EBVT (was Temperament, A pianist responds)

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

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In a message dated 12/13/01 9:09:41 AM Central Standard Time, Tvak@AOL.COM
 writes:


> In a message dated 12/13/01 5:12:26 AM, A440A@AOL.COM writes:
> 
> << Being sensitive to temperament is a learned skill.  And the only ones 
> that 
> are going to be teaching it are the technicians. >>
> 
> A technician I work with told me a story. I have no reason to believe it's 
> not true, as he is a very straight shooter.  The subject came up in a 
> discussion of EBVT, which I had just tuned for the first time, and was 
> delighted with.  Since we had two identical grands sitting next to each 
> other 
> in the store, I suggested an experiment: we tune one with ET, the other 
> with 
> EBVT and see if the customers preferred one over the other.
> 
> He told me it was his privilege to tune a piano for a concert held at a PTG 
> convention about 10 years ago.  He tuned it in an HT, but which one he 
> didn't 
> tell me.  After the concert, (the audience of course consisting exclusively 
> of tuners) he received many compliments on the fine tuning,  but no one 
> made 
> mention of the fact that it was not ET.  Seemingly, no one noticed.  
> 
> Therefore, he thought it would be a waste of time to tune the two identical 
> pianos in different temperaments.
> 
> <<the heavyweights of academia don't want to be told that they have spent 
> their careers in ignorance of some fundamental aspect of the music that 
> they 
> profess to have mastered. They will resist, no matter what. >>
> 
> Anyone care to respond (...resist) to the anecdote related above?
> 
This has happened many times.  I have done the same thing several times 
myself.  If the EBVT were presented next to an identical piano in ET in a 
classroom situation but the audience did not know which was which and only 
music played, not intervals, the like result would be that the majority in 
the audience would prefer the EBVT but would also identify it as the piano in 
ET.

For this reason, it is not likely to be done.  People do not want to feel 
that they have been deceived and furthermore, do not want to feel afterwards 
that everything they have always believed never was true.

Coincidentally, I tuned a nice Steinway last Friday for a dinner party at a 
very nice place on the UW campus where French is spoken.  It is a place where 
I have frequented and cared for the piano now for some 25 years.  For nearly 
the last 10 years, it has been tuned in EBVT.

Last night, I hurried back to town to attend a wonderful salon concert of all 
20th Century French music:  Debussy, Ravel, Messien, Milhaud, Satie and 
others.  In addition to piano, there was Soprano voice, flute, harp and 
violin.  Conventional wisdom dictates that all of this music should and could 
*only* be performed in ET.  I remember vividly passing by a classroom at a 
PTG Convention where I think it was Del teaching and on a big easel were the 
words, "Conventional Wisdom Is A Idiot (sic)".  I've always kept that in mind.

Needless to say, the music was wonderful.  I doubt that any technician would 
have been able to pick up on the fact that the piano was tuned differently 
without being told this fact although I can recognize the features of the 
kind of tuning I do.  One of the pianists happened to be one of those in town 
who insists upon having ET only although he often plays on pianos I tune and 
never knows about it.  The RPT technician he has tune the piano at his home 
tunes in a very mild Reverse Well.  Draw whatever conclusions you like. 

The pianist does not know me personally so he did not recognize me but played 
enthusiastically and wonderfully well and received hearty applause and took 
extended bows and offered an encore, the Chopin Polonaise in Ab.  The piano 
roared and soared and the audience immediately stood and offered their 
sustained applause.

I have good reasons in many cases for *not* talking about the way I tune, 
many more than I would have for *full disclosure* or trying to educate 
someone who does not want to be educated.
Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin
 <A HREF="http://www.billbremmer.com/">Click here: -=w w w . b i l l b r e m m e r . c o m =-</A> 

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