This nice book is now available for free.

It teaches piano tuning in 1832.

Interesting is that he discourages attempting to tune equal temperament with the basic 4th and 5th tuning schemes he lays out because they usually result in reverse well temperament. (He doesn't use the term, but he clearly means that.) Instead he advocates the "common" practice of mild well temperament. His tuning scheme is really an attempt at equal temperament which deliberately errs on the side of a "well temperament" to avoid "reverse well temperament".

He also has a method of tuning grands without mutes, which I don't quite understand.

Kees

It is interesting to learn about how tuners approached things back in those time. Amazing how many things have not changed.
The method of tuning grands relies on using the una corda pedal to play the right string only of the tri-chords instead of using mutes. This assumes too much accuracy in the una corda action for all the day to day pianos in my experience. I also cringe at the thought of pounding on a una corda. I wonder if the author actually used that method, or was he a theoretician.
I wish the author could elaborate on extending the octaves upwards and downwards. It would be interesting to know how they regarded stretch in those days given that the contemporary Chopin was expecting melodies to sing out in the upper treble area, and presumably sound not too flat.

Also, when tuning using una corda pedal, I think I would be distracted by sympathetic vibrations of the untuned pairs of strings in the trichords when they are not actually muted.

Keep in mind that pianos were different in 1832. Pounding on the keys would likely break something.

I suspect that the amount of accuracy in tuning would be quite a bit less than one would find in modern pianos.

Doel:

Great Topic and great link.

I was stopped in my tracks on page 16: “The fifth and fourth admit of being tempered a little; the fifth may be made about half a comma flatter and the fourth half a comma sharper than perfect without offending the ear.” Could he mean that a fourth or fifth can be tempered by 11 cents from just intonation and be acceptable??? That would make D4 beat over 5 bps with A3 and A4!

Maybe he means something else because the next paragraph says: “The minor sixth may be equal in temperament to the major third, and the major sixth to the minor third.” This is really saying that octaves should be pure. The author may not have realized that this will always be the case with pure octaves.

I think we should keep in mind that the author had a preference for a mild temperament, as shown in the preface of the essay when referring to a “proper” temperament. So it is not surprising if rather than offering ways to tune a better equal temperament with 4ths and 5ths, he advocates tuning a “proper” temperament, which to him is a mild temperament. (I have not read that far.)

And this same mindset exists today. The baby is thrown out with the bath by some that prefer an UT temperament when discussing tuning ET with 4ths and 5ths. But it is understandable. Since I find UTs to be objectionable and synonymous to “out-of-tune”, I can understand that a “wrong” UT could be doubly objectionable to those that prefer a “proper” UT.

In those days, the pianos probably had only bichords, so the "una corda" pedal really played only one string of the two. That was its original meaning.

I thought Beethoven's piano had 4 strings per unison.

I read through the essay. It was kind of fun. Yes, I believe he has a preference for UT, but I saw nothing in the tuning schemes '... which deliberately errs on the side of a "well temperament" to avoid "reverse well temperament".' Could you point that out?

As I understand his use of the una corda, and he specifically mentions grands with 3 strings to a unison, he removes the "bracket" or stop so that the action shifts further than normal and only one note is struck when tuning the bearings and expanding the temperament.

Jeff,

At the begining of page 29, Jousse speaks of the impossibility of tuning a perfect ET and the fact that oftentimes the errors are located in the wrong places, which can be understood as Reverse Well as defined by Bill Bremmer.

"...but it (Equal Temperament) has the following disadvantages: first, it cannot be obtained in a strict sense, as may be proved, not only mathematically, but also by daily experience; therefore the best equally tempered instruments are still unequally tempered, and, what is worse, oftentimes in wrong places..."

Jeff:

Several temperaments with 1/2' narrow fifths were published, the most well known now is Kirnberger, so maybe he included 1/2' narrow fifths as possible in order not to offend colleagues.
As far as I know nothing narrower than 1/4' 5ths were ever used in practice.

If you look at his first tuning scheme, 8 5th/4ths are supposed to be tune "flat/sharp", the remaining 4 (BF#C#G#D#) just "tuned". This implies an 1/8' well temperament if you interpret the latter as pure, and the former as equal tempered, though people have read much more in his rough practical scheme. Anyways the vagueness and lack of any effort to ensure the tempering is actually 1/8' seems to imply if you start off with a little too much tempering you end up with a stronger well temperament with wide 5ths BF#C#G#D#, and if you start with not quite enough you get a true equal temperament.

Just my reading of it.

Kees

From what I remember reading, it only had two. The only piano I know of that has four string unisons is the modern Borgato concert grand ($1/2,$$$,$$$)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f8MlUbueh0 (interesting even if you don't understand Italian)

Apparently at least one did: Beethoven pianos

Kees

The concept of the Borgato Doppio (double) Piano has always fascinated me. I always wondered how one would tune the Bass piano? As it goes, You Tube has many offerings of it being played. If you can imagine it, You Tube has it. Unfortunately, none were very impressive. Indeed, Andy's Lester Spinet sounded as good as many I heard. None could hold a candle to Grandpianoman's Mason & Hamlin RBB. Perhaps it is all about the recording techniques and/or You Tube's degradation of the sound but I was really disappointed. Here is the best one I could find: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w6J_Xbkixc&feature=related

Thanks for this topic...:-)

RPD

I didn't realize this piano has a full pedal! Check out this one: Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, JS Bach. I used to play this piece a lot on organ at church service.

Recording quality sucks, I agree.

Kees

I saw what you gave a link to. Not very impressive:



I have one customer with a Bluthner that has that added string. The piano is not in very good shape and I could never hear anything that the added resonance string did for it, either good or bad.

Thanks Doel:

I have to agree with your reading of it. I did not notice the dropping of the term "rather flat”, “rather sharp" from later fifths.

I think we should remember that this is only one essay. It would be hard to say how pianos were actually tuned.

That one sounded better than some of the rest. The Bass piano sounded fairly impressive but the regular piano just sounded "clangy" to me. Many of the comments I read about the other posts were negative. "Should be played on the organ, not piano" for example.

This is the only piano of this type I have ever seen or heard of although I doubt it is the only such attempt at it. I have an old vinyl disc recording that I bought when I was in high school of a full pedal harpsichord. I remember really enjoying listening to Bach's Tocatta & fugue in D minor on it.

I'd love to tune Borgato's Doppio Piano in the EBVT III but I bet Signore Borgato wouldn't hear of it.

Wouldn't it be great to get that monster to the next PTG convention, have a class on how it actually gets tuned and attend a recital? I'll send the idea to Ryan but I doubt it could ever be done. Too expensive.

Well, it is titled as an essay but it does provide three different bearing plans. This material was included in Owen Jorgensen's big red book. He cited it as evidence that no one really was able to tune ET as we know it today at the time it was written.

Sure, it may have been possible but it was more probable that there was some favoring of the white key tonalities over the black (well temperament).

I say this because one starts with the white keys and is instructed only to listen for a pleasing sound when major thirds become available. By the time one reaches the black keys, they cannot be anything but more harsh and that is what happens in well temperament.

On the other hand, if one does not tune the initial fifths "flat" enough (meaning narrow), the major thirds will start out too harshly. The thirds among the black keys will be forced into being too mild: reverse well.

Of course, it would also be possible for the tempering of the fifths to be randomly too close to pure and too tempered, thus producing erratic major thirds that don't fit any pattern at all.

As you said, it would be hard to say what people actually did or if it was even very consistent from these instructions alone. How out of tune the piano may have been could have affected the results each time. Did people know what we do today about the necessity of a pitch correction before fine tuning? The "pianos" there were at that time were certainly not what we encounter in our practice today.

I would readily accept the notion that people may have thought in terms of equality, even as they deliberately favored certain keys or really tired to make them as equal as they could. Either way, few if any could really produce what we can today due to both incomplete understanding and the limitations of the instruments of the time.

I certainly agree about the limitations of the instruments. It still happens with some “modern” pianos that ET cannot really be tuned!

I enjoyed reading about the different philosophies of tempering. But it seems that what is actually done in practice is over looked. When musicians can alter their pitch, they strive for just intonation in whatever chord is being played, or sung. Fixed pitch tempering does not come into play at all. Ssttrreettcchheedd octaves sure does though! At least that is what I hear.

I have tuned several, new and old. The fourth string makes a little difference, but it is so subtile as to be mostly inaudible, particularly under normal listening conditions.

Bill said :

I have one customer with a Bluthner that has that added string. The piano is not in very good shape and I could never hear anything that the added resonance string did for it, either good or bad.

The Bluthner "aliquot" scale was more a gimmick rather than anything else. I have a few that I regularly tune, and the theory that the 4th string gives more power and better harmonics, and this to my mind, is being rather generous. With the forth string being placed above the normal tri-chords and tuned to an octave higher, but never being struck by the hammer, it is looked upon by some, much the same way as the Steinway ring bridge. The only shortfall in this view is that Steinway's design actually works very well and Bluthners didn't. I always check the infamous forth string ... but to be honest many tuners don't, and I've never noticed any benefit.

That one sounded better than some of the rest. The Bass piano sounded fairly impressive but the regular piano just sounded "clangy" to me. Many of the comments I read about the other posts were negative. "Should be played on the organ, not piano" for example.[/quote]
Of course it should be played on a baroque tracker organ in a nice well temperament but if you're too poor to afford your own organ you can practice on this piano.

I've heard of cheaper solutions with a pedal attached with steel wire to the keys of a regular upright to produce an "organ practice" piano, but perhaps this is just folklore.

For now I assume the "clangy" sound (I know what you mean to be due to some recording glitch).

I would be even more interested in a four manual and pedal "piano", maybe they'll build that next.

Kees

These "Duplex" scaling concepts are still a point of great interest to piano designers. I think the Mason and Hamlin "BB" displays the most advanced development I have seen.

Of course, violins up the pitch the higher they climb. Opera singers do too.

Yup, I just wish they would do so en masse. I do not care for string music much for that reason. Someone is always trying to out stretch the guy next to him.