In a message dated 3/15/99 1:06:01 PM Central Standard Time,
studiorenaud@qc.aibn.com writes:
<< Since then I have tried things on my own piano, and find this whole area
of
great interest. I intend to use skewed temperaments in my recording studio
in the future.
Do appreciate many of the discussions here on this list.
David Renaud
RPT
Ottawa-Hull
Canada >>
Thank you so much for writing what you did. I would much rather talk about
what can be accomplished with temperament than fight a constant battle with
people who have never used HT's in practice.
I think I may have met you at the Annual Convention when it was in Toronto.
If I'm right, you were the guy who mixed Canadian French with American English
piano nomenclature. I got a real kick out of hearing things like «J'ai
rébushé le flange.»
The reason I tune the way I do is that to me, it makes better musical sense.
There are an infinite number of ways that both temperament and octaves can be
manipulated. You can be very extreme, very conservative or anywhere in
between to better suit the customer or the piano itself.
If I may express the point I have been trying to make earlier in a different
way. ET is only one idea. It, as a concept, has been accepted as the norm for
perhaps a good 100 years. Yet, it is very elusive. The word "equal" in
itself is like the word "perfect". By definition, it leaves no room for error,
whatever tolerances there may be must be very small indeed. If there is any
audible deviation from perfectly evenly ascending 3rds & 6ths and all nearly
but not quite pure 4ths and 5ths, it is no longer ET.
Yet if you tune a WT or Meantone Temperament (MT) for example, you may vary it
in many ways and it still remains a WT or a MT. The fact is that it is far
easier to create an unequal temperament and have it still be musically correct
and beneficial than it is to create an ET. The embarrassing Reverse Well
error happens when the perfection required to be truly EQUAL is not achieved.
If the technician making this error knew about Cycle of 5ths based tuning
theory, he/she would never allow this kind of error to go uncorrected even if
that person *only* tunes ET.
On page 498 of Professor Owen Jorgensen RPT's book, "Tuning", there is a
temperament by Alexander J. Ellis which has every note the same as ET except
one. The note C is raised by 1 cent. This is called a Quasi Equal
Temperament. ("Quasi" means "almost"). There have been at least a few people
on the List who have argued that such a small deviation could not affect music
significantly.
However, there was a reason, a good reason for the person who came up with
this idea to do what he did. This one, single deviation allowed for the
"home" key of C to be a bit more gentle than all the rest and for the key of
Ab, in which many Romantic and other very melodic and expressive songs and
compositions are written, to have that extra "singing" tone that would be
diminished in ET. This kind of slight manipulation is effective but it
probably would not be noticeable on a conscious level by very many.
Making a 1 cent deviation anywhere else would not have the same impact. There
are also some Quasi Equal Temperaments (QET) on pages 567 and 633 (and there
may some more) that have just 2 notes altered by one cent. Some have argued
also that the very small deviations from ET that I typically make are so small
that they would make no real difference.
But again, these historically documented ways of micro-manipulating
temperament were done for a reason. The "Best Broadwood" Victorian
temperament has very small deviations from ET as does the Equal Beating
Temperament that I have developed. There is a clear tonal distinction between
The Best Broadwood and ET. It is because these deviations from ET are
strategically placed, not being random, small errors, that they produce a
musically and historically correct effect to the overall sound of the piano.
I have never called anyone "incompetent". Those who say I have implied this
have drawn a conclusion that I never made nor intended. I have merely pointed
out an error that is very commonly made virtually everywhere and sometimes by
people of great stature and reputation. I believe I know why the error is
made and I identified it. I have carefully avoided making the identity of the
person known in the examples I have given. If I make a statement such as,
"Reverse Well is a very common outcome for a temperament with errors", people
reading it will want some kind of hard evidence, which I have. I do not
believe that those who make the Reverse Well error are incompetent, I believe
that they have not yet had access to the right information.
It does not seem logical or right to me to maintain that ET is still ET almost
no matter what kind of random errors are made and that it would not make any
significant difference to music one way or the other. This, while at the same
time saying that if you really know how to effectively manipulate temperament
and do it without full documentation, disclaimer and disclosure, it is
unethical. I believe that the small deviations that I make from ET in the
Equal Beating Victorian Temperament have a positive effect on the overall
sound of the piano and that the same kinds of deviations made in error and at
random would have at least the same amount of negative impact.
Speaking of Meantone, do you know about the 1/7 comma Meantone? It is really
a true gem of a temperament. It is very difficult to construct by ear but I
know a way to program an SAT to produce it flawlessly. David V. of this list
has come to know about it. I wish more people would get to know it. It is a
true, historically documented temperament, it suits the modern piano very well
and it has more of the Equal Beating properties that make a piano sound really
in tune with itself than any other temperament I know of. This was the
temperament that Jim Coleman spoke of that had all of the Japanese visitors
interested. It may be used for virtually any kind of music, including all
20th Century styles.
If you are interested in knowing how to program an SAT to produce a 1/7 comma
meantone, just ask.
Sincerely,
Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin
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