tuning<>TUNING

[Farrell]

Paul - are you serious? You actually came up with some form of a well temperament on your own before you became aware of Owen Jorgensen and all that? That's way cool! Are you going to Chicago this summer?

Terry Farrell
  
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "pbailey" <pbailey@sbcglobal.net>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Cc: "Isaac OLEG SIMANOT" <oleg-i@wanadoo.fr>
Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 6:43 PM
Subject: re: tuning<>TUNING


> 
> Isaac,
> 
> 
> I will try to tell you, briefly, how I have come to tune Well 
> Temperaments.
> 
> When I was a child and an adolescent, I had a great interest in 
> music, classical music, piano music.
> But I did not enjoy recordings or live performances - which puzzled me! 
> I assumed I didn't know how to listen.
> Emotionally I felt frustrated and stifled by what I heard, it made me 
> feel anxious.  Eventually I started to recognize
> that my mind's ear heard the music, and what I heard in recordings, 
> performances, and freshly tuned pianos that
> I played did not correspond to what was in my mind's ear.
> 
> As a young adult I became a piano tuner, and promptly turned the 
> tuning skills
> to the task of altering the sounds of the pianos I tuned to try to 
> realize what was in my mind's ear. Before long, I could
> tune so that actual piano sounds were very similar to what I heard in my 
> mind.  A substantial majority of my tuning
> clients also preferred this 'made up' style of tuning.
> 
> In due course I came into contact with scholarship which showed me 
> that I had 're-invented' an old and supposedly
> obsolete wheel. Since my musical instincts were satisfied, and since 
> most clients were grateful, I continued, though I was
> a 'loner' in the profession, at that time.  By now things have changed 
> considerably.....
> 
> Many times over the years I have presented two or three pianos of 
> the same make and
> model , and as similar as reasonably possible, EXCEPT FOR THE 
> TEMPERAMENT of the tunings, to various groups of
> technicians and/ or   pianists.   In listening trials, the WELL TEMPERED 
> piano is often mistaken for the Equal Temperament
> piano   -  because  ''everybody'' knows that the 'modern' tuning system 
> sounds good and the old style is no longer practiced for good
> reason: it doesn't sound good!
> 
> And, quite apart from musical aesthetics, it is almost always the 
> consensus that the Well Tempered piano simply sounds more
> focused, sings more, has perceptibly more sustain and volume.
> 
> To sum up, I'm following my own musical instincts, and pleasing 
> lots of pianists and audiences.  When a newly exposed pianist
> can hardly stop playing, but does blurt out a few words about how the 
> piano has never sounded this good, this deep and rich; and
> NOW he/she knows  WHY Beethoven wrote which sonatas in which keys, I'm 
> sure I was right to follow my musical instincts and leave
> the fold.  I'm also sure that I'm not forcing my taste and ideas on 
> others, but rather giving them the opportunity to explore and experience
> their own musical instincts.
> 
> Paul Bailey RTT
> 
> Modesto CA
>