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WOW - I thought that it gets interesting in Piano Forum!

I have followed both rant threads and sometimes I just let my mind spin in disbelief. Do you guys actually read what has been written by each other? Though I know nothing of the intricacies or lingo that is the domain of the piano tuner/tech, it is obvious that you guys are responding to what you think you have read, not what was actually written. It goes on ad nausium. Now in both threads.

Here is a recounting of my aural awakening.

In 2004 I engaged Tim Farley to do a total rebuild of the family 1920 Steinway-M. The job was to be a gift to my mother as she was elderly and I wanted her to have the very best. The piano was magnificent after the work and upon arrival. The subsiquent tunings did not have the life and color as when it first arrived and I was baffled. The piano was in excellent tune, but .............

This is about the same time as I joined PW. I learned so much here, and even gained an understanding of temperament. At that time, I assumed that ET was the same as Well Temperament. In conservatory, the concept of temperaments was discussed, but it was not specific.

After my mother passed, the piano went back to Farley's for temporary storage. In preparation for transport to Peoria, IL, I asked for a fresh tuning and a detailed regulation. I could not believe what I was hearing out of a little "M." OMG - The Beethoven Waldstein sang with an incredible voice and the action knocked my sox off.

Within a few days, I called Tim to extend my thanks and share my excitement. He was also pleased with the voice and the action. He shared that the reason that it had such a glorious voice was that he had tuned it to one of Bill's Temperaments (unspecified). Aha! He tried to get Bill but he was booked.

It was the writing of Mr. Bremmer which peeked my interest. I first ran across his web site when I was in the process of selecting a rebuilder. That site was the first time I was aware of different temperaments applied to a piano. When I contacted him, he was the one to recommend Tim Farley. I was pleased to discover that Bill was a contributor at PW and I could learn more.

After the piano settled into its new space, it was time for a tuning. I got some good recommendations and selected a tuner/tech. He started by doing some playing to acquaint himself with the piano. He looked at me and said, "The Bremmer EBVT Temperament sounds gorgeous on this piano."

I knew my piano was in good hands and good ears.

There was no reason that Tim Farley needed to contact me for permission to tune my piano to other than ET. Trust, gentlemen, is trust. Word of mouth is what it is all about.

If I'm understanding what you're saying, you really like the EBVT temperament and at this point feel the ET tuning was bland sounding. Would you feel deceived if your piano was tuned to EBVT and you had not been told?

Honestly Marty, no, I don't think many of them read it. Skip over it, read what they don't like and then rant about it. Some don't mention much because they get jumped all over about it sometimes.

Read the last paragraph Scott for your answer.

Personally I'm on both sides of the fence about it. I do like it but, being an ET tuner all of my life, makes it difficult for me to "like it" continuously. I do use it however but, not all of the time.

I can see where more and more people are liking it because from all of the reading going on about it, many players and techs like it.

hmmm....how can we "verify" that you actually liked the tuning...I'm suspicious of anything I read on the internet...

hahahahahahahaha Eric!!!!!!!!

I am not allowed to rant on that thread ?

To be honest, I am not paying as much attention as I should on temperament precision, or, anyway not at the extreme smoothing of some intervals beats speed. So I am chasing for what some may call color when I am tuning, and I locate it in the energy sensation, the strength of the attack, the speed of the "ghosting" (which bring crispness).

When finished the piano does not seem to ask for more singing ability.

I feel that the straighter the tone is the more the pianist will appreciate to hear surprises in harmony, at some point it can mistakenly confuse the "out of tuness" tone (which provide some real better consonance level on a few 5ths and octaves due to the use of the 12:15 even beating relation), with the use of the natural singing quality of the instrument, which is something not so many tuners are using when tuning, in my experience)

Attack - aftersound (thick) - top of the spectra . 3 parameters that may vary from one tuner to the other.

When tuning for clean tone, the voicing will also be different. enlarging the tone allows for more dynamics and more control on it, then on some pianos way more power can be left at the attack moment.

I think all of us look for what sounds best on any given piano that we tune. Whether that be a piano tuned in ET or anything else. In ET, there are many times where we have to give and take on a certain piano to make 'that piano' sound its best. It may be in an octave stretched a bit more, or less, to make a 3rd sound better or vice versa. Or, something else. Same with EBVT III. There are NO two pianos that will tune exactly alike or sound exactly alike when we are finished so there is always a certain degree of "give and take involved."

ROTFL



All you have to do is program your Verifyatuner to EBMAT (Ever Bemused Marty Appreciation Temperament) and confirm my intervalic swoonocity as I play Brahms. It will proove that I am in unison with myself and my opinions.

Dont ever believe what that Brahms guy say to you (and he have a sort of terrorist bear like, I would be cautious about that guy)

It seems to me that the more Emmery or anyone else tries to suppress interest in non-ET tunings, the more curiosity and interest they actually create. I now have a full week's worth of tunings booked as a direct result of the opening and follow up rants. Have have also had five people contact me for referrals to people in other places.

If those who don't like the very idea of tuning in a non-ET want the idea to fade into oblivion, they should stop talking about it. The very fact that they cannot resist doing so inevitably demonstrates that they have no idea what they are talking about as those who do know what they are talking about write any number of spin-off topics and the people who started it dig themselves into a hole.

Actually Isaac, there is a whole Lizst of those terriorist bears lurking around pianists. Ya gotta be careful as they might Chopin yer head off!

I listened to some of the samples on your web site, Bill and that MH have a very nice and interesting tone.

Your unisons are sounding way better than 2 years ago, to me, also (or tons of reverb are added)

Still the treble is short in sustain (could be more "constructed, at the expense of being less "flourishingly acid" that may be would not please your customers.

and treble is easily adsorbed/covered by those basses it may be due to the recording. (to me , from octave 5 we need the most clear and lively tone)

Good for you if pianists like to play with that. I understaned it may be fun, but it is only up to some point, to me, there are always some moments where one dont know where he is in harmony. I does not make my teeth hurt at every time it may depend of the harmony.

After listening more I believe lots of reverb is added (kind of cheat to enlight the tone, that is how some recording studios keep old pianos with worn hammers and use the sound engineer to get the result) . the few records where there is not (on Youtube) are not sounding so good.

I hope Bill chimes in on this one. Isaac, the only selections on Bill's website where any reverb was added are the three pieces from Ravel's Miroirs, originally recorded by Grandpianoman on the M & H in his livingroom. The reverb was added to those selections to show how EBVT III sounds with some studio-type processing. The other selections were also recorded by Grandpianoman, who describes the recording process in the thread "My Piano in EBVT III." There are no added effects in those recordings. In fact, Grandpianoman's recording goal was to get the most true sound as possible straight off the piano so people could examine the tuning to the Nth degree possible over the Internet. If you dig into that thread, you can find that information.

--Andy

Ah OK thank you, I was wandering, as on some pieces the reverb is heard, while on others it is more discrete. then the unisons from Bill have a more pleasing tone to me than what they where when this thread have begin.

I sometime also overlook the fact that a certain voicing allow for more wealthy unison, while under different circumstances the tone can be open but it stay at the surface, the body of the tone is fully expressed at each level of dynamics. In that case clear ringing tone is obtained sooner in the attack.

The consonance from other notes is what gives at the same time more crispness to the attack, and some sort of added spectra. I hear that strong with the CHAS ratio , a little more straight (less bodied) in the "pure 12 th" tuning)

With the "pure 5th tuning" the partials are flowing out of the piano very strong but the octave begins to be really active, so it may sound somewhat unnatural at some point.

That said the piano does not seem to repeat very well in the Schubert impromptu. May be it could have more power with a different regulation (the tone would be less open too).
I listen with pleasure, and at some point I fell like if I begin to have an headache, there is something nice and clear, then something toning a little vulgar immediately after. What I miss is the musical meaning, we are used to harmonic progressions , and pleased when their contrast is well perceived, but if at some point there is a "fall" or a "hole" in harmony, I cannot get the point.

That said, the Equal beating thing was a nice discover, thanks to the people who worked on that.

Hi Bill,

I find it so interesting that the people who are so adamant about ET will admit that they will alter ET to suit a piano. That, by very definition, is not ET. It is the same with octave stretch. That, in and of itself, is no longer ET. I guess that to a tuner/tech the definition is no longer important because the usage of the term "Equal Temperament" has been corrupted.

I am a musician. To me, equal temperment is nothing more than a pure octave (Hz X 2 = Octave) with 11 subdivisions in between. It is purely mathmatical. It does not sound very good in reality.

It is so important to consider that a fixed pitch instrument, say a piano, is nothing more than a series of compromises concerning pitch, i.e. temperment. Vocalists, string players, and wind instrumentalists "temper" the pitch all of the time. ET is not a primary consideration, the tonality of a given key signature is what is important.

As you do with your approach to tuning, based on musicality as related to pitch, restore the tonality of playing in different keys. To me, that is a very good approach.

Reading very many of the threads concerning temperament, it seems that many tuner/techs are not versed in the terminology as used and understood by musicians. This is where there is confusion. Many times the aural perception of musicians is dismissed as being lacking. That gets my goat. Other times, it is used to justify their approach to intonation. Often it is from the same person. Hmmmm?

My understanding of equal temperament (above) is based on my musical training and of the laws of physics. Many will not agree with my comprehension of "equal". For any who disagree, please check any music dictionary. Create any frequency (A440 is irrevelant) and apply a logarithmic division of twelve based on Hz. Tune a piano to the absolute frequencies derived. No derivation or stretch applied. I doubt the results would be very satisfactory.

It would be ET, however.

P.S. Bill - I miss the photo of Madison, taken across lake Monona, on your website.

Marty,

You have a very restrictive definition of ET. Actually ET does encompass stretch. All ET means is that the pitches are a geometric progression. But exactly what multiplication factor is used is not specified. An ET octave need not be a perfect 2:1 ratio.

Robert: since Tunelab allows 3:1 Octaves, is it possible to use the 19th root of 3 for the geometric ratios to encompass a full 12th? I read of this ratio many years ago when I was a member of an internet alternative-tunings mailing list. Would be interested to hear how it would sound on a piano with IH taken into account.

Paul.

Bill, you seem to imply in your postings that I, and others, are trying to suppress interest in EBVT and other silly accusations. I had in numerous posts over the last year or so, simply been asking questions about it and the affiliated postings of the subject such as the sample recordings ect. I would at times, like some others, post my own views that differ from yours. Time and time again, a shell game of sorts gets played by numerous people (yourself included) where the topics are diverted away from the real questions at hand; attacks, insults, accusations ect...are always substituted for real answers.

I am glad that a member such as Doel Kees recently supplied us with calculations for instance that were sorely lacking everywhere, including your own website. Why you would not supply this with your temperament(s) brings to mind for me 2 things.

Either this information serves no purpose for a tuner (no comparative relationship amongst the intervals) and you only want the useable 20-30% of the aurally tunable intervals exposed...or...

the wildly fluctuating beat rates of what you consider unimportant intervals bear out the negative impact on music which incorporates these intervals in its structure. The main arguement against any non-ET tuning has been, and always will be the question...."what about the other keys?" This arguement cannot be dismissed unless a musician is willing to fully accept the limitations of playing in more favourable key signatures specifically suited for the temperament. Applying the words "mild" or "spicey" is just another way to cloud over the question of acceptability.

Its obvious your solutions to that question are to suppress the information that illuminates it, or downplay it as being unimportant, or worse yet, attack the person who asks it.

To those artists who claim that EBVT or its variants do not produce unfavourable disjointed beat rates in their music, they should perhaps gleen over the calculations Doel provided to find out what they are doing. After all, if a person cannot hear a M3 double in beat speed from a single chromatic movement up or down, they would have to be insane to think they are picking up on the sweeter nuances of a 5th shifting from a .5 bps rate to zero. Lots of smoke and mirrors is all I can conclude from this.

I think that would be true for most any temperament even Bills. It might vary according to what "that" particular piano required. Or, what sounds better, a more stretched, or less stretched octave or what have you. When Bill tuned mine with me, we gave it WAY MORE stretch than we may have otherwise done on another piano but, what was chosen for my piano sounded marvelous!