redhead and the Yamaha

[Ron Nossaman]

>This happens to me almost every day and is what keeps me going.  Ron N. asked
>what Reverse Well was and the answer is that it is the opposite of this
>experience.  There are no "cents deviations" that are going to help anyone
>understand what the scourge and tragedy of Reverse Well is. 
>
>You get through tuning a piano in what you *thought* was ET and what you
>really *meant* to be ET but somehow, all of your 4ths and 5ths weren't really
>quite equal.  You tried to get them a little too pure among the white keys and
>fudged a little on the black keys and BINGO!, you've got Reverse Well.  It
>doesn't take much error at all.
>
>You show me a piano that was tuned aurally and I'll show you a piano tuned in
>Reverse Well,  9 times out of 10. 



* Bill,
No, I'm afraid that's not going to get it. This isn't an answer. What you
just described is your own arbitrary condemnation of any tuning that isn't
your own, ten times out of ten. If you don't have a reasonable and lucid
description of the condition, and can't come up with one, then you have no
case. If anything can utterly kill any remaining interest in historical
temperaments it is exactly this kind of glandular response to a reasonable
question. I will ask again. Please attempt to give me a reasonably cogent
and unemotional description of the tuning pattern that constitutes what you
(alone) chose to condemn as "Reverse Well". I don't see how you can hope to
interest anyone in your crusade if you can't define the problem in a
reasonable manner. I think it's time you either did so, or let it alone. By
the way, why is "Reverse" capitalized?




 People like Jeffrey Siegel who freely makes
>condescending remarks about HT's, dismissing their relevance today in his
>"Keyboard Conversations", ends up being the real fool because every time he
>plays in this town, he doesn't get ET, he gets good ol' Reverse Well.  The
>very idea of him talking about all of the various aspects of music while
>demonstrating what he means on a piano that is tuned literally "ass-backwards"
>and having the chutzpah to make derogatory comments about something that is
>completely over his head, seems ludicrous to me.


* It's apparently over my head too, that's why I am asking for rational
qualification for all this froth.




>When that artist heard the key of G being played on the piano the way Ed tuned
>it, he suddenly heard what he had been hoping to hear, expecting to hear and
>searching for all of his life.  His sense of musicality and tonality told him
>there should be a certain "sweetness" to that key but until that day, he had
>never really heard it.  When he finally did hear it, he absolutely loved it
>and became emotional about it.  It would have been just another day of
>struggle for him if he had heard the key of G played on a piano tuned in
>Reverse Well.  If it had really been ET, he might at least have not been
>injured by it.  
>
>I'm not against true ET although I virtually never choose to tune it but I am
>against Reverse Well which is truly harmful to all music.  The only way for
>you to really know that your tuning that you mean to be ET is not actually
>Reverse Well,  is for you to thoroughly understand how to tune a true Well-
>Tempered Tuning and know how it relates to music.  Once you have done that,
>you'll wonder why so many people *insist* that only ET is appropriate or
>practical.
>
>Bill Bremmer RPT
>Madison, Wisconsin

* If this is the case, then you will never make your views acceptable to
anyone who doesn't already agree with you. I, for one, am not about to
accept anything that can't be defined in real world terms. It doesn't have
to be precisely quantifiable, but there does have to be some sort of
reasonable starting point, and criteria. Until you can make even a minimally
rational case, I'd say you are driving away more potential "Non reverse
Well" tuners than you are attracting.

 Ron