Myths and Beliefs

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

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In a message dated 3/11/02 6:03:57 PM Central Standard Time, 
Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no (Richard Brekne) writes:


> I have actually had the chance to start checking out the validity of this 
> statement, and find it to be resoundingly false. True, ET is a tough 
> cookie...but way more then a "very few" can tune it.  It may be true 
> perhaps that there are some common errors and tendancies for less 
> experienced or for those who dont really persue the beast...  yet my 
> preliminary findings in looking informally into the matter point quite 
> clearly in the direction that todays tuners are quite capable of tuning 
> what can only be termed as a true ET. Might be fun to see just how many of 
> us really pull off a good ET, and try and find out what it took for us to 
> learn in the end how to do it. 
> 

Well, Richard, it wasn't what I found today.  I was asked to go to a church 
about 25 miles away with 2 new Yamahas, a P-22 in the choir loft and a G2 in 
the sanctuary (I saw the price tag of the grand in the bench, $18,133).  The 
church musicians were not happy with the tuning from the Yamaha dealer's 
tuner.

I'm sorry to say that in no way could anyone have ever claimed either of 
these pianos to be in ET.  It was, as usual, Reverse Well with the C major 
chord sounding the worst of the 12, a screaming CE 3rd, far in excess of 22 
cents, probably about 30 but the Db sounded as pure as our March snow.  I 
know who did that tuning and I know that he is one of those very bitterly 
outspoken denouncers of both PTG and HT's.

Richard, I listen to pianos all the time, both here, in my area and 
everywhere I travel.  I do occasionally find a good representation of ET.  
Sometimes, to my surprise, I find a mild WT as I did at the Steinway 
dealership in Los Angeles last June.  But the great majority of what I hear 
is not really ET and most often is Reverse Well.

You can say what you want, "yeah, all the fellas tune a good ET, I've 
checked" but I'll be the first to report 10 ET's in a row that I find. Hell 
will freeze over before it ever happens.  My presesnt day experience, coupled 
with all that I read from documentation in the past leads me to believe that 
ET itself is in most cases, the myth.  It may have been proposed, it may have 
been figured out mathematically, there may have been a  monochord, a 
"tonometer", then the strobe tuner to help some people get closer to ET.  But 
only now, in the last 20 years with advanced aural knowledge and ETD's can 
the very best technicians really tune a true ET.

Now, I would concede that maybe the people whose temperaments you have 
listened to recently must be among the very best.

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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