---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment In a message dated 3/17/02 11:47:10 AM Central Standard Time, crbrpt@bellatlantic.net (Carol R. Beigel) writes: > Mr. Bremmer - you must have had a really rough week or someone tampered with > your wine cellar! We all have days when it appears that someone put bones > in our milk - so I will not be judgemental about how you have seen the > tuning and music business these past few days. > > I interpreted the article about computers and music to be that computers are > more of a tool to creating music. Just as desk top publishing and email has > made authors and publishers out of people who would not have bothered given > the mimeograph machine and the manual typewriter, I find that music > sequencing software offers tools that have heretofor been unavailable to the > . Thanks for your concern, Carol and for your comment because I realized from what you just wrote that I'm doing that very same thing. I've had a PianoDisc system for years and use it to practice singing while not having to always have an accompanist. Recently, I ordered the Sibelius music notation software for writing some choral arrangements for a group I am singing with. I haven't used it yet but one of my customers who is a composer has it and demonstrated it to me. It writes out scores very plainly and neatly, as well spaced as they could ever be. Many published scores are difficult to read because they try to save money by cramming everything together but end up making the music difficult and confusing to read. It will also play a facsimile of the music on the computer which does not really sound very good at all but its purpose is not performance, only a proofreading, so to speak. Composers have long used electronic keyboards for composing, the keyboard again producing a facsimile of the music. With a MIDI connection to a computer, composers have been able to edit their compositions for many years now. My concern in reading this article, and I may have read it too quickly, is that the more ubiquitous electronic keyboards and synthesizers become, the more they, themselves will generate the music people will listen to. Gone are the days when bands use a piano in nightclubs. In the early to mid 1980's, I tuned a piano in a nightclub 2-3 times a week. I haven't done that in years now. My son has an electronic keyboard and makes this kind of music on it but will hardly touch the real piano. He loves to download new music from the Net. I'd say 100% of it involves electronic keyboards and it all sounds the same to me. Now of course, this happens with every generation: the parents always hate the music the kids like. But there has been a serious decline in the use of real pianos in pop music over the past 20-30 years. On the other hand, no, I didn't have a rough week, I don't have a wine cellar and I rarely drink any alcoholic beverages anymore. There was, in fact a successful movement for me in exactly the opposite direction to the above last week. One of our small towns about 15 miles away has been revitalizing its downtown over the past decade. It has many old houses and rather than tearing them down, the residents have made a concerted effort to restore them to their original splendor and modernize them at the same time. The main street downtown is absolutely beautiful. All the old buildings have been restored and given face lifts. The old architecture looks fresh and clean with bright new colors and trim. The pinnacle of this restoration has been the old Opera House. It has been beautifully and carefully restored in every detail. Having a piano was an issue and when I was consulted, I recommended a brand new one. That cost too much for the board to consider so someone donated an old grand which I never saw. When they discovered that no self respecting musician would play it, the board sought financing from the community and ended up doing what I had recommended in the first place. They purchased a brand spanking new Kawai RX-3 which has just been delivered. I tuned it for the first time Friday. To my additional gratification, I was asked to join their board of directors and be on the event selection committee. It pays sometimes to stick to one's principles! The next event I will tune for will be Saturday, April 6th, when a comedian, storyteller and Ragtime pianist will perform in a solo event. I have box seats for it. This is an opportunity for me to do what I know how to do with the piano and not have to ask or worry about what anyone else thinks. I have and will continue to prove that what I know how to do works and works every time. I also have many other options under my belt but the method I have developed over the past ten years, the Equal Beating Victorian Temperament with Tempered Octaves will be the regular and usual tuning for this piano, as it is in another theater where I have been the exclusive technician for 10 years. That theater's director knows me and the success of my work. He is a member of the board at the new theater and had consistently recommended what I proposed and had to offer. It just took some time for things to finally work out. Subscribers to this list continually misread and misinterpret what I have to say. My point is that tuning is still taught and thought of as having only one correct method and outcome. Historical Temperaments, refinements such as different types of octaves and other alternatives such as newly designed temperaments are scoffed at, downplayed and even viciously opposed. Often, the greatest resistance comes from the people who don't want to even see such a thing on the Convention or seminar schedule and who know virtually nothing about these ideas. PTG has been great for me, it's where I learned everything I know. It provided me with the foundation to take what I learned and create something new, not just regurgitate what I had been taught. But at this point, from what I have heard from the Institute Director, it has little more to offer. I'm not the only one who sees little or no value in attending the Convention. As I see it, I would only be contributing to and affirming the quest for the lowest common denominator. As I see it, some of these, maybe most of those who just wish I would go away and shut up are the ones who seek the "dumbing down" of the profession. The advice offered is often poor and misguided, the information is often just plain wrong. To criticize or offer a counter opinion is viewed as a "personal attack" yet some of those individuals feel the right to do the very same thing: the old "pecking order". This is a forum for discussion and opinions. Free speech is a right and a privilege. Yes, one can always choose a "safe" mode and never create any controversy but in my view, that also serves only to maintain the status quo, not advance any ideas. I therefore pay little attention to those who want me to stop writing. I heard that at one time there was a petition of some 40 people who wanted me kicked off and kicked out but I never heard from any PTG official about it. It was all people who wanted a chat room, a joke list, a place to talk about anything but piano technology because as far as they were concerned, everyone already knew everything there was to know. I'm glad that people can ask any question and get good answers now, not the kind of patronizing one-liners which used to be the norm. There are many more people who are now intrigued by and accepting of new tuning ideas. The Institute Committees, the PTG publications and the Journal only need to pick up more on these ideas. Manufacturers, learning institutions, the concert and recording industries are also very reticent because they often look to PTG and find very little indication of any widespread acceptance of new ideas in tuning. 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> ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/7e/e4/f5/55/attachment.htm ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--
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