(careful, it is about temperaments)

[Porritt, David]

David:

Even though orchestral instruments have the ability to adjust their
pitch "on the fly" and even though they claim to tune their intervals
"just" I think they are profoundly affected by the pitch memory they
have of intervals on the piano.  String quartets and a cappella vocal
groups are famous for making the "just" claims yet it is rarely heard.
Some of the very best barber shop vocal groups manage to pull it off
because they emphasize "ringing the chords" and are the most aware of
their pitches of any musical groups I'm aware of.  Here in Dallas there
is a large group dedicated to this music and their just intervals will
really make your spine tingle (but I digress).  

Most groups that I've heard, who perform unencumbered by fixed tuned
instruments, tend to place their intervals much like they have heard
them on the piano.  Since a cappella choirs tend to learn new music with
the aid of a piano before they go a cappella that's understandable. In
our day that's a more-or-less ET.  I'm sure in the classical period the
well temperaments were so fixed in their minds that they played or sang
with those WT intervals in mind.  Composers then (even those who had no
piano) would tend to write in and for the keys that they had in their
head.  This is why it took a while for ET to become accepted as it
violated people's idea of the pitch in their head.  You don't have to
have pitch recognition to have a good sense of interval width.  When I'm
tuning, after I've tuned C I can look away from my ETD and while not
using any other pitch source, I can tune C# and it will be amazingly
close and I'm no genius.  I think anyone who makes their living in music
can do the same thing.

dp

David M. Porritt
dporritt@smu.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On
Behalf Of David Love
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 8:42 AM
To: 'An open list for piano technicians'
Subject: RE: (careful, it is about temperaments)

Very eloquently expressed and I think you make a strong argument.  I
agree
that the wanderings from the tonic offer a sense of exploration and
tension.
The only issue that argues against the conclusion you draw with respect
to
the piano is that the wanderings occur in all the compositions,
symphonies,
quartets, i.e., non keyboard music.  In these cases it is the distance
from
the tonic and the resolve back to the tonic that creates the tension.
While
most of us are not educated in listening to classical music in a way
that
allows us to actually understand as we hear and follow the change of
keys,
the composers of that day (and many of the listeners) were.  The ability
to
perceive the journey away from and back to the tonic creates a contrast
without having to rely on the use of unequal temperament to make the
case.
There are no instructions within the scores of the symphonies to play
the
outer keys with wider thirds in order to create more tension as the
pieces
wandered away from the tonic.  Since those options are available in an
orchestra, we have to assume that they were eschewed as unnecessary,
perhaps, undesirable.  

That the piano contains these qualities due to the fact that it was
tuned in
a certain way doesn't mean that the composers would have chosen that
given
some other option.  There are many pieces whose openings are not
necessary
quiet and consonant and it would seem that in those cases more remote
keys
would have been chosen had that effect been desired.  That they weren't
in
almost all cases suggests strongly that in spite of the wanderings from
the
tonic dictated by the composers overarching sense of composition beyond
what
the instrument had to offer, that there choice of tonic keys was
limited,
not expanded, by the dissonance of the outer keys.  You work with what
you
have, but given an opportunity, you may not choose it.  

David Love
davidlovepianos@comcast.net 

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On
Behalf
Of A440A@aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 4:49 AM
To: pianotech@ptg.org
Subject: Re: (careful, it is about temperaments)

David writes:
 
>>Since the predominant choice of keys, as you have outlined, is in 3
sharps
or less (mostly less) it may also suggest that composers were selecting
keys
to avoid the effects of unequal temperaments present in the outer keys
rather than to take advantage of them. << 

     The "home key" is merely the beginning point.  As was pointed out 
earlier, in sonata-Allegro form, the composers began in one place, then
began moving 
farther and farther away from it, going through a variety of keys in
harmonic 
exploration, before returning to the "home" key. As certainly as rest is
more 
blessed after labor, as water is more satisfying after drought, and love
is 
more cherished after lonliness, harmony is sweeter for the dissonance
that 
precedes it.  Braid-White chose to quote Plutarch in his book, "Music,
to
create 
harmony, must investigate discord".  

>>The fact that the selection is quite narrow and weighs in heavily on
the
less "colorful" side of the circle of fifths suggests to me that unequal
temperaments certainly did influence choice of keys, but not in the
broader
sense of a wider or more "artistic" vocabulary, but rather in the
narrower
sense to avoid intervals that on the piano as it was tuned just didn't
sound
that good.<< 

    I see this entirely differently!  Beethoven didn't avoid much,
instead, 
he gained a reputation by writing farther out than anyone previously
had.
Haydn 
and Schubert also show their willingness to use all the keys.  
 If avoidance of dissonance were the aim, the composers would have
stayed 
within the home key and sonata form would not have evolved.   Instead,
the
use of 
"color" is there to create the contrasts necessary to fully engage the 
listeners emotions.  When Beethoven is using minor 2nds, he is obviously
looking for 
dissonance, since that interval is dissonant in ANY key and ANY tuning. 
    I see the composers using the beginning key to set a relative sense
of 
consonance, against which the increasingly expressive harmony of more
highly

tempered keys display their own beauty.  I call this the "Tight-shoe
theory
of 
harmony".  C major feels better after a  trek though  Ab or F#.  The act
of 
resolution is one of carrying the listener to a more consonant place
than
where 
they have been, allowing them to relax.  Moving from a highly tempered
key
to 
one less so does this in a physiological sense, which certainly aids in
engaging 
the mind and emotions.  This is a non-voluntary response to dissonance.

    The true art of composition in the classical era was to move the
listener 
into ever increasing dissonance without it becoming obvious, then
bringing 
the resolution by moving back into consonance.  It is a delicate art,
but
causes 
the listener to become emotionally involved on a subliminal level.  It
is 
this rising and falling level of dissonance that creates the attraction.
I 
suggest that this is the reason that resolutions were never made to a
key
that was 
higher in the circle of fifths, the rise in stimulation that results
from 
moving into higher dissonance goes against the grain of resolution.
This is
also 
why I believe that keys like B and F# were so difficult to use, because
it
is 
very difficult to resolve back to home in these keys!  
    I demonstrate this easily enough.   On a well-tempered piano, even
with
a 
Young temperament with its 21 cent F#-A#,  I can begin with C and play a

circle of triads through the octave, (C-F-Bb-Eb-Ab-C#-F#-B-E-A-D-G-C)
and
99% of 
the listeners never consciously register the change of tempering.
However,
if 
I move from C directly to B, or F#,  it becomes obvious to almost all
that 
there is a distinct difference to the quality of sound.  
    If we listen intellectually, as us tuners are wont to do, we hear 
unevenness, but the normal music lovers I have encountered don't.  They
are
hearing 
the music, not the tuning.  This was brought home by the response to the

Pathetique we recorded on the Prinz temperament on "Beethoven in the
Temperaments".  
By and large, other techs told me how grating the middle section was to
them, 
yet, I got more positive comments on that passage from music lovers and 
musicians than anything else I have done.  I chose this temperament for
this
piece 
because I wanted a passage that used the maximum expressiveness of WT,
which

in this case is the 21 cent third (syntonic comma) in Ab.  
     We listen as a function of our past.  That is where our
expectations 
come from, and what we must compare all else to.  Our 20th century past
is,
by 
and large, equal temperament.  However, growth requires change, and
change 
requires courage.  My aim has been to encourage others to experiment
with an
open 
mind.  Once that is done, an individual's choices is informed and valid,

regardless of what direction results, whether it be a totally new
universe
or 
comfortably secure in the status quo.  
  If I may quote Tolstoy: 
     "I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the

greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most
obvious
truth if 
it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions
which 
they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they proudly
taught
to 
others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of
their 
lives."  
    My own life has become much richer for questioning how I tune.  I
did 
have to give up a single-minded attachment to my ET, but it has been
worth
it.   
After 17 years of mono-temperament work, the incorporation of a variety
of 
temperaments greatly increased my appreciation of music.  It has also
begun 
creating a new demand for my services as well as bedrock loyalty in my
customers, 
new respect around Music row, the town, the university, and the higher
prices I 
can command, (currently tunings are $130 and I still have to turn down
work). 
    My whole point is that technicians can make a positive impact in
their 
lives by broadening their aesthetic sense of harmony, by becoming
familiar
with 
temperament's history and its application.  To this end,  I continually
ask 
myself if I know what I like or do I like what I know.   
Regards,






Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
 
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