EBVT tunings

[John M. Formsma]

Dear List,

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been tuning Bill Bremmer's EBVT
temperament with tempered octaves. It is a good tuning system IMO and I'll
share an experience of mine and also of a customer.

My experience first.... Everything sounds so much clearer with EBVT, and
probably will sound clearer with any other HT that has more pure intervals.
I began EBVT on pianos that were less than excellent, i.e., Cable,
Wurlitzer, etc. I liked the sound that I got tuning this way, and began to
tune some Bostons and Yamahas with EBVT. One can really hear the differences
between ET and EBVT on better pianos, so it demonstrates better on better
pianos. After having tuned EBVT, I tuned several pianos in ET. The
difference is quite perceptible. It did not matter if I tuned ET aurally or
with the SAT--they sounded the same. ET has a lot of "stuff" in its chords
that EBVT does not. I suppose you could call it "fuzzy." It has that kind of
slow "wa-wa-wa" going on in the chord as you listen to the entire sound.  If
you play a chord in ET such as F3ACFACF5, you will hear that "out of
tuneness" coming through after you realize how clear that same chord will
sound with EBVT (or other HTs). I cannot exactly describe the difference,
but ET does not sound "clear" anymore, although I once thought it did. Last
Friday I had a Wurlitzer G-452 which received EBVT, and it sounded so much
better than ever before. I had always tuned it in ET, but this time it
finally sounded good!

Last Thursday I tuned for a customer with a Boston GP 163. He and I had
talked about non-ET temperaments in January when I was last there. He had
decided to give it a try, so I tuned it using the EBVT. After finishing, I
told him to play some to see what he thought. At first he said he liked it.
But I noticed that he was playing more than just the one song he always
played to test my work. Not only did he play longer, but he also played a
greater variety of songs (he plays Dino style Christian songs...well, I
might add). It seemed like the more he played, the more he was enjoying it.
After about 5-8 minutes of continous playing, he turned and said that he
could tell the difference, and really liked it. He talked about how it
sounded more alive, and how it had more energy. He especially liked the
modulations between different keys. I told him to keep playing, and let me
know his further thoughts next time.

I don't exactly follow Bill's temperament sequence, but the end result would
be the same. What I do is tune in the following order: A4, A3, E4, C4, F3,
G3, B3, D4, F4. From this point, I follow his instructions. The reason for
the variance is that I like to verify F3 earlier in the sequence so that I
don't have to retune as many notes if the F3-A3 third is not beating as it
should.

Thought some of you might be interested in my experience with this, and I
hope you will at least give it a try. It is quite simple once you get the
hang of it.

John Formsma
Blue Mountain, MS

mailto:jformsma@dixie-net.com