comparing temperaments

[Carl Meyer]

Hey! David,  Maybe this could be a contract job.  I live lots closer.

Carl the enforcer Meyer

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Ilvedson" <ilvey@sbcglobal.net>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 01, 2002 12:25 PM
Subject: Re: comparing temperaments


> And in this corner, "wearing the darling blue trunks, weighing in at 90 pounds,
> Billy, the whinner, Bremmer."  "And in the red trunks, weighing in at 200 pounds,
> Eddy, the mouth, Foote."
> 
> "Break when I say and no hitting below the belt, well, from now on"
> 
> Davy, did I write that? Ilvedson
> 
> "Who needs a flame-suit when I live hundreds of miles away"
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original message ---------------------------------------->
> From: Avery Todd <avery@ev1.net>
> To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
> Received: Sat, 31 Aug 2002 23:31:27 -0500
> Subject: Re: comparing temperaments
> 
> >Oh s***. Here we go again!
> 
> >Avery
> 
> >At 08:43 PM 08/31/02 -0400, you wrote:
> >>Sheesh!  I won't do Ed Foote's writing the honor of copying it.  As usual,
> >>the intent is to discredit and as usual, he knows absolutely nothing about
> >>what he is writing.  If Ed *could* tune the EBVT, which he couldn't, even
> >>if his life depended on it, he'd know that all of what he wrote has no
> >>foundation.
> >>
> >>I posted Jason Kanter's graph on my website because as a graph, I've never
> >>seen better.  It runs circles around the ones that Ed has done.  While I
> >>honestly do not understand why virtually none of the numbers guys can ever
> >>get things really right, I appreciate their efforts.
> >>
> >>The EBVT is a true Well Tempered Tuning and does not have the kind of
> >>imbalances which Jason graphed and Ed seized upon to try once again to
> >>discredit what I've been doing for 10 years.
> >>
> >>The fact is that it has 4 pure 5ths, the same 4 pure 5ths that *any*
> >>historically documented  Well Tempered Tuning has.  The other nearly pure
> >>5ths are also right along the lines of what any Well Tempered Tuning would
> >>have.  *Anyone* can create a Well Tempered Tuning by tuning a chain of
> >>pure 5ths from C about half the way through the cycle of 5ths, then temper
> >>the rest of the 5ths so that they all will fit.  It's as simple as that.
> >>
> >>But there are some people who just cannot tune by ear.  They've just got
> >>to go dialing in numbers on an ETD and hope that what comes out will sound
> >>good.  That's what Ed does and until my dying day, I promise to myself and
> >>the world that I won't do it.  I tune by *listening* to the piano and
> >>sorting out the compromises I must make according to my own plan and sense
> >>of what sounds good to my ear based on a lifetime of 50 years of interest
> >>in, practice and performance of music.  I do not depend upon a calculation
> >>which I have no control over.
> >>
> >>What I manage to do with my EBVT is create a mild, Victorian style
> >>temperament and still retain some of the properties of earlier
> >>temperaments, namely 4 pure 5ths, which no other Victorian Temperament,
> >>including the Moore does.  This is accomplished by breaking the chain of
> >>pure 5ths that earlier WT's have and which create extreme harshness, which
> >>ultimately makes them unacceptable.  Instead of having an unbroken chain
> >>of pure 5ths, C-F-Bb-Eb-Ab-Db-Gb(F#), I offer C-F-Bb and F# -C# -G#.  The
> >>5ths in between are tempered but less so than in ET.
> >>
> >>It follows all of the rules of Well Tempered Tuning and is in no way a
> >>"sideways well" as Ed proclaims.  Owen Jorgensen approved of my work when
> >>I presented it to him 10 years ago and that alone, is good enough for
> >>me.  Dr. Herbert Anton Kellner, a well known temperament guru became aware
> >>of my work and praised it, calling it "genius".  He said that the Equal
> >>Beating and Proportionate Beating found in my temperament, the sets of 3,
> >>6, 8, 9 & 12 beats per second were in concert with the very pulse of humanity.
> >>
> >>Yes, all of the beat speeds are exact multiples of 1 beat per second.  I
> >>arrange all harmony in the piano to fall within these very regular and
> >>orderly patterns.  Yet Ed says that is not right for 18th & 19th Century
> >>music.
> >>
> >>I'd rather listen to the opinion of a man who has been studying and
> >>practicing this art since the 1930's than to a Johnny-come-lately who
> >>first was inspired by these ideas when he attended the Convention in
> >>Milwaukee (where the EBVT was first presented to PTG).  And of course, Ed
> >>condemns that event too as he did the 1/7 Comma Meantone at the 1995
> >>Convention.  Soon thereafter however, he is *teaching* it and producing
> >>CD's to promote it.  Sure, I like Ed's CD's, except for the Chopin in
> >>Reverse Well and the Mozart in Meantone but the comments of listeners are
> >>certainly not unanimously full of praise.
> >>
> >>I'm not interested in trying to discover what the right "correction
> >>figures" for the EBVT are because I know that even if they were figured
> >>out, the octaves would still be wrong.  I tune my octaves in a way which
> >>Ed denounces as not making any sense at all but I'm still doing them that
> >>way, have been for 20 years and always will.  Sooner or later, Ed will be
> >>*teaching* it. He'll find some other source which says the same thing and
> >>proclaim it to be the bees knees of tuning and he'll still try to find a
> >>way to say that what I do is wrong.
> >>
> >>So, others who want to try to figure out what those numbers should be are
> >>encouraged to keep trying.  It shouldn't be that hard.  The EBVT is
> >>constructed much like many other HT's.  But what really makes me skeptical
> >>is that if today, so many people who really want to find the right
> >>numerical values can't, then how good are all those published sets of
> >>numbers?  Not that I dispute any particular one but really, I would never
> >>want to even try to tune a piano that way, Ed's way.
> >>
> >>I'll say one thing without reservation.  I can tune a better sounding
> >>piano than Ed Foote can and I could have it half done by the time it would
> >>take him to finish dialing in his numbers.
> >>
> >>Anybody want to give me a chance to prove it?
> >>
> >>Bill Bremmer RPT
> >>Madison, Wisconsin
> >><http://www.billbremmer.com/>Click here: -=w w w . b i l l b r e m m e r .
> >>c o m =-
> 
> 
> 
>