Another Recital in 1/7 Comma Meantone

[Richard Brekne]

Whats your point...  Whats your point ???  We know all this Bill. Ok... so there
are a bunch of guys out there who dont like what you are doing. So what else is
new. I mean welcome to the world mate. You think you are the only guy out there
who gets all kinds of crap from people who disagree with you ?? Thats the name of
the game really,,, especially when you go against the grain. You choose to do so,
and you believe in what you are doing, so you gotta just shine em on or you will
get essentially no where (at least not anywhere where it counts)

You wanta respond to all this by staying home, and loosing a fine opportunity to
share what you have learned with many interested parties at the convention, well
hey.. I cant stop you. But like I say.. I think its a bad move. And I think you
do yourself a diservice in the same pass.

As far as being able to reproduce your EBVT, anyone who has the specific bps
definitions for each interval can perfectly set a temperament octave to those by
useing Tunelab in a direct partial comparison fashion. How to account for
stretching such a temperament can be done in similiar fashion really, as I
imagine any talk of an even tuning curve is out of the question in anything but
ET.

Bill.. I and many others are interested in learning more. I think you should take
any opportunity to teach what you have learned to others who are interested, and
just dont worry about those who dont like it.

My opinion.. and yes.. I am dissapointed, more for why you wont be at Arilington
then for any other reason.

Billbrpt@AOL.COM wrote:

> In a message dated 4/11/00 9:54:36 AM Central Daylight Time, richardb@c2i.net
> (Richard Brekne) writes:
>
>  Sorry Bill, but I still think you made a bad move there. >>
>
> Richard,
>
> I had been asked to present the EBVT in a Minitech, not teach a class in how
> to tune the 1/7 Comma Meantone.  The last time the 1/7 Comma Meantone was
> presented at a Convention, an angry mob of right-thinking, morally upstanding
> ET tuners confronted Kent Webb causing him to never again consider having a
> piano tuned at a Convention in ANYTHING but ET.
>
> This was also followed by me receiving a threatening letter from an RPT in
> Los Angeles who said that there were several technicians who "knew what I was
> up to and wanted it stopped".  The following year, a guy confronted me and
> condemned what I had done all through the awards banquet saying that he had
> attended that recital and that I had "hurt" his and his friends ears with my
> "unethical conduct" and for this, I should be "kicked out" of PTG.
>
> Many PTG members consider what I do every day to be unethical and  a
> violation of Common Law subject to civil, if not criminal penalties.  It's
> only a matter of time before lawsuits will put me out of business and the
> criminal convictions will put me in prison. As Jon Page likes to put it,
> "STRING HIM UP!".
>
> Ed Foote, who is well known for the accuracy of his surveys, claims that one
> out of two people who attended that 1/7 Comma Meantone recital confirmed to
> him that the piano sounded "out of tune".  He also claimed that the crowd who
> gathered around it afterwards were not in fact interested in listening to the
> various intervals and how they differed from the usual way a piano is tuned
> but were gawking at a disaster, the way that people gawk at a car crash or a
> burning building.  Notice that the 1/7 Comma Meantone is not on Ed's short
> List of preferred temperaments.  If Ed Foote doesn't like it, it must not be
> any good.
>
> Now, as for the EBVT, Ed Foote's proclamation still holds:  No one has EVER
> been able to tune it other than myself.  According to Conrad, this is because
> the instructions are unreadable.  NO ONE can follow them.  NO ONE can tune a
> 5th so that it beats a 1 beat per second.  NO ONE can tune a subsequent 3rd
> that beats at 6 beats per second.  NO ONE can then tune a 6th so that it
> beats exactly the same as that 3rd.  Then NO ONE can tune another 3rd so that
> it beats exactly the same as that previous 3rd and 6th.  NO ONE can then tune
> a pure 5th, then a pure 4th.  NO ONE can tune a 4th or 5th so that you have 2
> intervals that beat exactly the same as one another, NO ONE.
>
> As Ed Foote says, the only way that ANYONE will ever be interested in tuning
> any kind of temperament other than ET is if they can do it with deviations of
> an FAC program.  Since I never do that, I don't teach that.  So what I do,
> whatever that is,  it is not worth teaching, in Ed Foote's opinion.  He
> knows, he took a survey and found that out.  He right, of course, NO ONE to
> date, has EVER tried the EBVT and EVER been successful at tuning it.  NO ONE
> will ever even try.
>
> Then, there is the issue after all, that I went "around" and made up my own
> temperament.  What gives me the idea that I have the right to do that, hmmm?
> Why couldn't I have just used one out of a book like everyone else?  What
> makes me think I know more than all of those people who designed all of those
> hundreds of temperaments that have already been published, hmmm?  Never mind
> that after having seen I had done that, Jim Coleman went "around" and
> invented 16 of them.  They are all on Ed Foote's approved list of
> temperaments you can do "by the numbers", the ONLY way anyone will ever be
> interested in trying.
>
> No manufacturer would ever DARE to have its piano tuned in anything but ET,
> of course.  Any HT type tuning is only for curiosity.  See how WEIRD that
> sounds?  Now YOU wouldn't want to tune a piano THAT way, would you?  Any
> alternative tunings would have to be done on off-brand pianos off in some
> corner someplace during lunch on Thursday because the only possible purpose
> for tuning a piano in an alternative way is to prove that ET is the one and
> only proper way to tune a piano.  Therefore, any piano that is "experimented"
> with in this manner must be tuned back, BACK, BACK!!! to ET!!!
>
> Last, but not least, if I were to be tuning a piano at the Convention, I
> would surely have Wally Brooks and who knows else there again harassing me,
> telling me that I am "tuning the piano out of tune, using a "hysterical
> temperament"  (hardee har har) and that the only reason I go "around" tuning
> this way is because I can't really tune in ET.
>
> As I see it, there is not enough room for me and the rest of PTG at the same
> Convention.  I do not have anything to do, say or teach that would really
> interest anyone else so therefore I am not going.  Just ask Wim Blees.  He
> claims to "have a lot of influence" and says that I should not write on this
> List at all and if I attend the Convention, no one will speak to me.  I
> really believe in and follow all of Wim's advice, you know.  I consider every
> word he writes as PTG's ultimate example of wisdom and erudition.
>
> Sorry to disappoint you.
>
> Bill Bremmer RPT
> Madison, Wisconsin

--
Richard Brekne
Associate PTG, N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway