pianotech-digest V2000 #944

[Jim Coleman, Sr.]

This message is in answer to a post by Kent Swafford in which my name 
was used. The following is an excerpt from that post:

> This is why I believe, forgive me everyone(!), that Jim Coleman's well
> temperaments are a dead end, because they exist only as offsets and do not
> include complete descriptions of the intended aural results.
>
I'm sure that we all can forgive.

Actually, the Well Temperaments which I have developed were arrived at 
in a spread-sheet in which I calculated the various interval widths as a 
result of the various cents deviations which I tried. The result of 
these deviations were demonstrated by Ed Foote in his classes on 
Historic Temperaments at the last two International Conventions. Ed 
displayed graphical representations of the widths of the M3rds primarily.
A similar presentation was made on this list by Ron Koval for which I 
highly commend him. In my own spreadheets I tracked the widths of the 
M3rds, 4ths, 5ths. Since I have not sold these, I felt no compunction to 
provide details of aural procedures for accomplishing the same thing. I 
have provided these figures to each of the major ETD manufacturers. RCT 
used to include at least one of them in the initial download.

Another thing I take issue with is the statement to the effect that the RCT
computes a better tuning than the SAT on short scaled pianos because the 
RCT measures more inharmonicity on more notes (not an exact quotation). 
On most short scaled pianos the notes which give the most trouble are 
not measured by either of these systems. However, the SAT III has the 
ability to alter the tuning at any point in the scale and is therefore 
much easier to use than is the RCT. An advantage which the TuneLab has 
over the RCT is its ability to actually measure any note in the 
troublesome areas. However this is a bit complicated and can involve
altering the graph of the tuning scale. The TuneLab was designed with 
the aural tuner in mind. In fact so were the SAT and SOT. The original 
patents covered the computation of a mathematical tuning scale from 
measured partials of certain key notes. The earliest versions of this 
showed that a good tuning scale could be developed from just 6 notes
(C1, C2, C3, C4, C5 and C6). Many of us used a TI-59 to compute tunings 
from these 6 measurements. Later Dr Sanderson discovered that with just 
3 carefully chosen notes, he could predict a very good tuning for a fine 
piano. Again later he discovered that by adding his Double Octave beat 
control, a tuning could be varied anywhere the tuner felt it could 
improve a tuning. I had demonstrated this in the Phoenix chapter 
meeting back in Jun '00. I compared this tuning with an RCT tuning and a 
TuneLab tuning on an Acrosonic spinet. It compared quite favorably, even 
to Kent's preferred way of using the RCT (I still liked my RCT method 
better, see posts on this subject in Jan '00 pianotech).

Kent is certainly correct in his insistence that we keep our ears turned 
on while tuning with electronic instruments. In the Coleman 11 Well 
temperament, one can plainly hear the graduation of the speed of the 
M3rds as one travels around the circle of 5ths in both direction. As 
both Ed Foote's and Ron Koval's graphs plainly show, there is good sense
in using these deviations for a mild but definitely tone colored tuning.
I personally like the coleman 11 because there are no wild 4ths or 5ths. 
I keep our church piano tuned in the C-11 and it makes the 6' something 
Kawai sound at least a foot longer. The Coleman 16 is for those more 
adventuresome in spirit. It has some 4 and 5 cent narrow 5ths and some 
19 and 20 cent M3rds. but there is still smooth gradation of the M3rds 
as one moves around the circle of 5ths from top to bottom.

Dismounting soap box and donning one of Conrads super deluxe flame suits.
The check is in the mail Conrad.

Jim Coleman, Sr.