1/4 comma meantone tuning

[Farrell]

I did this on an old M&H upright I have in my shop waiting for rebuilding.
Simple cords sound eerrie (sp?) - like they should not sound so pure. Cords
with lots of sharps and flats sound horrible. I took one of my sons
beginning music books and played some stuff in the key of C and it sounded
so pure that it sounded like the piano was kinda dead - sounds somewhat
lifeless. Pretty weird. I don't really see a use for it except for fun.

Terry Farrell
Piano Tuning & Service
Tampa, Florida
mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry" <lbeach@sfu.ca>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Friday, April 13, 2001 12:13 AM
Subject: 1/4 comma meantone tuning


> Hi folks!
>
> How many of you have had the time to waste and put a 1/4 comma meantone
> tuning on your home piano? ;)  I just tried it on a Yamaha C7 for fun
> today.  I couldn't get it to work very well unless I allowed the 3rds to
> beat about 2-3 /sec, and 5ths more narrow than they should.  I figured
this
> must be due to the greater inharmonicity of the modern grand piano
compared
> to relatively no inharmonicity on the organs of Bach's time.
Nevertheless,
> it sure demonstrated how nice some chords can sound, and how awful a
couple
> of them were.  (C#-G# is a very bad 5th!)
>
> Just curious today....
>
> Larry Beach, RPT
> Vancouver, BC
>