Equipment failures! I arrived at GP's house only to find that my SAT III with which I had had no problem at all in six years had suddenly gone haywire!. (Randy Potter came through however with a technician who loaned me an SAT IV and did a video of me. I now have a new SAT IV that does not do a bad job of interpreting the EBVT III, better than expected. I also used it today to tune the 1/7 comma meantone with superb results.)

Then, right in the middle of wanting to record a fine pianist, the recording equipment goes haywire too! All that, together with voicing issues and a new noise in the piano on the last day, we still managed to pull off some great recordings.

Look forward to: The Carousel Waltz from the musical, Carousel (a very long and engaging piece) plus 2 more songs from the same. Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, a 25 minute piece, full of imagery and color. Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu played with "mindless octaves". A few pieces by Grieg and others from a New Age album of music. An album of early music is also waiting for GP to record in the EBVT III. GP can also record any of the thousands of rolls or discs he has for the player systems.

All will demonstrate how the EBVT III works well with virtually any kind of music, no matter from what period or century it comes, no matter what style or key signature.

Stay tuned!

As noted, I don't have much input on the EBVT III as I know and understand very little about it but I am coming to enjoy it having an open mind about it and other method's of tuning. I hope to understand and to be able to tune it after next month when Bill pays me a visit. I certainly don't understand the math nor, do I care to understand it, in fact, I hate that kind of math, but, I do enjoy listening to the music being posted by GPM and others a great deal and look forward to more!!!

You might find this interesting. For the fun of it, I took a couple of GPM's recordings and sent them to my cousin who has a pretty good ear. I told him the first tuning was in ET and the 2nd was something "different." He said, "I love the first tuning. I hate the 2nd." I did the same thing with my oldest sister and got the same response. It did not take either of them long to come to that conclusion. Now wait,,,, I'm making a point... I imagined that they both said this because they both know that I tune in ET or mostly now, with RCT and because I told them which was which beforehand. So, I did something different instead.

I took a few more of GPM's recordings and sent them to the both of them again but this time, I said nothing about which was which. Actually, each one that I sent to them was tuned in EBVT III. I just said, I love these songs "too..." It took my sister a little bit longer to say anything but, when she did, she said this. "I like the tuning. Did you tune the piano?" Of course I said, no, that it was in the other tuning which totally surprised her.

My cousin on the other hand, liked all of them and was also surprised by the fact that they were not ET and that I had not done the tuning.

Interesting?

Very interesting anecdotal evidence, indeed, Jer. People seem to like these food analogies. When I go to the store to buy ketchup, I only by Heinz. I don't like or want any other brand. If I buy a hot dog, they often have a ketchup dispenser that has no label on it and it always does the job. If there were another brand label on it, I may not even use it but when it only says "ketchup", I have no problem with it. A colleague of mine who only tunes in unequal temperaments has long said, "If you put a label on it, people will reject it". I have confirmed that far too many times to count.

Still, word does slowly get around that there are other ideas and people do embrace them once they get to understand them. I had one of those 1/7 comma meantone customers yesterday, for example. That is what he wants and specifies.

Greetings all...have been busy with work...have a bit of a break, so I can get some of the recordings we made for the "tune-a-thon" posted.

Here is Gregg Punswick playing Mussorgsky,s "Pictures at an Exhibition" on the M&H RBB. The music is quite something, from ppp to fff, and everything in between! Aside from the wonderful effect of the EBVT III tuning, the fact that even in the loudest fff passages, there was NO distortion of the piano...I am not referring to the distortion from the recording, but from the actual piano itself! The last 2 movements at the end are amazing in the bass area of the piano as well as the treble. Headphones! Thank you Gregg for your contribution!


Mussorgsky "Pictures at an Exhibition" played by Gregg Punswick on my 1925 Mason & Hamlin RBB Grand. Recorded July 2, 2010. Zoom H4 with a matched pair of Rode NT5 mics. For some reason, the R-L tracks are reversed...I just tried to correct that, but because I don't have my Korg, the sound of the corrected file was not as good....so, when you listen to this, reverse your headphones.

http://www.box.net/shared/51dnxxpqb1


I was using the Korg MR-1000 for all the recordings...unfortunately, the right channel broke when I went to record the Mussorgsky....so what you are hearing is the Zoom H4 with the Rode NT 5 mics.....also, I am not sure I got the mics in the best position like Patrick did for the earlier recordings.

Never the less, the end result is very good...EBVT III continues to amaze me with it's colors etc. Bill, as I mentioned to you when you were here, the bass on the piano is now, if you can believe it, even more powerful and resonant! It really is an amazing sound! Those last 8-10 treble hammers that you used the Aceton/Plexiglass on are great, as there is now a definite musical pitch/tone present.

As before, this recording is directly taken from the Zoom H4, no processing or any added enhancements were added.

I would suggest, if you can, to download the Mussorgsky...the box.net player sacrifices some sound quality, including a slight lack of spaciousness in the sound. It's about a 75mb mp3 file though. (gulp)

Mark, I have not forgotten about the "Going Home" in ET!

More recordings to come as I get to them. Enjoy!


I was so busy watching and learning from Bill, recording and learning from Patrick, and enjoying the music, I forgot to take a lot of pictures...I did remember to take a few......:)

The piano: 1925 Mason & Hamlin RBB



Bill doing his thing with the new SAT IV


regulation


93 Yrs young family friend, Fred, enjoying the wine and the music.


Gregg Punswick at the piano

WOW! Gregg! Thanks for that amazing performance!

Is Gregg around to write about his experience playing in EBVT III? If not, then GP, Bill or Patrick, do you recall him saying anything in particular about how it effects a pianist in performance?

The piano sounds fabulous. So much energy!

Thanks for the posting, GP!

--Andy

What a performance! Wow!

GP, thanks for posting.

Gadzar, Andy, you're welcome!

I am just finishing up my first tuning with the new tuning figures that Bill made for me. Let me say this....it's a daunting task to lay down a tuning as good and clean as Bill's!! His was so good in the unison dept, and so stable, I don't think I can quite do it justice, but I am trying!

Will be posting some ET stuff soon, and my tuning, if it will pass my 'sonic scrutiny'.

Hey GP. Nice picture of Fred. Just like I remember him. He was a hoot to have around.

Nice recordings too. I've been enjoying them.

Hi Roy,

Thanks....yes, Fred is something else....at 93, I hope we can all be that healthy!

Ok...just finished tuning and recording my first attpemt at Bill's new EBVT III tuning figures....not too shabby as they would say! It sounds beautiful in EBVT IIi.

Bill, thanks again for your wonderful work...you worked your tail off while you were here, and I really appreciate it. The end result is I now have a way to recreate your EBVT III, and we have some beautiful recordings to boot! It's opened my eyes and ears to another way to tune that has so many beautiful qualities to offer. Also, thanks to Patrick and Gregg for their contributions!

This time I used the RCT...Dean was very helpful in teaching me how to input all 88 figures into the RCT...since I had never done that before, it was a big help...thanks Dean.

Bill' had suggested several ways to go about my getting a more stable tuning...such as in the 5th-6th octaves, using Smart Tune on the first pass, then on the 2nd, setting the offset to + 0.05 for the first string, then aurally and or with the RCT, tune the other 2 strings to that. I did that, and once I went through the rest of the piano using Fine Tune, coming back to that section using with the 0,05...it was not 0.05, but almost right on pitch! Thanks for the suggestions Bill.

So, the RCT did a great job...I now have two ways to go...RCT or Iphone Tunelab.

Here is Resphigi's "Notturno" played by Earl Wild from the LX collection.

http://www.box.net/shared/9oslmc86gg


This was recorded using the Zoom H4 inputs, the Avenson ST0-2 Omni mics, using Patrick's suggested configuration.

More to come....:)

Oh, GP! Thank you for remembering! I just PM'd ChrisKeys to give him a heads up.

What an excellent selection to show off the bright high treble, resonant bass, and fine tuning!

Man, I'd love to hear Chris play this in EBVT III!

Very beautiful, GP.

Thanks Andy.

Here are 2 more pieces I recorded after the Respighi. For these, I used the Rode NT5's. EBVT III brings out lots of colors in the music.

"Barberini's Minuet" by Harold Bauer, from a 1920's Welte-Mignon Piano Roll, Live-Performance LX CD, played by Katherine Bacon.
http://www.box.net/shared/u247vtbd16


"Caprice in A Minor" by Paganini-Liszt, also from the same CD, played by Katherine Bacon, from a 1920's Welte-Mignon Piano Roll. http://www.box.net/shared/eevp5al4n2


As they say in German, "Uben, Uben, Uben".....and practice makes perfect, usually. Stability is what I have to practice.

Looks like everyone was having a great time. Thanks for sharing the images and the recordings!

Glen

I saw your note, Andy. Glad I did or I would have missed this posting.

Though I don't hear the huge difference that you do between ET and EBVT III, I still very much enjoyed what I heard. Very nice and clean.


Now that would be an intriguing exercise. Probably not gonna happen, unless someone who could do EBVT III lived in the D/FW area and I were willing to yank my piano away from my tech. :-)

GP:

Re: "Barberini's Minuet"--man, THAT'S EBVT III! It really speaks it! Perhaps the mics were placed closer than the Caprice (which is very nice, btw... but the piano is farther away?)? Whatever the case, the Minuet really sparkles. Is it in F? (I'm trying, Mark R.! )

ChrisKeys:
What I want to say is, playing in EBVT III is totally different than listening to it. And hearing it live is totally different than hearing a recording of it. Recordings, no matter how good they might be made, and playback equipment, as good as it might be, limit the sound. I am sure you are up on that.

Nevertheless, GP, I am interested in how you would answer this: as true as your recordings are--and they are VERY VERY true, is that not the case? Do you agree that "live" is different? I am sure there are all sorts of technical acoustic reasons why this is...

So, Chris, I really hope you get a chance to try it, some day! It is a real treat!

--Andy

Well, your try was successful! Indeed it's in F.

Grandpianoman: I love the view from your music room... wow.

Thanks GPM. You are doing MUCH better at unison's! I enjoyed the songs a great deal. Bill was right, you can do it!

You're welcome Jerry, and thanks for the encouragement! The issue for me is stability. Bill showed me what I had to do, and going forward will try to implement his suggestions!

More music is coming as I get to it.

I wish I had taken more videos......here is Gregg at the M&H playing several Grieg pieces. I misplaced the list of titles..if someone knows the titles, please let me know.

What beautiful sounds.......these are great examples of how EBVT III can bring a myriad of colors and feelings to the music. Thanks for your great work Gregg!

Kudos to Bill for his excellent tuning!

1. Grieg on the Mason&Hamlin RBB 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPG7DCEWW5I

2. Greig on the Mason&Hamlin RBB 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPKDWkUFsRw

Here is an example of some 1920's music in EBVT III. This was recorded during the tune-a-thon. Fun stuff!

Zez Confrey's "Kitten on the Keys" played here by Herbert Clair on the Ampico. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgOKNlyWoJg

The first is Grieg: Notturno Opus 54, No. 4. The second had the title, "Norwegian...". I can't remember whether it was a dance or song but I think this may be where you confused what Patrick had played (the Swedish folk song) as "Norwegian".

I am up very early this morning to go to Oshkosh, WI to the annual air show where there are reportedly more take offs and landings than at any other airport during the event.

http://www.airventure.org/

I am going to meet my best friend from college whom I had last seen in Paris, France in June of 1976. He has been a pilot for Air France for over 30 years. I had known him when I was taking my first French courses in college and he was in the USA to learn English. I had spent my senior year in Aix-en-Provence, France and was on my way back to the USA when I last saw him. I moved to Madison, WI in August of 1976.

I will give him a CD of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition".

Sounds like a great time Bill! How exciting to meet someone you haven't seen in 30 years!

Finally was able to upload Patrick's improv at the M&Hamlin. YouTube was doing something strange to it every time I tried to upload it in the last 4-5 days.

This was the very first thing we recorded the night Bill and Patrick arrived from Las Vegas, and right after Bill finished tuning it for the first time. You can hear Bill comment at the beginning that some of the unisons already needed to be cleaned up. Never the less...a good example how even in D flat, EBVT III sounds great.

Patrick, I could sit and listen to you "improvise" all day long!

http://www.youtube.com/user/AmpicoGPM#p/a/u/0/s1E3W6YuMyI

"Body and Soul" - indeed!

Interesting choice of piece, seeing that it alternates between Db and D major! The Dave Brubeck quartet also played a rendition that I love - I have it on the "Live from the USA / Live from the UK" double album. Nice!

Now, I wonder, which of the two keys is the body, and which is the soul?

That is the first melody that came to mind for me because I had often been told that it would not work in anything but ET. Of course, I knew that was not true. What you hear is a purely aural tuning since my ETD had gone on the blink, inoperable. I could not use the program for this piano which I had stored.

You hear me make the comment that I really needed the ETD to stabilize the unisons. I usually don't use an ETD for the unisons in ordinary work but for the highest level of concert and recording work, I need it to prove that the unison has not drifted in pitch, not even 1/10 cent from where I have determined it should be. This piano is particularly difficult to keep stable.

GP has often asked me why it is so difficult and if there is something "wrong" with it. First, there is nothing "wrong" with it. Of the many types of pianos I tune, I find that Yamaha and Kawai pianos are easy. They tune like "butter". They do what I tell them to do with ease and hold it predictably. They have tuning pin bushings and there is no steep angle from the agraffe or capo bar to the tuning pin. The tuning pin torque is usually not very high. The pin moves easily and the string renders predictably and easily as well. Recently, I tuned a new "Remington" grand (which appeared to have been made by Young Chang). I don't think I have ever tuned a grand so easily and quickly.

A Steinway and this Mason & Hamlin however are in a different league. A novice tuner would make a real mess of it, to be sure, especially if an aural tuning were attempted by someone with limited experience and skill. The tuning pins have no bushings and there is a lot of resistance in the pressure material between the speaking length termination points and the tuning pins. The tuning pins are extremely tight because of the new Falconwood pinblock material.

Although I use an impact type technique to raise the pitch of a string because I believe that it minimizes any twisting of the tuning pin, there is no real way to avoid that. I must use a combination if impact and slow manipulation of the pin in order to stabilize it. While the pianos described above cooperate easily, this piano requires complex movements and far more time to set each pin precisely.

While I can and often have "flown" through a Yamaha or Kawai grand in 30 to 45 minutes for a public performance and had it hold beautifully, this piano will not accept such technique. It requires long and very careful work and will go sharp and flat with the very slightest environmental change.

On the positive side, this piano will begin to cooperate like one of the above in perhaps 10 years. It will get to a point where it is "broken in" and will do what it is commanded to do after it quits resisting. In 50 years, it will still be holding up well and can be tuned with ease while any of the Asian pianos will need restoration.

So, it is a credit to GP that he has done as well as he has with it. It really does take a person with superior skills to tune this piano well.

I asked this question before, and didn't get an answer yet, but obviously, since I won't let it drop, it is important to me. So please forgive me for bugging you about it. It is addressed to Bill, Patrick and GP (and esp. Gregg, if he is a reader and poster here...)

We have read some of Patrick's comments about playing/performing in EBVT III. Bill, how was Gregg introduced to EBVT III? Bill, Patrick, GP, what were his comments about playing/performing using the temperament?

Thanks!
--Andy

Bill, no wonder it takes me longer to tune this piano!

When Bill was here, he used a tuning lever from Joe Goss of Mother Goose Tools. I had never seen a lever like that. I tried it and liked the feel, and it seemed to be easier to manipulate the pins.

I ordered the lever last week, and it arrived today. I am very impressed with it. Very easy to tune with, and an excellent response/feel between the lever and the pins. I can set the unisons much faster. It's the #110 "Plateau" lever complete, 20 degrees, and a #3 "Sole" tip. It has a "Lignum Vitae" knob, which is a very dense and rare wood, and has a great feel to it. All in all, a very high quality product! http://www.mothergoosetools.com/tuning_hammers/index.shtml

All this time I had been using a #2 tip!?....which I see now was wrong....Bill pointed that out...the #2 tip was not getting as far down on the pins as was possible. The pins are a german import,#2ot size. This could explain some of my instability in setting the pins, although Bill has said even he finds it more difficult to tune than other pianos.

I have already touched up my first EBVT III tuning with it, and it was a breeze to do!

Any other tuners out there that use this lever, and if so, what are your impressions?

Hi Andy,

Sorry, must have missed your original question.

I believe Gregg does not use a computer. From what I remember, he was very pleased with the EBVT III and how it sounded on the M&H RBB. He also thought the timber/sound of the M&H was excellent.

This has been discussed before...I think EBVT III or any temperament for that matter, influences the way one plays a piece.

Joe Goss called me up one day and got right to the point: "I'd like to make you a tuning hammer". He said if I didn't like it, I could send it back. Well, I did like it and I wouldn't use any other.

Andy, I am sorry if I have been a bit remiss in responding to some of your messages. A few messages mysteriously disappeared from my e-mail. I seem to find all that I can do these days.

I met Gregg about 15 years ago when I was assigned to tune a piano for him when he was giving a going away recital just before he was headed off to grad school at Rice University in Houston. He is a graduate in piano performance from Oberlin University in Ohio. He received a Masters degree from Rice in choral conducting. He works now as a free lance pianist and organist. He took time away from his regular job as a church organist to fly to Portland.

Gregg had been introduced to non-equal temperaments by my colleague here in Madison (whose name I won't mention on here because it gets into Google and he does not participate here). He was, however one of the instructors at the last convention and taught about the wonders of the 1/7 comma meantone temperament which he uses nearly exclusively. Gregg has long been sensitive to whichever piano he performs upon and plays according to the feedback he gets from it.

Gregg does not own a computer but occasionally goes to a library to use one when he needs to. Therefore, he does not and would not participate on this forum. He shies away from the use of most modern technology but is amazingly adept at using it when he does. Only recently did he get a cellphone which he has off most of the time. "Anybody who really wants to reach me will leave a message", he says. "I don't have nor respond to emergencies". He did find his cellphone useful for scheduling as opposed to notes written on scraps of paper or cocktail napkins.

I long ago rejected the "neutral pallet" concept for piano tuning. To me, that only means providing a constrictive pallet with which the pianist can do little more than operate the keys.

Thanks for the explanation Bill. It makes total sense. It's something I knew but, completely forgot about. I would like to see Del's design some time. It HAS to be better!!

Steinway's with F-2 as the lowest tenor note tune a little bit crappy in that area too and also tend to drift due to the same reasons you mentioned. Although, it is "better" -usually- in that area, it is iffy much of the time too. That can be just as frustrating of an area to tune sometimes.

Wouldn't you think that instead of cutting corners on their pianos like this GH1 B for example, because we all know these companies KNOW THIS, that they would increase the quality just a little to avoid this troubled area? I mean, after all, it is THEIR reputation at stake here along with ours and if we encounter this type of thing, we tend not to recommend the piano. That particular model is one that I will not recommend buying just for that one reason alone.

OK, I don't want to take GPM's thread off topic to far so, carry on. I'm leaving again for 5 days so, I'll see you turds when I return! hahaha! Be GOOD now, ya hear???

That is why if you examine the strike ratio, you will find that many take care to have the 1/8 ratio (optimal) just in that region, while it will be 1/7 in the basses and up to 1/10 (!) at a440 level on smaller pianos. Why do they keep that break position I dont know, there are probably reasons...

For the raising of the strings length above a 440 it may well relate to the human ear, needing a richer partial content in that area to correctly juge the pitch. ALso it allow for more tension, hence a more stressed soundboard, which then will have a raised resonant frequency and behave as it it was lighter (while being stiffer in reality).

OK I am out ... !