In a message dated 12/4/99 7:19:08 AM Pacific Standard Time, pianotoo@imap2.asu.edu (Jim Coleman, Sr.) writes: << I found using the 6-3 type octave matching where the minor 3rd A3-C4 would beat the same as the M6th C4-A4. This can even be stretched a little more, so that the minor 3rd is just barely slower than the M6th. In tuning downward from this area, the next two notes need to be especially lowered so that their 5ths are pure (would you believe I have even tuned them on the wide side occasionally?). >> Thank you for this post, Jim. It confirms what I have observed and have been saying about the Acrosonic for a long time. It is often maligned, said to have "poor" scaling. Yet what those of us who tune the HT's or any of the new temperaments based on historical precedents like yours and my Equal Beating Victorian, is that we can actually use what poses a problem or even a dilemma in ET to our advantage. Any piano with the "hockey stick" low tenor bridge is apt to have this characteristic. Twice for our local opera company, I prepared an Acrosonic to have a "Fortepiano"-like sound. The company's rehearsal pianist is also the prompter and the only person available capable of effectively playing the recitatives. She is not comfortable with a real fortepiano, nor was there really room for one in the pit, not to mention the cost, tuning reliabilty/instability and liability involved with such an expensive and rare instrument. The two operas were Mozart's Don Giovanni and Rossini's Barber of Seville. The music director told me that he believed that in both instances, the fortepiano may have actually been used instead of a harpsichord when these composers were living. I gave the Acrosonic an extra bright sound with some very thin keytop and acetone applied directly on the striking surface. I then trimmed some action cloth to mute off one string per unison in the entire tenor and treble sections. I used an 18th Century Modified Meantone Temperament to tune aurally. What I noticed at the time was that I could get a very nice, nearly pure C3-E4 3rd and also very slow FA, GB and DF# 3rds without much harshness at all at the bottom of the cycle of 5ths. The authentic "period" sound of the imitation fortepiano was uncanny! Since then, I have discovered that the program I made for the EBVT on a Steinway L fits the Acrosonic quite well. I use it without modification but tune the wound strings in the bass aurally (as I usually do when I have not made the program specifically for the piano I am tuning). The effect on the Acrosonic is a bit different from that of the Steinway L, however. It does the same as with the 18th Century Modified Meantone Temperament, it gives purer 3rds at the top of the cycle of 5ths without undue harshness at the bottom. I believe you have one of my earlier programs for a Steinway L (or maybe even the latest which was made several years ago already, I am not sure). Perhaps you might try the Steinway EBVT program on the Acrosonic to see what you get. My customers often remark that my tunings are the "sweetest" and/or the "most musical" they have ever heard. And that kind of positive feedback causes me to continue doing what I have been doing year after year. I certainly have never had a complaint about it, never, ever a single comment about "uneven 3rds" or "wobbly 5ths" or anything else that a piano technician might perceive. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin
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