Smith RPT's extraordinarily well
done ET had to "lose" in favor of my efforts.  I really don't like to hear ET
very much but both Virgil's tuning and the one that was done for the Kawai
concert were examples of ET at its best.
Virgil believes in what he does as I do and I respect him greatly.  I cannot
argue with his belief that the way he tunes will always be accepted and that
what I do will face rejection and criticism at perhaps the very worst moments.
ET, when done as he does it, is musically pleasing and will probably remain
the usual and preferred keyboard tuning for as long as I am alive.  Taking the
"other road" will always be a struggle.

Still, I am gratified by the acceptance that my efforts received.  I had
presented the challenge to Jim Coleman RPT in the past but while on my way out
of the hotel and to the airport, I saw Jim again and suggested that if I were
to put the EB Victorian up against an ET tuning in a one-on-one "blind"
contest, I should do it against Virgil Smith RPT in Chicago or meet him here
in Wisconsin, in Madison or Milwaukee.  If anyone from these areas wants to
arrange for another Great Chicago Tune-off putting ET and EB Vic against each
other, I'm ready, willing and able.

Finally, the new SAT III will be able to convert an FAC ET to a HT much more
easily than with the older versions.  I have never programmed a HT in this way
but most people who want to tune a HT seem to want to do it by this method.  I
do not have the cents deviations for an FAC program that would produce the EB
Vic nor do I know what kind of octave stretching mode for the new SAT III
would be appropriate to tune the kind of octaves I do.  If anyone can help
with this, you would be helping the many people who would like to try this
temperament but have so far, not understood how to construct it the way I do.
I can also go forth with plans to write a new, detailed SAT assisted
Aural/Direct Interval approach, which is the way I do it.  Creating a program
usually takes me a good two hours, at first it took longer, three or more.  It
is definitely not the easiest way to tune a piano!

Regards to everyone,

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin