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#1702969 - 06/27/11 12:41 PM
Re: Some sweet video's: an older piano tuned to an Unequal Temp
[Re: Unequally tempered]
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Full Member
Registered: 10/20/08
Posts: 84
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Hi! Restringing has progressed on the Emerlich Betsy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk12p0eJ9uIThe pianist playing here tried the Bechstein earlier in the evening and, expert in Chopin Mazurkas, commented that the temperament I use does the job of expression that a pianist otherwise has to insert consciously into playing. In my continuing examination of Chopin there are a number of areas of Chopin's work where perfect fifths and thirds which "sing" seem to be very natural fitting in with the emphasis of the rhythm. Reaction to the temperament is very extraordinary - on the one hand musicians such as my visitor the other evening rave about it and others, I guess of the nature of whom Ross Duffin complains, who metaphorically run from the room screaming. It's still a mystery to me why Ross Duffin falls for the Lehman Bradley temperament not merely for reasons referred to earlier, a debate on which I don't want to restart, but for the reason that I'm not greatly aware of the Lehman temperament leading to many if any perfect intervals which one would assume to be a prerequisite for Duffin's return to finding better harmony . . . So the book is a good proposition, makes a great point with significant validity but its conclusion is a mystery to me - to the point of being a non-sequiture as far as I'm concerned. To find harmony, in my mind having played the 1775 organ at St Maximin in France and been looking at a lot of the French Baroque repertoire using Meantone, a quest from harmony has to start from there, relaxing it into playability in all keys, so giving nicely purish intervals, particularly major thirds in Bb F C G D and letting the far-flung keys take the strain. If the validity of the musicoligist's experience the other night has any weight, then this sort of tuning appears to accord with the spirit of Chopin and one must therefore start to ask how universal it was in terms of geographical spread within Europe and up to what date. Best wishes David P This piano already sounds very good. Thanks for posting this new video, David.
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#1764327 - 10/04/11 02:25 AM
Re: Some sweet video's: an older piano tuned to an Unequal Temp
[Re: Unequally tempered]
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Full Member
Registered: 10/20/08
Posts: 84
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David--I thought we'd lost you.
Over the past few days I've been installing new monitors. Everything that I'm listening to now sounds very different. I'm not sure that I trust my ears right now.
My initial impression, however, is that I like the older version of your temperament more. The new one, to me, sounds closer to Equal temperament--more brittle and at times tart. The attack seems more forcible, but I don't like the timbre as much. I can't offer an objective view, given my new system, but my first impression is that there is no need to improve on your earlier version.
On the other hand, the new pieces are faster, and they are played more aggressively, so the upper partials are more audible. If Mr. Barabino played the same piece using both temperaments, we could reduce the variable to the temperament.
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#1764441 - 10/04/11 08:51 AM
Re: Some sweet video's: an older piano tuned to an Unequal Temp
[Re: Jake Johnson]
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Full Member
Registered: 01/11/11
Posts: 119
Loc: UK
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Dear Jake
Thanks
I've been absent only on account of a lack of new recordings . . .
For the latest, I used TuneLab97 with an inharmonicity graph applied. This took the top octaves up rather more than my norm and the bottom notes I felt to tie in with the centre more. Adolfo likes this more on his Steinway in England, which did not react so harmoniously to my usual methods using ears alone in the bass, but on the Bechstein, there was a marked difference between what TuneLab was wanting to do and what my ears wanted me to do in the Tenor C octave C3-C4, so I erred towards my ears.
The piano will take on a renewed persona when the hammers are refelted . . .
The Steinway and surprisingly the Bechstein have odd irregular inharmonicities in the Tenor C octave.
Steinway inharmonicity: 2nd harmonic varies from -0.5 to +2.6:
A1 ? 0.00 2.04 -1.37 1.10 2.67
C2 0.00 2.72 4.19 3.35 3.12 5.41
E2 ? 0.00 1.37 1.62 2.15 3.66
F2 0.00 -0.18 ? 3.22 4.58 5.83
F#2 ? 0.00 0.31 0.79 1.92 3.32
G2 0.00 2.65 2.62 3.49 4.34 5.45
G#2 ? 0.00 0.10 0.65 1.69 2.87
A2 0.00 2.62 3.24 4.03 4.95 5.79
A#2 ? 0.00 0.99 1.14 2.16 3.60
B2 0.00 -0.50 -0.08 0.88 1.74 2.75
C3 0.00 -0.09 0.23 1.01 2.02 2.85
C#3 0.00 0.00 0.40 1.40 2.35 3.40
D3 0.00 -0.11 0.87 1.62 2.45 3.50
D#3 0.00 0.33 1.13 1.93 3.14 4.30
E3 0.00 0.25 0.81 1.50 2.62 3.92
F3 0.00 2.01 2.57 3.33 4.83 6.33
F#3 0.00 -0.12 0.72 1.70 3.00 4.71
G3 0.00 0.14 1.18 1.99 3.89 5.59
G#3 0.00 0.16 1.43 2.41 3.88 5.70
A3 0.00 0.88 1.37 2.97 4.58 6.64
A#3 0.00 1.62 2.32 3.89 5.70 7.99
B3 0.00 1.22 2.31 3.52 5.76 8.26
C4 0.00 1.48 2.83 4.47 6.59 9.61
The Bechstein is better behaved with anomolies only between E3 to B3 but much wider 5th and higher harmonics:
C2 0.00 8.19 10.51 16.99 21.78 29.19
E2 0.00 4.90 8.00 ? 14.75 20.75
G#2 0.00 5.18 5.97 8.67 11.27 13.44
A2 0.00 6.51 8.38 ? 10.95 13.63
D3 0.00 5.27 4.81 9.34 11.71 17.60
D#3 0.00 6.90 8.37 11.36 16.22 20.99
E3 0.00 1.84 4.93 8.89 14.04 15.60
F3 0.00 -0.48 0.34 0.81 2.81 4.33
F#3 0.00 0.32 1.23 1.27 3.95 5.97
G3 0.00 1.93 4.15 7.13 11.19 16.83
G#3 ? 0.00 ? 2.24 ? 6.48
A3 0.00 0.91 3.34 6.03 9.26 13.20
A#3 0.00 1.53 3.12 4.73 10.43 12.76
B3 0.00 0.76 2.46 5.94 9.33 13.27
C4 0.00 1.32 3.70 6.03 8.50 13.03
The Steinway in Genoa, which I tuned straight without applying a curve was much more regular:
A1 ? 0.00 0.73 1.00 4.26 3.58
B1 ? 0.00 1.69 1.81 2.77 3.54
E2 0.00 5.59 1.54 2.07 1.72 2.21
A#2 0.00 7.43 7.06 7.58 8.47 7.39
D3 0.00 3.61 5.35 6.83 7.37 8.34
D#3 0.00 4.10 4.78 5.63 7.92 9.82
A3 0.00 0.42 2.52 3.84 5.43 7.93
D4 0.00 1.16 2.51 5.27 8.76 12.77
A4 0.00 1.81 5.59 10.23 5.07 23.99
and the 1930s Bechstein in Genoa was hideously irregular, especially in the 3rd harmonic:
F1 ? 0.00 2.55 7.84 6.84 11.35
G1 ? 0.00 0.41 5.12 7.91 8.53
G#1 ? 0.00 1.78 7.35 11.17 14.44
A1 ? 0.00 -11.11 -6.37 -2.20 -2.31
A#1 ? 0.00 2.08 4.79 5.30 6.65
C2 ? 0.00 ? 6.11 5.80 5.92
A2 0.00 2.82 4.62 6.16 6.97 9.00
A#2 0.00 1.89 2.46 3.72 5.62 8.00
C3 0.00 0.81 0.54 2.18 4.00 6.13
A3 0.00 0.34 1.63 3.79 5.10 7.26
A4 0.00 2.54 5.77 10.23 15.66 23.35
Best wishes
David P
Edited by Unequally tempered (10/04/11 08:53 AM)
_________________________
_______________________________ David Pinnegar, B.Sc., A.R.C.S. - East Grinstead, Sussex, UK - - http://www.organmatters.com - _______________________________ Restoring life to music . . . and music to life . . . and a good deal more!
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#1764474 - 10/04/11 09:55 AM
Re: Some sweet video's: an older piano tuned to an Unequal Temp
[Re: Jake Jackson]
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Full Member
Registered: 10/20/08
Posts: 84
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Interesting. I must be honest and say that I like your earlier, narrower pitching of the first octave above A440, however, on your two pianos. Your thought that the human ear is particularly sensitive in that area struck me as right, or at least as right for your well temperament on those pianos. Delaying the stretch somehow gives them a quality I find hard to describe. (Human? Humble? Plaintive? None of these terms seems exactly right.)
On the other hand, have you followed the thread on expanding the temperament with M12's? I wonder how your temperament, and other well temperaments, would sound following those guidelines.
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#1764551 - 10/04/11 12:36 PM
Re: Some sweet video's: an older piano tuned to an Unequal Temp
[Re: Jake Johnson]
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Full Member
Registered: 01/11/11
Posts: 119
Loc: UK
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Interesting. I must be honest and say that I like your earlier, narrower pitching of the first octave above A440, however, on your two pianos. Your thought that the human ear is particularly sensitive in that area struck me as right, or at least as right for your well temperament on those pianos. Delaying the stretch somehow gives them a quality I find hard to describe. (Human? Humble? Plaintive? None of these terms seems exactly right.)
On the other hand, have you followed the thread on expanding the temperament with M12's? I wonder how your temperament, and other well temperaments, would sound following those guidelines. Dear Jake Thanks for your observations. It's great to be able to bounce ideas and sounds off attuned ears . . . I suspect that perfect M12s will work particularly well on instruments where the 5th harmonic is sharp and equating with the equal temperament stretched third, 13-14 cents sharper than pure. Looking at the different inharmonicities between the Steinways and the Bechsteins I measured in the upper harmonics, the small Genoa Steinway has relatively low IH in the 5th harmonics - so sounding sweeter and more solidly harmonious in the sweet keys of an unequal temperament whereas my Bechstein might sound sweeter in equal temperament with 5th harmonics more nearly equating with the Equal Temperament thirds. The relationship between the 5th harmonic and the generality of thirds in an unequal temperament may well govern how instruments responds, exaggerating or ameliorating the key colour . . . Best wishes David P
_________________________
_______________________________ David Pinnegar, B.Sc., A.R.C.S. - East Grinstead, Sussex, UK - - http://www.organmatters.com - _______________________________ Restoring life to music . . . and music to life . . . and a good deal more!
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#1837148 - 02/02/12 11:27 AM
Re: Some sweet video's: an older piano tuned to an Unequal Temp
[Re: Jake Jackson]
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Full Member
Registered: 02/17/09
Posts: 450
Loc: Atlanta, GA
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David,
I was just looking through this thread this morning, and I found that some of the links in the first few posts are dead or land on unexpected videos on your Youtube channel. Have you rearranged or renamed things on your site? I think I was able to find the videos that correspond to the original links, but I worry that some of the videos may be "lost" from our perspective.
More generally, have you any news? About Adolfo Barabino's plans to record in this temperament? About your further explorations of your Well variation or the work on your pianos? Any new recordings?
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