What are the differences between the two? I mean of course, aside from the note to note relationship? Can one also play in different keys using Bremmer EBVT with equal color from key to key?

I want to try Bremmer's EBVT but want to hear from those who've tried it first.

Thanks, all.

Jun

Jun, you can play any kind of music in any key but all 24 major and minor key tonalities will bear a slight distinction from one to the next. It gives you a reason to be in the key in which you are playing. When a piece changes key, you will hear a different character in the music rather than just a different pitch.

This is true for any Well Tempered style of tuning. However, most 17th and 18th style Well-Temperaments are considered unacceptable for the modern piano except when playing music from those periods. Virtually any Victorian style well-temperament will have the same effects as far as general character as the EBVT, just slight differences from one to the other.

The principle purpose for designing the EBVT was to provide a system which any contemporary piano technician would find easy to execute with consistency when tuning aurally. I chose to use some techniques I learned from studying a select group of 17th and 18th Century temperaments to make this possible. It involves making only one estimate, then tuning each subsequent interval to beat exactly the same as another or be completely beatless (pure or just).

There was a beneficial side effect to this kind of temperament construction. When two intervals beat exactly the same, whether they are slowly or rapidly beating intervals, they have a canceling out effect, very much the same as noise reduction systems have to cover unwanted sounds. Briefly stated, it makes the piano sound purer and more in tune with itself than it really is.

This provides a way to be sure of oneself with each step rather than mere guessing. That way, the idea can be replicated by any skilled aural tuner. If you have read what I have worked on more recently, I have tried to use that same kind of technique to tune Equal Temperament.

There are "correction" figures on my website for tuning the EBVT if you choose to do it that way. I suggest using the figures for the EBVT III. Otherwise, if you tune aurally, try the method for tuning the EBVT, enjoy the results and then try the few extra steps to convert the EBVT to the EBVT III and note that the latter is a milder form and is the usual way I tune all pianos for all circumstances.

The final product, the EBVT III came about through feedback from other technicians. The EBVT was good but still a bit too harsh among the keys with 5 or 6 sharps or flats. Many technicians have tried it, so I hope you do hear from some of them.

You may also find correction figures for other Victorian style and modern day designed well temperaments on Jason Kanter's website: www.rollingball.com These may have some of the same equal beating properties although probably by default rather than design. A study of Jason's amazing graphs will reveal the properties of each.

Ultimately, it must be you who decides whether the use of any of these ideas results in an improvement over standard ET or not. If you are a piano technician who serves customers, you want to give them the best musical experience possible. It can be a gray area about whether to inform them about exactly what you are doing or not. Most people, even high caliber artists do not understand these concepts. The very idea of an *unequal* temperament may sound unappealing or even frightening.

I believe the best way to determine success is to remain with the customer and have them test the piano by playing their usual repertoire. Most may notice no difference at all, they will merely find the piano sounds good. Others may immediately perceive some kind of enhanced effect and ask you if you have done something different. There is a possibility that a few may not like the difference in key color. You need to be prepared to change the tuning back to ET if they do but it won't be a difficult job since the difference between any Victorian style Well-Temperament and standard ET is very small.

Good luck and please let us all know when you have tried any Victorian Temperament and how you felt about it, positive or negative; it is all good either way.

Bill,

What an honor to get a reply straight from you! Thanks for the detailed reply. I am going to try your tuning using tunelab pro on my piano as I am not a professional tuner, and there is none where I live.

If and when I get to do it, I will let you know how I feel about it.

All the best,

Jun

Before I give my feedback, I should say a little bit about myself because I only recently joined this forum and no one really knows me yet. Basically, I am a pianist who is picky about what I play on ... to the point that I have learned among other things how to voice, regulate, and tune ... simply because I can't have a full-time technician come to my house every third day. Given that I am a prolific string breaker (I will eventually break strings on pretty much every piano I play), some of this learning was a necessity. I will also say that anyone who thinks that working on pianos is easy has no idea what they are talking about. My "learning" was very difficult, with frequent and sometimes expensive mistakes. For example, I have gone through more than a few sets of hammers learning how to voice. But I digress ...

To the topic on hand. When I first learned how to tune, I eventually learned what basically amounted to an equal temperament type. While nothing was beating wrong, the octaves sounded great, the M3/M6/M10 progressions were nice, etc., I was never happy with it, as something I was doing was missing. While it was definitely good enough for me to use ... and the people who heard my tuning usually thought it was fine, I was still unhappy.

Over time, I figured out that what was missing was color. The best tunings I had heard were not as even and smoothly progressive as I had been tuning, but sounded richer and more distinct. I could also project and voice in my playing better on these tunings. But it drove me crazy in that there was not a consistency in how these tunings were different from my own ... sometimes one had a different progression, sometimes one did not progress exactly evenly ... there's a longer story here than what I will give details on, but the short version is that I knew I was missing something and could not figure it out from what the tuners I discussed it with told me.

About a month ago I encountered the piano world website, and found a link which eventually got me to Bill Bremmer's home page. Needless to say, I got very interested in the EBVT and tried it on my D that I have at home. I ended up using EBVT III with two minor changes - these two changes being retroactive adjustments since I couldn't get both good octaves and M12s in the low tenor. Outside of that, I just created the temperament as directed and expanded it outward as I normally do.

And I was stunned. This was the sound and tuning that I had been looking for. While it is not exactly the same as some of the other "great" tunings I have heard or played, it was every bit as good, with a great richness and clarity. And the oh-so-gorgeous colors in it. Just yesterday evening, when I was playing the Bach-Busoni d minor Chaconne, I was still amazed by how beautiful it sounds even after about a month under this new method. I've done a few touch-ups to the tuning over this time, but the tuning is actually more stable than I expected it to be.

So my feedback is that I am a huge enthusiast of EBVT and want to give Bill Bremmer a serious thank you on this. I would also add a comment ... I think that those who believe that having the most theoretically even/smooth tuning are missing the boat. Great artistry is a function of precise control of color - to get there, one needs a color palate. If everything sounds the same across different keys, then the available palate is reduced. But this is also clearly personal opinion ...

I have now tuned 3 pianos using EBVT III, my wonderful old Wurlitzer console (circa 1950), my Baldwin Hamilton and my church's Kawai KG-2 5'9" polished ebony grand. I love this temperament. The lady who plays our church piano has taught private lessons for 40 years approximately and she loves the tonal quality color this temperament brings to the music. Thanks Bill for your work and your willingness to converse with me on the phone. Hopefully someday we will get to meet personally. I really enjoy playing the piano after tuning with the EBVT III.

I am a professional tuner. And I have tuned many pianos for clients using EBVT III with good results. Personally I prefer EBVT III over ET because the piano sounds more harmonious.

When talking about temperaments I often say that ET is a temperament where all intervalls are equally "untuned" (instead of equally tempered). In ET there are no pure intervals, and there are no equal beating intervalls (except for doubleoctaves / octaves + fifths, which I use to stretch my tunings). This gives the piano the ability to be played in every key without changes in color. That is most appreciated by jazz musicians, who want no differences between tonalities. But what is gained in uniformity is lost in harmonie.

With unequal temperaments what we gain is a set of intervalls tuned pure, that is beatless and in the EBVT III we also have some equal beating intervalls which contribute to this harmoniousness in the piano. And here what is lost in uniformity is gained in beauty.

Although in EBVT III you can perfectly play in all the keys. There is a color to each different key, but there are no harsh intervalls to the point of not being playable.

That said, I must thank Bill Bremmer for contributing his successes and sharing his knowledge here in the Internet, making his finds accessible to all of us, without asking nothing in return. Thank you very much Bill.

Thank you, all, for your responses.

So I tried tuning my piano to Bill's EBVT III with the aid of tunelab pro. I thought it would take me a long time to do it since I am not a professional tuner. However, I found out that changing to EBVT from ET doesn't take that long since not all notes are altered.

Anyways, after tuning, I sat down to play and by golly, I thought for a while I had a more expensive piano. It sounds different, in a very good way. I tried sustained arpeggios on major and diminished chords and indeed I could perceive what Bill calls the pipe organ effect. It's like a deep roar coming from inside the piano.

I have to go back to the piano now and explore the different keys...

Have a nice trip.

I try to be a knowledgeable piano owner without being a difficult one so I discussed what I had learned/heard here about temperaments with my tuner and the last time my piano was tuned we used the EBVT (I don't know whether it was III or not). My tech chose this because I told him I did not like the way thirds often sounded ('busy'...kind of...like they were wobbling against each other).

I really like this tuning. I will ask him about the EBVT III the next time he comes.

Thank you for coming up with this tuning!

Thanks to everyone for all of the comments. I believe the Verituner and Tunelab have correction figures labeled "EBVT" already installed. However, there has been some problem in the past determining exactly what these figures should be.

I recommend the following figures which were computed by Professor Owen Jorgensen RPT. If they differ from what is in your ETD's program, you can simply overwrite them. You can have both sets, label one of them "EBVT" and the other, "EBVT III". You will note that the figures are the same for both except the notes E and F#. The EBVT II has only the note E changed to what it is in the EBVT III but that version is now considered obsolete.

It is interesting to consider that changing only two notes, the E by 1.4 cents and the F# by 2.9 cents produces a very significant difference. The EBVT has 5 pure 5ths. The EBVT III has only 2 pure 5ths. Two more are tempered less than in ET with one of them being very nearly pure. There are also other subtle losses in the EBVT III which are incurred while mitigating some of the harshness of the EBVT.

My suggestion is to try the EBVT III first and if you like that, try the original EBVT later and determine for yourself if you like the original version better. The original version may be better suited for smaller, more poorly scaled pianos and for playing music from the 17th through early 19th Centuries and any modern music which generally does not use the keys of B, F# and Db. However, any music in any key is possible with either version. It will be a matter of taste and perception whether the original version is too "spicey" or not. Both will produce the "pipe organ" effect if plenty of stretch is used in the outer octaves.

EBVT

C +3.8
C# -1.3
D +0.9
D# +1.6
E -2.0
F +1.8
F# -3.2
G +3.1
G# +0.7
A 0.0
A# +2.9
B 0.0

EBVT III

C +3.8
C# -1.3
D +0.9
D# +1.6
E -0.6
F +1.8
F# -0.3
G +3.1
G# +0.7
A 0.0
A# +2.9
B 0.0

These figures are also available from my website.

Hi Bill:
I tuned my home piano to the EBVT a month or so ago. I did it aurally, and generally was happy with it. A couple of days later my wife, who is the main pianist in the family, was playing something and said "Does that sound in tune to you?" I thought...oops, I've been caught. I looked at the music and it was some Debussy, a big chord in Db. It did sound rather "spicey", as you say. I left the tuning on the piano for now. Maybe I'll have to go to the EBVT III in the future. It just depends on what's being played.

Really, it seemed easier to tune aurally than ET.

Roy, the example you cite was the main reason behind creating the EBVT III. The EBVT was the first step towards that but it only went half the amount needed to solve the problem, therefore, it is now no longer used.

Please do use the EBVT III when you get a chance and let us all know how music by Debussy and Chopin sound.

I informed Bill that the offsets for the original EBVT which are in the Verituner do not match the numbers he posted here. He explained that since I obtained them from him for the Verituner, a problem in the calculations had been identified and resolved. Bill also stressed that he now recommends using either the original EBVT (with the corrected offsets), which is the stronger version, or the EBVT III, which is milder and is the one he most often uses. (The EBVT II version is now obsolete.)

The correct offsets are given below. Verituner users who are interested in using either or both of these should add them as custom temperaments. The offsets are given with a precision of two decimal places. To better understand the EBVT temperaments, see Janson Kantor's graphs on this webpage:

http://www.billbremmer.com/ebvt/ebvt_iii.jpg

http://www.billbremmer.com/ebvt/ebvt_i.jpg

Bill Bremmer's EBVT III Temperament:

A 0.00
A# 2.86
B -0.03
C 3.80
C# -1.29
D 0.86
D# 1.59
E -0.41
F 1.84
F# -0.28
G 3.11
G# 0.67

Bill Bremmer's EBVT Temperament (Original Version):

A 0.00
A# 2.86
B -0.03
C 3.80
C# -1.29
D 0.86
D# 1.59
E -1.98
F 1.84
F# -3.24
G 3.11
G# 0.67

David Bauguess

David,

Just a word about these figures: In the summary of the EBVT III in Bill's site

http://www.billbremmer.com/ebvt/summary_ebvt_sequences.pdf


there is a -0.6 cents value for E, instead of -0.41 cents reported by Jason Kanter's graph.

I remember Bill had explained in a post that the -0.6 value was calculated by Owen Jorgensen and he considered it more accurate than the -0.41 cents which results when following his aural tuning instructions.

Bill, can you tell us more about the E = -0.6 cents value?

Thanks for the heads up, Rafael. I just emailed Bill and asked him to check (and as needed) correct any errors in what I posted. -David

Ah yes, I do recall Jason Kanter bringing this up. I again consulted with Owen Jorgensen about it. The figure of -0.6 is the one I use, not -0.41. I am sorry that I don't have the hundreth decimal place for -0.6 but it can be considered at this point to be -0.60.

The difference between the two is not terribly large and it may have had something to do with my aural description. The EBVT has C4-E4 beat at 6 beats per second. That puts E at -1.98 or the rounded off, -2.0. The EBVT III takes E4 (which is beatless with B3) in the EBVT), sharpens E4 until the A3-E4 5th and the B3-E4 4th beat exactly the same. I may have said at one point that it sounded then like 8 beats per second and Jason Kanter took that literally.

8 beats per second, however is not the specification. The equal beating A3-E4 5th and B3-E4 4th is the specification. There is only one rapidly beating interval specification in the entire temperament sequence: The F3-A3 M3 is to be made to beat at 6 beats per second. Any aural tuner can only estimate that. But whatever estimate is made, the other rapidly beating intervals which follow are to be made to beat exactly the same as the F3-A3 M3, as closely as is humanly possible by an aural tuner.

For the purposes of finding the electronic correction figures, each interval specified as 6 beats per second was calculated as being exactly 6.00 beats per second. In the EBVT III, the C4-E4 M3 may be close to 8 beats per second but is probably slightly less than 8, like maybe 7.5 or whatever. But again, there is NO beat rate specification for C4-E4! That interval's exact beat rate is determined through the equal beating process during aural tuning.

For now, please accept -0.60 as the specification for the note E. I will try to find the correspondence from Owen Jorgensen to see if in hundredths, it may be slightly smaller, such as anywhere between -0.55 to -0.59 or perhaps even larger, anywhere between -0.60 to -0.64. In any case, whatever the exact hundredths figure may be within that entire range would not amount to a significant difference from -0.6.

I appreciate the fact that the Verituner can accept hundredths and we wouldn't want up to 0.05 slop in every calculation but for now, until I can find the exact hundredths figure, -0.60 is close enough. Even the -0.41 figure would not significantly affect the outcome but it is slightly out of line with the intended results.

I was able to locate the December 2007 document from Owen Jorgensen. That was the document where he recalculated all figures. In his own handwriting, Owen Jorgensen listed the correction figure for E as -0.41.

Therefore, the figure which I had of -0.6 must have been a transcription error on my part which Jason Kanter, to his credit was able to identify on his own without seeing Jorgensen's list. The beat rate for the C4-E4 M3 in both the EBVT II and EBVT III is 7.2 beats per second. That is 1.2 bps faster than in the EBVT.

Too bad we cannot edit any posts past a certain time limit!

However, I am not going to lose any sleep over this because the difference is less than 0.2 cents and does not amount to a aurally perceivable error in my opinion.

My sincere appreciation to all who have taken an interest in this subject.

To David Bauguess' and Rafael's credit, I commend them both for wanting accurate transcriptions. I will have my webmaster change the figures on my website.

Thank you Bill.

Welcome, Rafael. The new figure is now on my website.

Mr. Bremmer

I have used your EBVT III on three different pianos now, using Tunelab, and have been very pleased with the results, as well as my customers. The three pianos are as follows...

Howard Grand (1907)
Baldwin Grand
Baldwin Spinet

The Howard Grand is my own personal piano that I restored. This temperament gives it such a nice sound. I played everything from Bach, Beethoven and Mozart to Satie,WC Handy as well as some contemporary Christian songs. Every song and key that I played in had such a nice sound! Db particularly stood out to me, it had a much more crisp sound in this temperament than it does in ET. Also, the M3rds are a lot less "busy" than in ET. Thank you for sharing EVTB III! I think I am liking it better than ET.

Thank you Ryan. Exploring temperament and octave tuning has given me a love for the piano that will never die. Your comments are heartwarming.

I'd like to try it out myself. It would be nice to have something other than ET. And having a few pure intervals (or close to pure) makes it even more inviting. BTW, does anyone have a musical piece (sound file, mp3) played on the EBVT III temperament they could share? I would love to hear it.

I do have some sound files I could post but I can't figure out how to do it. The FAQ says how to do it but I cannot fins the "File Manager" link to which it refers.

You can put sound files on your own web site and link to them.

If you are placed on a shared server with other web sites, the web hosting company might object to this type of streaming. On a shared server, this will push some of the other web sites out of the way and may cause the server to crash. Best to see if you’re hosting company allows html streaming and other types of streaming first…

Thanks to both BDB and Dan S. I have my webmaster working on it. I sent him files that I have and that I am authorized to distribute. I've had them all for a long time but none of them are really the best, like known classical artists playing solo piano which I could not use. I'll see what he thinks and he will post whatever he thinks may be useful and practical.

My webmaster is a frequent and quite erudite participant on this list. He has given freely far more to me than I could offer to him. I only hope to repay his kindness!

Thanks, Bill, for all the work you have done on this temperament and your willingness to share with others. Thanks to all of you for trying to get a link to a sound file, looking forward to it. I've already set up the EBVT III with stretch settings which I will be trying on my home piano on the next tuning. Thanks again...

Ranger,

Yet another way of auditioning Bill's EBVT III is to load the tuning into a software piano. In my case, I have the Garritan Steinway software piano which features ability to import tunings. This piano has sympathetic resonance so maybe it would give a rather accurate sonic palette of the Bremmer EBVT III.

To set up this tuning on the Garritan Steinway, just look at this thread:

http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/showthread.php?t=67797

Jun

Thank you Ranger. We all would be interested in you opinion. I don't expect everyone to like it, especially among technicians. The sound files will have to wait until I return from the convention. My webmaster will be able to tell me by then what I can put on my website and which files sound the best.

Thanks for that info, Jun. I have a lot of music software, but none that accepts alternate tuning files that I know of.