Temperament use, (was Feldman's piano)

[A440A at aol.com]

 Avery asks:
<< I "believe" that Ed Foote does a LOT of HT's with jazz. Right, Ed?>>

          There are only about 5% of my customers still using strict equal 
temperament.  I don't have any that have stayed in 1/7 comma tuning, but the 
Coleman 11 is popular with the songwriters and jazz players, as well as the Moore 
and Co.  tuning.  
     These tunings are not recognized as unequal, by the musicians.  The 
pianos are simply regarded as more resonant and fuller sounding.  Beegee Adair, a 
well-know jazz artist,(a Steinway Artist,too), has remarked that there is 
something about a local piano I lease to a jazz club that always just puts her in 
a great frame of mind, saying "I've never had a bad night on that piano".  It 
is in a Moore and Co. right now, but has been in the Broadwood or Coleman 
tuning, before. I have never used ET on that piano.   
       One recording studio here that uses a new Kohler and Campbell 
piano,(not a very exciting instrument), has several of the session players saying it 
is their favorite piano in town because it has such a great sound.  They don't 
even register that it is in a Coleman tuning, but it has something the other 
pianos in studios don't.  (the C7 is the standard studio piano around here). 
    Peter Serkin used a 1/7 comma meantone tuning last week for a Brahms 
Concerto.  Nobody mentioned noticing that it was a different tuning, but rather, 
how good the piano sounded.  That is more extreme than I tune,but in that 
setting, it did just fine. 
       There is something, imho, lacking about exact ET that musicians don't 
even know they want, until they get it.  I don't do a lot of talking about the 
changing, so the piano gets the credit.  I do get the highest price for my 
tuning here, and the majority of my customers are professional pianists, and I 
don't use ET very much. It has been that way for 15 years, so I don't think I 
can be accused of using smoke and mirrors.  
     I do have a simple challenge:  with two identical pianos, allow me to 
tune one and anybody else tune the other in ET,(I don't care if it is the best 
tuner from any of the makers) and then compare any kind of music on both of 
them.  I have done this repeatedly and the overwhelming majority of listeners 
have preferred the non-ET piano.  Strict equal just doesn't hold up in side by 
side comparisons and a growing number of tuners are finding that out.
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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