Can't possibly be that many left... The rest of the modern world is not stretched to that extent anymore. Seriously.

Not true. Seriously.

easy answer. Indeed there was no question, I'll give you that.

To the point: I asked you earlier if you've ever encountered negative feedback in tuning the stopperstimmunng for a close-mic recording of a piano in an ensemble setting. Well, have you?

Then, if you would devote a fraction of your time to the sound clip I posted... do you hear what I hear, that is, the difference between stretch in string quartet w/singer and string quartet alone?

Not to say that you have to agree in any way at all, but do you hear it?

Never. You also asked me what jazz pianists said. (I forgot to answer another question you mentioned earlier, i apologize, i want to take the chance to do this now too) Well look on my homepage, you find a statement of a well known german jazz pianist. I also tuned recently for a duo concert with Jasper van´t Hof and Bob Malach. Mr. van´t Hof took notice of the outstanding clarity and harmony of the tuning which helps complex chords come out very defined and clear.


I answer this asap.

Bernhard Stopper

Yes, and both are well known and respected European jazz pianists. But Dauner is 70+ and van't Hof 60+. Which reminds me of Horowitz.

My close friend was one of Franz Mohr's protégés. Small world. Mohr was the best man at his wedding, just to give a picture of how close they where (are). Mohr took him under his wings when he walked in to the office at 109 W 57th street.

My friend told me that Horowitz wanted more stretch the older he got. In his last years, Mohr tuned the C8 of his piano +100 cent, that is, C#8!

I think there is something happening with age. And I really do think younger musicians in general (to whom string quartets are more or less an anecdote) prefer a more compact sound.

This again just my own thoughts. Me myself am 40 by now. I would say my desire for stretch have increased already. Still I consider equal-beating 12ths/15ths hitting the upper limit of my tolerance, and in case of my (non-classical) piano students they have an even lower acceptable maximum range.

I am in no way sure, but I predict that average stretch will shrink in the future.

The customer I tuned the EBVT III for the other day (who was not home at the time) is apparently intrigued. The e-mail I got says:

"The tuning sounds great on the piano. John said that you had a new way of doing it. Maybe you could explain."

What do I explain? That I didn't know what I was doing before? Or better yet, HOW do you explain what you are doing different to others?

Thanks,

Nick

Patrick, while I don't profess to understand this theory/tuning discussion between you and Mr. Stopper, I do understand what 'sounds' good. That recording of "Vargsången ('The song of the wolf')" is very beautiful, and stunning in it's simplicity! However they tuned their instruments is first rate, and the singer is excellent. What is the title/info of this CD?

Your theory regarding age and the loss of high-frequencies makes a lot of sense. I wonder if there have been any definitive studies as to how this would affect the way we perceive stretch in a piano?

Rontuner, sorry that disklavier is not there anymore. Perhaps you will come across one in the future.

BDB, to answer your question specifically, what does the C# Major arpeggio sound like? To tell you the truth, I had never played it that way. So, today, I did a custom tuning of a restored Gildemeester & Kroeger 9 foot concert grand. [Ron Koval, I want to send you the data on that when I get a chance]. It is owned by a local performing artist who earns her living as a vocalist and pianist. I worked the latter half of the day on tuning and regulation.

I played the usual C Major arpeggio and got the marvelous pipe organ effect which I really only expect from C Major. Yes, G, D, A and E yield it too but to me, that top note, C8 is key to the effect. Curiously enough, it is among these keys with 5ths more highly tempered than they would be in ET that yields the effect. F Major which has the same M3 beat speed as G Major sounds very clean and pure but it does not sound like a pipe organ. It sounds very nice, yes but does not have that magic effect. The M3 and M6 are not equal beating in that key.

Now, the C# Major chord is also perfectly pure and does have equal beating M3 and M6 intervals. Now, I suspect that you would think that C# Major would have this wild, violently out of tune, horribly sour sound, so intolerable that no musician could ever stand it. It would make anyone's skin crawl, lawsuits would be filed, I would get kicked out of PTG for it, etc. The fact is that (according to Jason Kanter's graph) the M3 is less than 3 cents wider than an ET M3 would be at 16.81 cents.

When played as a long arpeggio, C# Major yields a very clean and pure sound because the 5ths are pure, the octaves are pure and the M3s and M6s are equal beating but it does not sound like a pipe organ.

Debussy wrote a lot of material in D-flat. The song, "If I loved you" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Carousel" is in that key. Anything you play in C# Major or D-flat Major that was originally written in that key sounds as it should in the EBVT III. Anything written in B-flat minor also has the dark sound that it should. The aftermath of the fire scene in the new opera, Shining Brow (for which the EBVT was first conceived) comes to mind.

Regarding ultra amounts of stretch among the highest notes of the high treble, I have frequently encountered pianos which had been tuned by aging tuners who have now passed on where those last few notes were literally in the stratosphere! (More than 1/2 step sharp). I've also seen broken strings that were left broken there too. I've heard opera singers, both Tenors and Sopranos and some violinists that pushed the envelope that far too.

Occasionally, I encounter a client that just can't get enough stretch. I can always find a way to provide it and still keep the piano in tune with itself. It is quite simple, just keep referring back to the temperament octave itself. For the last few notes of the high treble, G7-C8, simply play the quadruple octave note below it, G3-C4 (but reading in the 7th octave) and you will have C8 end up at +75-80 cents.

Of course, to do that, you have to build up to it. You have to "push" the stretch the entire way, favoring the 5th over the octave, favoring the 12 over the octave, favoring the double octave and 5th over the triple octave. It works far better on a high inharmonicity piano such as a Steinway than it ever could on a low inharmonicity piano such as GP's Mason & Hamlin.

Bill,

Have you ever tried toning the "wellness" of EBVT III down even more? I know it's more homogeneous temperament than EBVT I with less range in the M3 beating rates, but I mean brining it down even more. Like 1/4 or 1/6 EBVT.

http://www.rollingball.com/A10z.htm

At what point would you loose the benifit of key color for the sake of equalness of all keys? In other words, where's the optimal or most universally accepted temperamnet?

I could not wait any longer to give EBVT III a try - this being my first attempt at it.

Here are a few clips (mistakes and all) of tonight's tuning in EBVT III. I set the temperament as closely as I could follow the instructions and as well as my ears could decipher the new details. No doubt there are a few notes that can be better brought in line - time was running short tonight.

If you'd like, I can record more music with EBVT III in a variety of key signatures, and as well post before and after clips for many of the same pieces previously recorded.

Glen

C Major Prelude BWV 846
http://www.box.net/shared/ylco4mlh58

43 1 Db Major
http://www.box.net/shared/0aedzyckn0

Schumann's Warum
http://www.box.net/shared/4hy7y28cdb

Moonlight Sonata Mvt 1 C#-min
http://www.box.net/shared/vs4f6iit8r

Inlanding, it sounds great...I would say your first try is a success! Enjoyed your playing as well!

Thanks for posting these...very enjoyable.

Very nice playing and sounding (of course, as they are probably using standard string tuning, where the overall stretch is quasi more close to StopperStimmung than mindless octaves resp. Chas) so sorry i can´t follow your intention to justify the relevance of a stretch lesser than pure duodecimes by sharing this beautiful example.

Regards,

Bernhard Stopper

Aging tuners of course tend to raise the last few notes up to an amount that the note can be identified as the next note step. However, this is generally occuring on the highest fifth and can be done without any problem with a pure octave temperament too. The beats of those last notes are so fast then, that there can´t be recognized any beats at all (beat speed way more than 20 Hz).

Regards,

Bernhard Stopper

Ralph, thank you for the question but the answer is that with an aural tuning method, I probably can't. The very first interval I tune is the F3-A3 M3. It is set at 6 beats per second. That is the "throttle speed" for wellness. I can use the same sequence and begin at 5 or 4 bps and get an early 19th or 18th Century style WT respectively but if I went to 7 bps, I could only get a quasi ET.

There are, however milder WTs. The Moore and Moore (I think it's called) and Ron Koval have come up with some. I have experimented that way as well just by using small numbers on my ETD.

For a very mild temperament which will work very well with your ETD's default or custom stretch (as you prefer), I recommend the 1/9 comma meantone. You can e-mail Jason Kanter with these figures and he will shoot you back a graph. Each 5th is narrowed by 2.4 cents. That is just 0.4 cents narrower than an ET 5th. You can barely perceive the extra narrowness of the 5ths.

Since each 5th is narrowed more than ET, it leaves one 5th that cannot be resolved and is wide instead of narrow. That is true of all meantone temperaments. It is commonly called the "wolf" 5th because to some degree or another, it sounds out of tune and beats noticeably. However in the 1/9 comma meantone, that "wolf" 5th (between G# and D#) is wide by the same amount as all the other 5ths are narrow. If you play all of the 5ths chromatically, you don't really notice that is any different from the rest.

Therefore, all of the 4ths and 5ths sound apparently no different than an ET with very little stretch would sound but the M3s and M6s have very mild and correct key coloration. I sometimes use this for Jazz and for hotel piano bar, cocktail type piano playing.

The 1/9 Comma Meantone

C: +1.2
C#: -1.6
D: +0.4
D#: +2.4
E: -0.4
F: +1.6
F#: -1.2
G: +0.8
G#: -2.0
A: 0.0
A#: +2.0
B: -0.8

Note that the largest cent deviation is -2.4 and the next largest is +2.0. These are very small deviations from ET. In fact, if you could actually tune this aurally, the temperament would score an 80 on the PTG tuning exam and thus "pass" as ET even though clearly, it is not. The EBVT III would "score" a 70.

Please let us know if you have tried this and how you like it. (Anyone else too).

Nick,

The answer is obvious, that you used a slightly different temperament. They will probably want to know what that means. Never say the word "unequal". Say, instead that it means the "arrangement of the notes within the scale is just slightly different enough to enhance the overall sound.

Never say that you didn't know what you were doing because that is certainly not true. Say instead that you had recently learned how to perform this advanced tuning concept which very few people know about.

Cheers,

I like to tell people that there are probably a dozen or so slightly different tunings that will sound good on their piano - I'll try different ones each time and see if they respond with "wow" to one of them...

Something that Bill has _always_ said, but doesn't get written about much is the combination of temperament and stretch seems to be the key. Just applying the temperament offsets via machine to a standard stretch won't do it. If you alter the stretch parameters to achieve a balance between the octave-fifth and double octave, you get much closer to what he does aurally. (read about mindless octaves on his website if you want an idea how to check yourself as you tune)

Ron Koval
chicagoland

Thanks Ron,

This is why I particularly recommend the 1/9 comma meantone for those that can only manage to plug in numbers. The problem with most WTs is that the sizes of 5ths are irregular, so a regular stretch doesn't quite do them justice. However, a meantone temperament, by definition, has all 5ths (except the unresolved one) tempered alike. It can yield beautiful results using an ETD, especially if you hit that sweet spot in your stretch.

Thanks for the kind words, GP. If you'd like to hear more (or a before and after EBVT III comparison as you were kind enough to do), I am happy to oblige. I am still not sure I've got the temperament and stretch to where it sounds optimal. Perhaps others will chime in.

Glen

Just found this:
http://community.livejournal.com/cellists/449207.html

It´s about harmony, not stretch. The word stretch implies something non-natural. The feedback i always get is harmony, clarity and rich overtones. Not the first cellist (or pianist by the way) saying this.

But yes, of course very difficult to achieve. Quite impossible for an amateur tuner, aurally or with the device.

Bernhard Stopper

Hi again Bernhard,

I'm glad you liked the recording!
I just feel that the instrumental part is intonated with a higher stretch than the parts together with the singer (or is it just my ears deceiving me?) If it is true, however, I find it most interesting that these string players adjust to a 'main-stream' stretch when playing with other musicians not accustomed to the closer-to-pure fifths.

I also keep thinking of the phenomenon that I repeatedly encounter with my students - they are generally accustomed to narrower fifths (that is, even narrower than my taste ). I believe this has to do with close-mics, the pop industry, and the conservatively stretched digital pianos around.

I sent a text message to John Storgårds, the first violin player in the quartet recorded. He is a good friend of mine, and besides being a brilliant instrumentalist he is also one of Finland's rising conductor stars.
http://www.johnstorgards.com/News.htm

And you were right - they didn't adjust their tuning for the recording session, they just adjusted non-open strings by ear. I can't help quoting his reply when I mentioned piano tuning: "Good luck with that, it is indeed a challenge to get the piano to sound in tune. On string instruments that is fully possible - but rarely done ;)"

This is probably most true (regarding tuners). But aging piano players often want more stretch way before that - at least in my experience (hanging out with them, hearing them complain about 'too low pianos' in the upper range). This has happened a lot of times, with them hitting notes anywhere above F5.

Thanks GP, I really appreciate that! I hadn't listened to that record for a year or so, but that is one of my favorite songs on the record.

The CD is called "Wonderland - I sagans värld" (where the latter part of the title is in swedish and roughly translates into 'In the world of fairy tales'. It was released in 2008.

The record is sung in english and in our mother tongue swedish (6% minority here in Finland) by the singer Johanna Grüssner www.johannagrussner.com

It is scored by me - for vocal, string quartet, piano and double bass. The full ensemble has six songs, the rest is in a very naked jazz setting (voc/pno/db).

Because of the bilingual approach it was not really internationally released, but it can be found on web shops like This one

[/url]

I never thought about it in particular, but I'm getting curious myself. That is one of the best things with a discussion like this - it tickles ones brain!

That is fantastic, Patrick!

The extreme example you gave with Horowitz was for C8 (100 cent+) and must probably (at least to a major part) be contributed to the same effect (last fifth) that was encountered at aging tuners.



Probably musical wisdom -
The more playing experience they have, the greater chance that they came across pianos satisfying their stretch expectations. Once this happened, they are spoiled.


Regards,

Bernhard Stopper

Glen,

I think this is a very good first go at this temperament! You've been doubting your bass stretching in many of your posts here - listening to your recordings, I can see no reason for you to continue doing that I think you are expanding the temperament very musically in both directions, and particularly downwards.

Especially the Moonlight sonata sounds very colorful, and it's a great bass reference, too - Very good octaves down there! What kind of piano did you tune, by the way?

The few questions I have are the same things I've been pondering quite a lot myself. Here comes the same question I asked Nick earlier (and if this pattern is repeating itself in the future too, I might consider draining my ears... ) : what about the C-E? It sounds a bit wide to me over here.

Do you use spotify? If so, try a search for No. 1 WTC 1. You'll get countless of hits. Listen to the first cadenza in the opening bars in a bunch of them. Is your C4-E4 narrower than ET, like it's supposed to be in EBVT III?

It might be the mp3 format playing a trick on me, but check it out if your interested! Along the same lines, I think F3-F4 might be slightly wide of 4:2.

And, as always, please bear in mind that I might be wrong... just spontaneous listening feedback.

I hope Bill with his thorough experience and understanding of this temperament will comment, and Isaac as well - he has a great ability to isolate specific intervals. They've both provided me with most valuable feedback, and for that I'm very grateful.

That said, indeed a very good first attempt - I think it sounds much better than when I started exploring EBVT myself.


Please do, I'd be eager to listen. I learn very much from listening to you others, getting my own thoughts mirrored from a distance, so to speak.

Glen,

I think you are doing just fine. I could hear the slight contrasts of key color and they all fit the music as it was written. You play with remarkable sensitivity. Would you say that the way the temperament makes the music sound affects the mood of the music and therefore the way you interpret it?

I liked all of the selections. I noticed you did not use the pedal in the Bach the way most people do. There are so many examples of that one piece on You tube and most of them are quite bad. The only one I found that was actually in a WT was on a harpsichord. When the piano was played by a professional artist, it had the usual ET with every last bit of key color refined out of it. When it was an example of an amateur, the piano was inevitably in reverse well and the pianist just hammered it out with apparently no concept of what the music should really sound like.

I particularly enjoyed the piece in D-flat. There is an edge to the harmony that belongs there but is rounded off by ET. The Schumann sounded had this sentimental quality that I expect to hear from his music. If you can play Schumann's Traümerei, you will have a new experience with it, for sure. I would like everyone to hear that.

I wonder how Bernhard Stopper would translate the word, Traümerei? My knowledge of German is limited. I know that the word for "dream" is a cognate in German: "traum". I am somewhat familiar with how plurals and adjectives are created, as well as compound words, so I am fairly certain that a translation of Franz Liszt's "Liebestraüme" would be "love dreams". But "Traümerei" makes me guess something like Roy Orbinson's song tile "In Dreams" or something along the lines of "A dreamlike state". Glen (or anyone else), see if you can capture that quality from the music tuned in the EBVT III.

The Moonlight sonata was also captivating. I so often hear it played so badly, just hammered out with no feeling. It seems as though the pianist is somewhat disconnected from the sounds that are being produced. The worst I ever heard was Andras Schiff playing a Bösendorfer Imperial (mandatorily tuned in ET at A-443). He just stepped on the pedal and played the notes. I wanted to walk out!

I would like to hear any and all you may have to offer in any and all keys. I did not hear any particular problem with the way you tuned, so you are definitely on the right track. We can all find room for improvement, however, so just keep doing your personal best. Let us know what your customers say too.

Cheers!

On the subject of how sharp some people seem to hear and how some performers really push it, I had mentioned that opera Tenors often do this. I once heard a live performance here in Madison by a traveling Italian opera company of Bizet's Carmen. There definitely were some high notes that were 1/2 step sharp!

Coincidentally, a fellow local singer e-mailed me last night about another Bizet opera, "Les Pêcheurs de Perles" (The Pearl Fishers) and about a particular aria he was studying. He found this example of Placido Domingo singing where he really pushes the pitch!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suUa7l2QQ...&playnext=9

Well, it's better to be sharp than out of tune.

Haha... "if in doubt - go higher!"