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BDB...not a problem, will contact you when the time comes.....what do you mean by " where you could stay and try it yourself"?
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I have never criticized any temperament. All I have said is that I did not like some things that I have heard in particular samples.  That is absolutely true, BDB. You make me think through it, and smile, again. (For your information, everybody, this is not sarcastic or ironic - I think BDB is kinda cool!  )
Patrick Wingren, RPT Wingren Pianistik https://facebook.com/wingrenpianistikConcert Tuner at Schauman Hall, Jakobstad, Finland Musician, arranger, composer
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Dedicated to learning the craft of tuning. Getting better.
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At one time though, this was an actual technician’s forum, not a forum for posting endless recordings of music for guessing games.......
Hmmm, as someone who has posted the quality of his tunings in an open forum, I'd say Grandpianoman is just as qualified as an "actual technician" as anyone else here. Also, seeing as tuning is the "bread and butter" work for most techs, I'd say this is very topical. What's missing is the representation of any other alternate temperaments - there are probably 4 or 5 that could be sustituted for the EBVT3 without much difference. Ron Koval chicagoland Ron, if my memory doesn't fail me, besides from ET you tune quite a few UT's yourself? Would you have a chance to post some recordings of that work, in this thread or in a dedicated one? I think that would bring a nice balance to it all.
Patrick Wingren, RPT Wingren Pianistik https://facebook.com/wingrenpianistikConcert Tuner at Schauman Hall, Jakobstad, Finland Musician, arranger, composer
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Dedicated to learning the craft of tuning. Getting better.
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I made a friend of mine who just likes to listen to classical music on his stereo to the latest Il Postino, after explaining this EBVT/ET tuning difference. He immediately said A sounds better, B sounds harsher. He listened just on my tiny laptop speakers to the first 10 seconds of each piece.
It seems also to me the difference is obvious, and A is EBVT.
I don't understand all this quibbling here, I thought the goal was just to see if EBVT and ET are actually different enough to be audible. I can clearly hear the difference and got almost all A/B tests right thus far. My only failure was in the Bach B-minor piece. I think the reason was that I liked ET better there because I like B-minor to be harsh sounding.
Emmery, apart from your suspicions can you not hear a clear difference?
One uncertain point remains: GP could it be that the EBVT you tune is just a much better tuning than your ET? In other words do I like EBVT better because your ET tuning is not of the same quality? I don't believe so because I know I personally prefer unequal tunings over ET. That's just my taste. Yet it's possible if the tunings were of equal quality I could no longer tell them apart.
To settle this we should tune your machine tune your piano in EVBT (using my program) and in ET using the same ETD using identical octave settings and compare the results. Or Bill could aurally tune both ET and EBVT but of course everyone will accuse him of deliberately mistuning ET.
Kees
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"Controllers and Administrators"??...as I said to Dan, this is not some uber-controlled super scientific study/test. It's a very simple listening exercise, comparing 2 temperaments, nothing more. If I were publishing this in some scientific journal of piano technicians, then perhaps your concerns would be warranted. You, and others seem to think there is some furtive component to these recordings. There is nothing like that going on here. I think the readers of this thread can make up their own mind as to what is happening here. I have 'clarified' my relationship with Bill. Why do you feel uncomfortable about my praising Bill Bremmer's work? If you flew 1500 miles and tuned my piano, and did a lousy job, you would not be praised here on PW or anywhere else by me. Bill did a fantastic job, and my recordings prove it, hence my posting his work, and I might add, my work as well, since it was I who used his figures to re-tune my piano in EBVT III. Your analogy of using "Now if I openly come out and state, "Listen everyone, a mechanic flew half across the country and gave me a FREE tune up and my car has never sounded or ran better" it at least lets people put this in some kind of true perspective."
is not relevant to this thread. It's impossible to have everyone sit in your "tuned" car and see how great it runs etc. However, it is possible for everyone to click on the urls for my recordings. I am glad you are not "disenchanted" with EBVT III. I and a lot of other people are also not disenchanted with it, in fact, I am very enchanted with it. Btw, is there any particular key signature you would like to hear EBVT III in?
Last edited by Grandpianoman; 06/14/10 04:12 PM.
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Ron,
if my memory doesn't fail me, besides from ET you tune quite a few UT's yourself? Would you have a chance to post some recordings of that work, in this thread or in a dedicated one?
I think that would bring a nice balance to it all.
I'd really like to do that. I'm hoping this summer brings me the time and gear to make this happen. A few of my clients have player systems - I think I can record those, since I don't play at a very high level. Ron Koval chicagoland
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Ron, that would be great! Kees, that is exactly what my intention for the the A/B comparison was about. I think it' time to let everyone know what will be happening July 1-4. Bill Bremmer will be coming to my home following the PTG Las Vegas convention, along with Patrick Wingren (pppat), who will be at the PTG convention in Las Vegas as well. Joining Bill and Patrick, will be Gregg Punswick, an excellent pianist and friend of Bill's. Bill is going to further refine the EBVT III tuning on my piano. The plan is to make some recordings. Not only will we have the use of the LX and Ampico playback systems, we will also have Patrick and Gregg as live pianists...as opposed to dead ones.  My digital piano is a Yamaha Disklavier DGT2IIXG. It has a real grand piano action. It has a pretty much 100% accuracy recording feature, plus a transposing feature. What this means is that Gregg and Patrick can be recorded on the Yamaha, then that file can be encoded for the LX and played back on my M&H BB/LX, in any key desired. We can also use the Yamaha for an "ET" recording. So BDB, Emmery or Dan...if you have a particular key you would like to hear, please let me know...it's possible with a push of a button. In fact, if anyone here has a request for a particular key they would like to hear EBVT III in or ET, please let me know.
Last edited by Grandpianoman; 06/14/10 04:55 PM.
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I think F# or C# major would be a good test case. ET should have better thirds. Will it also sound better?
Kees
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Grandpianoman, I have not yet met a customer who's satisfaction with my work could not have been further influenced or changed by the price I charged. Most people know, free is the best price price you get, and you don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
[quote by Grandpianoman,inside quote by me]
"Your analogy of using "Now if I openly come out and state, "Listen everyone, a mechanic flew half across the country and gave me a FREE tune up and my car has never sounded or ran better" it at least lets people put this in some kind of true perspective."
is not relevant to this thread. It's impossible to have everyone sit in your "tuned" car and see how great it runs etc. However, it is possible for everyone to click on the urls for my recordings."
You are right about them not sitting in my car to see and hear how great it runs but thats not what your doing with your piano either. I could easily video tape my car running well, hook up a diagnostic and film that also as "proof". But is it really the car that was fixed and is that diagnostic hooked up to it, or something else, and is that beautiful purring engine sound recorded off a movie track? Margins widen farther when you introduce a comparison car. Have you never seen the weight loss adverts with the before and after photos. You notice they smile, have better lighting and posture up for the after photo, switch that around and the differences are less noticable. There's a ton of subtle things that can be done in this type of venue. Besides, if someone is trying to solicit public feedback to a fair sample test, you never should prep them with your own praises, and kudos for just the one sample. It taints their impressions before they even hear them.
There is plenty of stuff I've bought into in my life that was based on testimonials and carefully prepared comparisons, much to my dissapointment when I went to use it myself, so pardon my skepticism. I'll just leave it at that. If I ever get my paws on a piano that was tuned in EBVT, I'll give it my own taste test thank you. If my customers start leaving because I can't tune EBVT, I'll take the time to learn and tune it...but I just don't see that happening. Oh well, continue on with your thread and have fun.
Piano Technician
George Brown College /85
Niagara Region
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Kees, it's possible....although when making the choice between the 2 temperaments, it's better to listen to them through headphones. My computer speakers on my laptop are terrible. That's one of the reasons Bill is making a return trip, to make any improvements needed to his original EBVT III tuning to my piano, and to be present between recordings to touch up the piano so there won't be any out of tune unisons and those 5th-6th pesky octaves will be tamed.
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Posted by GPM: On the contrary Emmery, as soon as I found out it was a mistake, thanks to Jerry Groot, I immediately was up front about it, posted the correction, and apologized. No "deliberate trick" here as you suggest. You can pm Jerry and ask him if that is true. How is that for transparency and honesty?
I was not PM'ed and did not expect to receive one either so I'll respond here. GPM is correct. Regardless of some unison's being out, (to be expected) after listening, I realized that both tunings were the same and informed him of that. Not only that but, I told him which tunings I thought they were and was told if I was right or wrong. Seeing as how the answers have not been posted, I will not say what they are. I also made a guess on Danny Boy despite the possible embarrassment it may cause me. I do not look at that as being a possible embarrassment. I look at it as being a possibility to learn. We must be open to various ways of tuning. I don't understand why the same people keep coming in here to deliberately try and invalidate things. What purpose is it serving. That is not a question actually as I already know the answer.
Jerry Groot RPT Piano Technicians Guild Grand Rapids, Michigan www.grootpiano.comWe love to play BF2.
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Emmery, what can I say? You sure have a way with words. Free does not automatically make it good, for anything. As I said before, if you had traveled 1500 miles to my home, for free, tuned my piano, and it was not good, I would certainly not have posted it in PW for all the world to hear. If it was good, I would have done the same thing, posted it here on PW. That is true, I did not factor in someone making a video and such to prove that the car runs better. You make it sound as if I stooped to chicanery in these A/B recordings....lol ...ugh...enough..:) NO chicanery was used. Good, we can let this rest and we can get back to the subject of this thread. Your not using EBVT III in your daily work?...it's obviously not hampered your success all these years...that's great! It's too bad you are not willing to keep an open mind and give it a try. Oh and btw, thank you so much for giving me your blessing and allowing me to continue with this thread, and post my recordings. I hope after Bill work's his magic in July, you can take a listen to the new recordings, and perhaps have a different perspective about EBVT III. If I/we resort to any shenanigans, I will let you and everyone know upfront!
Last edited by Grandpianoman; 06/14/10 08:28 PM.
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Thanks Jerry, I appreciate it. I was composing my post when you posted.
If all we had were one version of ET, how boring life would be...everything would sound exactly the same. Thanks to the internet and forums like PW, and to many people in history, including Bill Bremmer, we can now explore these different temperaments much more easily than before. Keeping an open mind to these is a healthy endeavor, not a negative one.
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It is rather peculiar that after 2000 years of arguing about temperaments no-one seems to have done a scientific study on the perception of temperaments. With modern ETD's and player systems it should now be technically possible to perform such a study.
Kees
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How much of the literature have you looked at?
Semipro Tech
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How much of the literature have you looked at? I didn't find such studies. If you know of one, please let me know! Kees
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I do not know what you would consider such a study. What literature have you read? Have you read Barbour, or Parch, for instance?
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I think it' time to let everyone know what will be happening July 1-4.
Bill Bremmer will be coming to my home following the PTG Las Vegas convention, along with Patrick Wingren (pppat), who will be at the PTG convention in Las Vegas as well. Joining Bill and Patrick, will be Gregg Punswick, an excellent pianist and friend of Bill's.
Wow, that promises to become a great party, wish i could be there too to contribute some kind of "*" of the one specific equal temperament i am talking of. *placeholder for your own definition what i am doing. (Is there a sponsor for a flight ticket out there? :-) Now my hearing for the recent A/B blind tests: (Il Postino, Out of Africa) I hear two unequal temperaments, one unequal by intention (EBVT III of course), and the other one unequal by a (probably unwanted) slightly imprecise implementation of equal temperament. As nearly everybody here, i still have the same clear preference: Temperament 1. But unlike most of the EBVT fraction expecting that 1 must be EBVT III, i contribute my preference to the fact that this (temperament 1) is more equal temperamentish (although with substantial room for improvement) than the other one (2). So short said: Temperament 1: ET (attempt of) Temperament 2: EBVT III Bernhard Stopper
Last edited by Bernhard Stopper; 06/15/10 10:30 AM.
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...(how did they ever come up with the name "Fox Trots"....I guess the music conjured up trotting Fox's...LOL Here is a link to Wikipedia's explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FoxtrotWhile I was out and about today, I stopped at the pullick liberry and looked up "fox-trot" in the Oxford English Dictionary. It lists when words first entered the printed record. Here is an abbreviated version, reformatted and with added punctuation for readability: fox-trot , sb. 1. A pace with short steps, as in changing from trotting to walking. 1872 F. M. A. Roe, Army Lett., (1909), 70, "He has a fox trot, which is wonderfully easy." 1888 Century Mag. Oct. XXXVI, 897, "She heard a horse approaching at a *fox-trot." 1894 R. Kipling, Day's Work, (1898), 58, "Would you consider a fox-trot, an' single-foot, an' rack, an' pace, an' amble, disctinctions not worth distinguishin'?" 1946 M. C. Self, Horseman's Encycl. 134, " Fox trot, a slow, shuffling trot, the fox-trot is one of the gaits permitted in a five-gaited saddler as a 'slow-gait'." 2. A modern dance, of American origin, consisting chiefly of alternating measures of long and short steps; also, a piece of music suitable as an accompaniment for the fox-trot. 1915 Truth, 17 Mar., 1/5, "A new dance, the 'Fox-trot', a relation of..'Ragtime'." 1915 Victor Record Catal., May, "Dance records... Fox trots." 1917 S. B. Leacock, Frenzied Fiction, (1919), v. 70, "The others were dancing the fox-trot to the victrola on the piazza." 1919 G.D'Egville, How & What to Dance, (1922), 55, "The Fox-Trot is a dance of many steps, and to the casual observer everybody seems to have different ones." 1919 E. Scott, All about Latest Dances, 68, "The true basis of the American Fox-Trot is an alternation of four slow and four or eight quick movements, depending on the step chosen." 1923 --- A.B.C. of Dancing, 84, "The foxtrot is not a dance in the sense that the waltz and polka are dances because it has no distinctive rhythm and no characteristic step or figure." 1928 Melody Maker, Feb., 127/1, "You have just heard a fox-trot, 'I call her honey because she sticks to me'." 1946 R. Capell, Simiomata 11, 48, "Kirou remembers Macaskie singing foxtrots." On a related note, there was a fox in our backyard twice this week, rare in an urban setting such as ours. It really did trot. Funny how these things work, don't 'cha think? Ralph, I truly believe we all respond to frequencies in deep and mysterious ways, that we are in tune with certain people and not in tune with others, that life is largely made up of cycles and rhythms, and that we need a new forum on Piano World called "Metaphysicians Corner."  I once worked with someone who couldn't get near a computer without having it go haywire. LOVED your post! --Andy Strong GP, This just came in on Pianist Corner in the thread, "A question concerning ragtime tempo." Thought you'd like to know about it. It gives a little more information than the Wikipedia.
Now, for an innocent question. Did rags morph into fox trots? Fox trots have impressed me as being "rhapsodic rags."
Yes? No?
Hi, Andy. Didn't know a whole lot about fox trot but this page clued me in: http://www.centralhome.com/ballroomcountry/foxtrot.htmHarry Fox, of course, of course. Mentions his debut of it was to ragtime music. Sounds like a Yes to me. Think he might have used Castle House Rag? Written the same year. And Ragtime Nightingale written the following year. James Reese Europe certainly knew Harry Fox and Joe Lamb probably did too. Howard Cheers!
I may not be fast,
but at least I'm slow.
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Thanks Andy, that is very interesting. There are so many of these "Fox Trots" written in during the 1920's and 30's.
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