6:3 bass octaves---why?

[Bill Ballard]

At 11:52 PM -0500 11/27/02, Tvak@aol.com wrote:
>OK.  I can tune a 6:3 octave in the bass.  But why?  Musically speaking, why
>a 6:3 octave?  Why would we choose to make sure that THOSE two partials are
>in tune?  Why wouldn't the single or double octave be more important in
>musical terms?

Musically, it would depend on the context, especially whether you 
were tuning a big upright or a runt grand. In the basses of gnarlier 
small piano scales, the error might be better hidden in the slower 
octave relationships (2:1, 4:2). The 2:1 is too narrow for anything. 
Tuning a pure 4:2 and listening to an active 6:3 (or even 10:5 beat 
rate) would seem more objectionable than tuning either of the higher 
octave relationships pure and listening to the error in the lower 
octave relationships with their slower beat rates.

>Musically speaking, why wouldn't the 2:1 octave rule throughout?  I could
>even see the musical rationale for a 4:2 octave in the bass, making sure that
>the the double octave is clean, but why make the octave + 5th be the
>determining factor in that area of the piano?

For me it's not a choice between which octave relationship is going 
to be favored (zero-beaten): pick one and it'll have its favorite 
relationships, as well as those relationships in which the 
inharmonicity is dumped. It's a matter of how much stretch the tuning 
has. The 6:3 widens the octave more than the lower two.

Me, I set 6:3 octaves in the temperament octave (except on Baldwin 
Hamilton 243s), and continue that all the way to through the bass to 
the single strings, where I start checking them with 8th-12th-16th 
(partials, not scale steps) chords in the temperament octave to make 
sure that the 1st octave is well integrated with the middle. I carry 
the 6:3 upwards through the 4th octave as far as I can (before they 
get to uppity). Then I switch to P12ths (the 3:1 octave) for as High 
as I can hear (up into the 7th octave).

>When I think about this as a musician, it doesn't add up to me.

If you didn't like the sound of it you wouldn't be doing it.

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.

Visit Bhod Ankur, the underwater monument to yesterday's civilisation.
+++++++++++++++++++++