Temperaments...

[Don Gilmore]

It seems to me that you would want to tune/design wind instruments to ET.
And I say this not to tout the Almighty Equal Temperament; I say this
precisely because these instruments can bend pitches.  I would think that
you would design the hole layout so that a musician can avail himself of the
maximum pitch-bend range.

If you lay out the entire range it would take to be able to bend a given
note to produce a pure interval when played along with any other scale note,
the ET pitch of that note is *exactly* in the center.  Isn't that where you
would want it?  It seems silly to me to design the instrument to offset this
center sharp or flat from ET.  What would be the point since you can bend
the note anywhere you like anyway?  I'm sure the range of possible bending
for an accomplished musician is probably wide enough to cover the largest
bend, even if the instrument is designed off-center, but again, why would
you do this?

A previous poster mentioned that bassoons are tuned for "just intervals".
This doesn't even make sense.  Just in what key?  Just between which notes?
I don't see how this is practical, or even possible.  Even a monophonic
instrument has to be able to play in all twelve keys, in harmony with other
horns.

I played the trombone in high school and college band and first position
(closed slide) is always tuned to ET.  Violins can alter notes by changing
the position of their fingers on the string, but what about open strings?
Don't they tune them to ET?  And if not, why not?  They have no control over
them while playing at all.

I'm not saying that ET sounds better than pure intervals.  Of course it
doesn't.  But it seems to me that you must have a central base to work from
to be able to play in all keys.  A scheme that might make one key easier to
play pure intervals in would necessarily make another key more difficult.
Why would you do this?

Don A. Gilmore
Mechanical Engineer
Kansas City


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ron Koval" <drwoodwind@hotmail.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, April 05, 2004 8:22 AM
Subject: Temperaments...


> This whole temperament thing is such a tiny niche of the world, even among
> tuners!  I went through all my years of study as a bassoonist, assuming
that
> ET was the norm, yet we trained for listening and adjusting to Just
> intervals. It wasn't until I really dug into the subject a few years ago
> that I realized that ET only exists in fixed pitch instruments, such as
the
> piano and organ.   So much of the discussion is framed by what we THINK is
> the norm, not what actually IS the norm.   Think about that a minute.  Not
> in orchestras, not in bands, not in choirs, not in ensembles, ONLY when
the
> piano is brought into the mix does ET enter the picture.
>
> It becomes so obvious when you think about the speed of the thirds that we
> work so hard to control on the piano.  Do you think that an
instrumentalist
> would change the speed of the beating of the third, based on where in the
> scale it lies?  How impossible would that be?!  I can just imagine:
"Let's
> see, I'm in the key of F, so the tonic should beat at 7bps, but the
dominant
> should beat at around 10 bps... but wait, that's only in one octave... oh,
I
> missed that measure, what's the next note?"
>
> That means, even though ET is accepted everywhere as the norm, it really
> occupies a very small corner of musical expression in the world.  Anyone
> that tries to introduce an alternate tuning runs into the brick wall of
> ignorance about the specifics of musical tuning.
>
> I feel that at this point, the best thing I can do is to speak directly to
> pianists about the existance of playable temperaments.  I hope to develop
an
> article to submit to the magazines that cater to pianists.  Something to
do
> with temperaments as just another way for them to add contrasts to the
> music.  So much of what we do already as techs give pianist greater
> contrasts, either through regulation, voicing, tuning, or rebuilding.
>
> Ron Koval
> Chicagoland
>
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