Hi Del: I'll try to answer your question below. On Thu, 16 Jul 1998, Delwin D Fandrich wrote: > Jim, > > I'm curious. I was not able to attend the Sunday tune-off, but I would like your > impressions -- > > I understand that Bill Bremmer's EBVW temperment won the event using the Walter > grand -- about which I am admittedly prejudiced. I have two questions: > > 1) In your view, how much were the tuning results influenced by the differences > in the stringing scales used in the two pianos? The stringing scale in the Walter > is quite smooth, both in power and in inharmonicity. Unless the Steinway B was > rescaled, the stringing scale in the Steinway B would have been, well, a Steinway B > scale. First I must confess, in a previous post I mentioned that Virgil's piano was a Steinway B. THAT WAS WRONG. It was a Yamaha S4 which is the successor to the S 400 (I think). The Walter Grand is a very fine piano as you know since you designed it. The balance is very good (so is the Yamaha S4). Bill's tuning took advantage of the blending of the octaves so that there was good matching of triple and maybe even quadruple octaves (something which Virgil also attempts to do). I overheard Bill say to Dr. Sanderson that the top C8 was 77 cents sharp. The piano just sounded beautifully in tune while listening to music. Obviously, when playing test intervals, there was much deviation from equal temperament, but not as much as in some of the historical temperaments. for example, the Paul Bailey unique temperament was more extreme. Karen Hudson- Brown who played all of the comparison pieces commented about the Paul Bailey temperament: "this Paul Bailey temperament feeds my soul." This was in contrast to all of the other tunings. When the contest was between the Bremmer tuning and the Bailey tuning, many of us were not quite ready for the greater contrasts of the Bailey. The Bremmer tuning was much milder. but as you can see above, the real aficionado, Karen, preferred the Bailey. The piano which had the Bailey tuning was a little less manageable. It might have made it harder for Karen to tune it in the Bailey temperament. When the comparison was between Virgil's ET and Bill's EBV Well temperament, the ET was a little bland, but clean. I believe that the lower inharmonicity of the Yamaha did not permit Virgil to do his best stretch. Virgil is more used to tuning Steinways. Bill mentioned that higher inharmonicity pianos lend themselves better to stretching out the semi-wolf 5ths in the higher treble. If I'm not mistaken, I don't believe I have seen an adequate explanation from Bill about just how he does that maximum blending of the octaves. His treble was superb. > > 2) In your view, how much was the voting influenced (if at all) by the > differences in the sound and performance between the two pianos? I did not hear the > two pianos side by side, but, if the Steinway B was typical of its type, the Walter > should have been the "smoother" and "cleaner" sounding of the two pianos. Since it was NOT a Steinway that Virgil tuned, it is hard to answer this question. The Yamaha was rather typical however, and a very good piano. Well scaled. I certainly could not downgrade the Yamaha. They are always so good at having great duration in the killer octaves. Some of the musical selections were equal in beauty. The ones which utilized the high treble showed Bill's tuning to be superior. The voting was not even a close tie. In the first Heat race, it was between ET and a Handel Well and the Kellner Well temperaments. Virgil's won quite handily in the voting, but the Handel won in my personal scoring. In the second Heat race, Bill's EBV won over the Bailey modified Meantone by only one point in my method of scoring. However the voting preference showed a little more difference. The Bailey may have fared much better except for the fact that Karen was playing on a 7/8 keyboard on that piano. This may have subtracted a little from her usual expressive playing. Jim Coleman, Sr. PS Please understand that this is just one person's impressions. > > I'm making this query private, but please feel free to make it public if you wish. > > Regards, > > Del > >
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